Welcome to Top Chef, Not Top Scallop, the world’s greatest Top Chef recap blog. This is a review of Top Chef: Portland, episode 8. My name is Randall Colburn and I am going to make fun of Richard Blais a lot. Read last week’s recap here and my latest LCK recap here.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There’s two types of “Restaurant Wars” episodes. There’s the tight ones, where it’s anyone’s game, and there’s the blowouts, where not even the most Frankensteinian editing can make it seem competitive. Much like last season, this was one of the latter, with one group of chefs assigning clear roles under a coherent concept while the other opted for what one chef called “no strategy strategy.” That chef was Sara and, well, fuck. She knew. She knew!
Let’s rewind. It’s Restaurant Wars, pandemic-style! It works like this. The chefs will split off in teams of four—decided, again, via coin-toss—and conduct a 7-course chef’s table-style service, meaning they’ll prepare dishes in full view of the judges and work as their own servers, bussers, and hosts. They’ll also be serving the panel all at once. “No second chances,” intones Greg in a sly reference to the tried and true Restaurant Wars tactic of drawing intel from your front-of-house stooges to refine dishes for the second wave of judges.
Pros of this approach
Something new!
Chefs forced to bottle frustration/rage lest judges witness it
All chefs must adopt front-of-house duties
Fewer Terlato Wine plugs
Cons of this approach
No waiter intrigue
Very sad about the waiters. Every season, it’s like half are seasoned servers and the rest are mouth-breathing actors with toddler handwriting. It can be ugly, but dealing with dumb servers tends to yank the veil from a chef’s TV-tailored sunniness, which can be amusing/disturbing/revealing. Remember LeeAnne last season? Darkest I’ve ever seen her.
LeeAnne after talking to dumb servers:
The teams are thus:
Byron, Jamie, Maria, and Shota
Chris, Dawn, Gabe, and Sara
Because they’ve collectively won fewer challenges than those on the opposing team, the former view themselves as underdogs. Still, Shota has a positive view: “We have a funner team. We have the party team. We have the lit team, as Jamie would say.” They also instantly find a novel concept that elegantly complements their disparate styles: Asian and Latin fusion. Shota recommends the newly dubbed “Kokoson” adopt Japan’s Kaiseki style of multi-course dining.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Today, [kaiseki] is considered an art form that observes the harmony between food and nature, and takes the diner on an odyssey of flavors, textures and colors.
A traditional kaiseki meal consists of a set sequence of courses based on preparation techniques. Pickled, raw, grilled and fried foods can all be included, in a certain order. Dishes focus on seasonal ingredients, and kaiseki chefs give zealous attention to presentation.
It’s genuinely hard to think of another Restaurant Wars team that so quickly decided upon such a simple, elegant concept that’s also so specific in terms of its presentation.
Contrast that with Penny, a concept so flimsy its name is derived from the coin toss that decided teams (yeah, it’s also Gabe’s daughter’s name, but…c’mon). It’s true that Kokoson’s chefs more naturally dovetail in broader style, but Gabe, Sara, Dawn, and Chris seemed so respectful of each other’s POV that they didn’t make any effort to find a unifying theme. It’s times like this that you rely on individual strengths rather than style—just because Chris specializes in French cuisine doesn’t mean he can’t execute Gabe’s style of Mexican cuisine or Sara’s grandma food. This politeness results in “uh seafood?” and a “global” thrust that Sara knows is doomed. “I have seen other Top Chefs,” she says, “and the ‘global’ perspective never works out.” She’s right, but she also acquiesces, saying that maybe it’ll work ‘cause it’s a chef’s table? Seafood is perfect for a chef’s table! Right?
This is the face someone makes when, deep down, they don’t believe what they’re saying:
Seattle winner Kristin Kish punctures the bubble as a special guest judge, reminding us that she actually went home on her season’s Restaurant Wars episode before returning via Last Chance Kitchen. “Over-communicate,” she says when advising the chefs. “And don’t fuck up like I did.”
(Important, I think, to recall that Kristin went home not due to any culinary mistakes, but because Josie was an absolute trainwreck and Kristin didn’t have the heart to throw her under the bus. God, Josie was the worst on that season. Nobody knew it more than Kristin.)
For the first time this season, the chefs get $2,500 and a Whole Foods all to themselves, which is the adult equivalent of those old Toys R Us sprees. Maria dubs it “orgasmic.” Shota, meanwhile, is in his element.
That’s some good form.
Who’s got the plant? Stephanie’s got the plant.
A few narratives in the kitchen: Team Penny is worried that Dawn hasn’t been able to articulate her dishes or how they fit into their theme. Chris is making whole-egg pasta dough to help atone for the dry pasta he served a while back. Gabe’s making an amuse-bouche that Sara (correctly) thinks is unnecessary. And Maria, who’s been designated Kokoson’s expeditor/host, has a helluva time getting Shota, Byron, and Jamie to help her set up the plants.
Though her struggles with the plants come with some primo moron music, it ends up being a non-issue. Their service is nearly flawless. The plates, like an eggplant dish with a sesame mole, find some clever ways to fuse Asian and Latin techniques. They also toy with the Kaiseki style a bit, serving a tiny tongue sandwich as the “braised” portion of the meal. (Tom doesn’t fully buy it, but still.) Still, Maria’s chummy banter and rapt attention to Blais’ water glass leads not only to the team’s victory, but her own as well. “It felt like a concept that had been in the works for years,” Gail says of Kokoson, while Gregory celebrates how every dish felt like everybody had a hand in it. And, in the case of the zosui hot pot, he’s not wrong. (Every RW team should serve a collective dish, to be honest.)
Let’s look at some of their standout dishes:
Shota and Maria’s eggplant with sesame mole and ham furikake
Padma: “It’s so flavorful.”
Kristin: “I love when you can see the technique in a dish. It’s well-executed, it’s thoughtful, and refined.”
Gail: “This was one of [Maria’s] best moles yet.”
Gregory: “That sauce was one definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole experience.”
Kristin: “I love that beautiful sauce, so tangy and bright.”
Maria’s beef langua sando with pickled mustard, onions, and dipping sauce
Carrie: “I’m a sucker for anything you dip.”
Tom: “The tongue is absolutely beautiful.”
Padma: “I think this is the best tongue I’ve tasted.”
Tom: “For me, in a menu this serious I think you wanna have the fun sandwich up front. It’s like foreplay, you wanna have the fun up front.”
Kristin: “I think the treatment of the tongue itself was absolutely stunning.”
Jamie’s tres leches cake with coconut, condensed milk, and pineapple
Carrie: “The basil in it is so creative and the pineapple two ways? I love this.”
Gail: “It was the perfect way to end a meal.”
Gregory: “Jamie, the cake was so money. It was shiny, it was glistening, and I love you steaming it. A seamless fit for the concept of the restaurant.”
Everyone’s hot pot zosui with shrimp machaca and seafood broth
Melissa: “It’s very traditional and homey.”
Gail: “All the seafood, all the flavors, the aromatics, you got everything in this dish. It really felt comforting and soulful.”
Gregory: “It’s really each and every one of them contributing to one pot of food…”
Padma: “…but in a way that is harmonious and delicious.”
Tom: “Pretty fucking good.”
Seriously, just look at this thing:
Penny starts strong with a warm towel service that simply bedevils the judges. They’re like babies playing with lampshades, amazed by the shape and textures.
Unfortunately, the team’s “restrained, non-intrusive” approach to service results in plenty of awkwardness. With no one to serve as a buffer between the diners and the weeds of the kitchen, the judges are left to simmer in the hushed anxiety spilling out from the ovens. Some of the dishes, including Dawn’s much-fussed-over crab salad, go over well, but the odd progression and flabby theme make it more or less obvious that these guys don’t stand a chance. As Tom notes, this was a seafood-based concept and they didn’t serve a single piece of cooked fish. (That said, Dawn’s seared scallop with a creole xo and ham hock broth might’ve been the most beloved dish of the night. “I’m jealous I didn’t create this dish,” says Melissa.)
Some of the losers:
Gabe’s heirloom corn tostada with fat bastard oyster and cured snapper
Gail: “I like the flavors, but I’m finding myself feeling weighted down by it.”
Kristin: “It’s not very crisp and light and crunchy, and it’s not very easy to eat.”
Padma: “It tasted stale and under-seasoned. It had a weird crunch to it.”
Gabe, clearly not a Top Chef watcher, has learned the hard way that you never make more dishes than a challenge asks for.
Sara’s halibut crudo with ajo blanco sauce and confit green cherry tomato
Dale: “There is no connection between this dish and the first dish at all.”
Gregory: “We had raw, cooked, and raw again.”
Amar: “I didn’t enjoy this dish at all. The sauce is grainy.”
Gail: “It felt puzzling. The fish was weighted down by everything around it.”
Tom: “This dish is like a Grateful Dead concert. It needs acid.”
How long you been waiting to knock that out, Tom?
Chris’ shrimp tortellini in brodo with seafood broth
Tom: “Flavor-wise, the dish is good. But I think his pasta technique is just not there.”
Padma: “Why would you put this course after [Maria’s] xo broth? That’s a strange position it’s taking in this progression.”
Chris saves himself with a kelp ice cream that the judges go gonzo for. “I expected to hate this dessert,” says Padma, “but I love it.” Tom calls it “the best thing all night.” Dale demands another bowl immediately after finishing his first.
As such, Sara, my frontrunner and personal fave, goes home. I am…despondent, but I genuinely think she’s got a shot in LCK. Tom tells her to get “quirky,” and there’s no better place to get quirky than with Uncut Colicchio and his sinister bag of tricks.
Scraps
Love Shota getting the platform to righteously call out a bad faith review of one of his restaurants. The artist’s dream!
I thought Shota was drawing a boat, but it was just the hot pot.
After Gregory praised the chefs for serving him a non-alcoholic cocktail, Tom turned to Carrie and said: “I didn’t see that in your Restaurant Wars!” Remind me, did…did Carrie get Tom drunk in Denver?
“I wish I had it like this during our season,” says Amar, who, in a shocking twist, seems to have hated having to do both a lunch and a dinner service in the most convoluted RW of all time. California was a weird, weird season.
Speaking of California, is Gabe becoming to moles what Jeremy was to crudos?
Next week on Top Chef: Bravo pretends Portlandia is still on the air
Dawn's dishes looked amazing but her process really screwed over her team. At some point she and her team should have said, we need to nail down this dish to properly fit in with the rest, and you just have to make a decision and go with it (similar to the recipe writing in the following episode). Similar to when Kristen went home for Restaurant Wars, you could argue that Dawn should have as well.