Last Chance Kitchen: Similar coagulation points

In which Tom is very disappointed nobody used the pig heart

Welcome to Top Chef, Not Top Scallop, the world’s greatest Top Chef recap blog. This is a recap of Portland’s Last Chance Kitchen, “Bloody Good Dish.” Read my recap of last week’s LCK here and of this week’s Top Chef episode here. You can watch the latest LCK here. 

By virtue of only being available on BravoTV.com, which literally pauses its bullshit BMW commercials if you switch windows, Last Chance Kitchen is for many Top Chef fans an optional part of the TC experience. That’s understandable, of course, but it’s episodes like this that remind me why LCK is such a satisfying extension of the main competition. Riddled as the show is with corporate sponsorships, it’s rare that whole challenges can be devoted to truly weird shit, but on LCK it’s BMW or bust so Uncut Colicchio can get as nasty as he likes. Here, Avishar’s bloody-tasting beef curry from last week is memorialized with a challenge in which he and Sasha must cook a dish with actual blood.

Legit lol at Avishar’s face:

There’s also blood-adjacent produce—blood oranges, beets, Bloody Mary mix—and a surplus of blood sausage and pig’s heart. Tom Avishar and Sasha both pick up a jug of pork blood and some links of blood sausage, greatly disappointing Tom, who putters around like Charlie Brown lamenting that nobody chose the pig’s heart.

Tom says these ingredients will get your “blood pumping” twice, then says that their final dishes got his “blood pumping.” Somebody get the Crypt Keeper in this writer’s room. (Or Avishar, at least, as he unleashed a few solid blood puns. “He is relentless with the banter,” says Sasha.)

His knowledge of blood, however, extends beyond mere wordplay. Drawing upon his biology degree, he recalls that eggs and blood have “similar coagulation points” so he decides to mix ‘em together and serve alongside some seared blood sausage and a blood orange vinaigrette. (“Very ‘90s, I know,” he says to Tom of the vinaigrette.)

Sasha, meanwhile, goes beet-forward with her dish, making a beet puree with some brown butter-basted blood sausage she cooks in the wood fire oven. To cut through the richness, she makes a “funky,” spice-heavy onion pickle.

Avishar’s looks fucking disgusting:

But Tom digs it, praising its balance and the blood/egg mixture. He is, though, curious why Avishar didn’t go full English breakfast by serving it with a roasted tomato. Later, he adds that the feta he folded in “gets in the way” of everything else on the dish.

Sasha’s looks beautiful:

After lauding its textures and the play between the blood sausage and the acid of the pickle, Tom names her the winner.

Her confidence is only growing, as it should. My favorite part: When Tom guilted her over not choosing pork heart, she resisted the urge to spiral and said she’s not falling for his “disappointed dad thing.” It takes an iron constitution to not fall for Tom’s mind games. I’m starting to thinks she might take this thing.

I leave you with this GIF of Tom vibing: