Liveblogging Top Chef…

…for as long as the brown girl is in the ring. 🙂 I’m here in DC, on the Hill, at Chef Spike’s (Season 4 badboy) Good Stuff Eatery, where he hosts a Top Chef viewing party. If you are on my home coast, are DVR-ing it or otherwise don’t want spoilers, do not go past the jump!

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Time for the quick-fire challenge! The contestants have to recreate an iconic NY dish. Before they announce what that dish is, people here are screaming pizza, cheesecake…nope, wrong. They will need to make a HOT DOG, for Chef Donatella Arpaio.

Okay, I’m a life-long vegetarian who finds hot dogs repulsive and even I know that rice paper is probably a bad idea for a casing.

Brown girl’s strategery: Indian-inspired kebab dog w/caramelized onions and other gunk, from RAD-icka.

Poor Padma! There was a bone in her meat! Er…that didn’t come out right, even though it’s practically a quote from the offending chef.zomg! RADHIKA gets props first from the quick-fire judge, thanks to those famous Indian spices.

…and Radhika WINS the quick-fire challenge with her seekh kebab-dog, which gets her immunity from elimination. That’s kinda huge, if only because it guarantees ONE MORE WEEK of her…and one more post for me. 😉

Real challenge– open a restaurant…filled with diners who are NY CHEFS WHO DID NOT MAKE IT. Ah, I predict much saltiness and crit. 😀

I think Hosea is headed for a “Spike and the scallops” situation with his crab meat clusterfcuk! Don’t use canned or frozen shit! Ever!

Radhika is on the dessert team.

I am scared of the ostrich egg one of the other contestants is messing with. Very scared.

I think asking Radhika if your dessert is too sweet is probably smart since unlike that other guy, she’s not trying to screw you over/has immunity. Or, I could be utterly wrong. 🙂

“With Tom in your kitchen, you know you have to step your game up”- R

Would-be Cheftestants/diners are…interesting.

I love that Tom is just like my Mom– snapping at someone for tasting and then using same spoon for a dish. 😉

Someone said “chiffonade”! Drink!

“I could’ve done better than this” is, quite predictably, the prevailing sentiment among the diners who are NOT impressed with the people who won their spots.

Radhika’s dessert is characterized as sweet guacamole. Ouch. Good thing she’s immune from being kicked off…

Padma saves the DC cheftestant’s dessert by calling it one of her faves.

aside: Padma looks glorious in that coral/salmon top. 🙂

overheard at the next table: “Padma is the best Indian person who is a celebrity in America.” Thoughts, mutineers?

Oh wait, there’s more! “Sendhil (from Heroes) is a close second.”

Tom Colicchio drops the BOMB on ’em: “you’ve set American cuisine back 20 years”. Eeeep.

C’mon Padma! Yell at her for almost making you barf!!

Fabio is an idiot, going on the offensive with the judges, for no reason. A very, very funny, amusing idiot. 🙂

Padma is so funny when she lays the smackdown. “You’re here because we LIKED your dish”. Also,

“I spit. Yours out. In my napkin.”

…oh, the glorious disdain!!!

Tom slams his dish and then Hosea looks like he just made tatti in his pants.

I totally agree with who got sent home (see that? I DIDN’T SAY WHO IT IS. WHO LOVES YA, BABY?)

Loser’s quote: “It’s a little disappointing that Ariane is still staying…when…Padma spit HER dish out…but…”

Overheard, here at the viewing party…”oy, she/he (the loser) has got to be Jewish…” Then when we all turn in unison, aghast…”What? I can say that. I’m Jewish.”

As for next week’s preview: “That looks like spit. On a plate.” Eeek, here’s hoping they didn’t say that to Radhika. 😉

17 thoughts on “Liveblogging Top Chef…

  1. RADika (also known as RAWdika) doesn’t look like she’ll stick around for long. Even with her quickfire win, two poor performances this early on isn’t good. I completely support her decision to cook Indian for the quickfire. She doesn’t want to be pigeonholed, but Indian is her specialty. Honestly, if that’s what she’s best at, she should stick with it and hopefully she won’t get too much criticism for cooking brown while being brown.

  2. haha…i’ll take the company, chechi. 🙂 i have to admit that if radhika didn’t have immunity, her sweet guacamole probably would have landed her down in the bottom. i’m also surprised that one could make a queche from ostrich eggs. i wish we could see out-takes from judge’s table because it seems like tom’s influence is heavy. bravo should make that available. it seems like it would be as interesting as the real housewives of atl reunion, which i will clearly not be missing. anyway, jill going home this week is good for our girl; she’ll be out of the gutter for one more week because ariane can’t last.

  3. I’m watching the repeat right now – I won’t hate on Radhika for cooking cuisine that she is good at and familiar with. Didn’t Elan continually cook Spanish food and win TC3?

  4. Poor Padma! There was a bone in her meat! Er…that didn’t come out right,

    Well, I’m just not getting past this piece of fizz….and then comes…

    “I spit. Yours out. In my napkin.” …oh, the glorious disdain!!!

    and I’m not even watching the first airing or the repeat… to all a Good Night..

  5. 5 · Rajiv said

    I completely support her decision to cook Indian for the quickfire. She doesn’t want to be pigeonholed, but Indian is her specialty. Honestly, if that’s what she’s best at, she should stick with it and hopefully she won’t get too much criticism for cooking brown while being brown.

    Radhika’s problem is her reluctance to get brown. ITA with your point about how she should stick with it. I doubt that the judges would ding her for it!

    6 · Cherian said

    i wish we could see out-takes from judge’s table because it seems like tom’s influence is heavy. bravo should make that available…anyway, jill going home this week is good for our girl; she’ll be out of the gutter for one more week because ariane can’t last.

    That would be fun to see. 🙂 And thank you for making that excellent point– maybe I’ll get TWO more blog posts out of this. 😉

    7 · Fuerza Dulce said

    I won’t hate on Radhika for cooking cuisine that she is good at and familiar with. Didn’t Elan continually cook Spanish food and win TC3?

    I know, right??

    8 · Amrita said

    Well, I’m just not getting past this piece of fizz….and then comes…

    I’m not sure if I offended you with my write-up, but if I did, I apologize.

    9 · poor sallu said

    Said Padma to Salman…?

    CHEEEE! No! Said Padma to one of the cheftestants because their dish was nasty! Naughty, naughty! 🙂

  6. Padma is the best Indian person who is a celebrity in America

    Best person? I’m sure she’s a lovely person, and she may be the best looking person, but I hope that’s not true. I haven’t met her though, maybe she saves starving orphan kittens from trees in her spare time and deserves that title.

  7. 8 · Amrita said
    Well, I’m just not getting past this piece of fizz….and then comes…
    I’m not sure if I offended you with my write-up, but if I did, I apologize.

    Anna, I’m not offended, I was so giggled, you know, by your original metphor, that this led to my thinking much like poor sallu, and now I looked at Gawker again, as I find myself doing these days, and they crystallized the napkin moment too.

  8. I was surprised by her desi hot dog because I thought she said she wasn’t going to be doing the curries and typical Indian cuisine. But, I guess when you’re under the gun, you do what you know best.

    Padma was WAAAY too dramatic about the spitting out part. She acted so traumatized. Geez, it was just sweet. It wasn’t one of those lobster watermelon with gorgonzola and veal raviolis or whatever. I’ve seen her eat weirder stuff out there.

    Anyway, Padma’s jewelery was forgettable in this show. She’s usually got the best accessories!!

  9. Thanks, SM Intern! I’m the worst keyboardist in the whole world, coming from the gen that was told in college always to pretend not to be able to type, and I made sure I’d never have to pretend– so I usually blame myself for things like that. You have given me a measure of self worth that I could not have found within myself.

  10. I don’t get Top Chef. Both Padma and Tom are so utterly humorless. They have no chemistry with each other, they have no chemistry with the contestants – could not even compare to Project Runway. To me Padma adds nothing to the show other than some eye candy; her slow, spaced out, monotone voice is horrible for TV. I would watch Next Food Network Star over this any day.