Top Chef – The One Where Heather Is A Bitch Part II

“I respect Beverly.  She’s a talented chef and honestly Heather is being a complete bitch.” – Edward with the understatement of the show

We start with more backlash on Heather for being, well, a complete bitch to Beverly the prior week.  Nyesha does the pointing out this time.  Ty-Lor gets a chance to talk about how much he’s sucked.  How someone as likeable as Ty-Lor is good friends with Heather is beyond me.  Anyway let’s get this rolling as we’re down to the dirty dozen as Edward put it.

Le Cordon Bleu once again for the Quickfire.  Tim Love and a crapload of Don Julio tequilas await the cheftestants.  I’m a Don Julio blanco man myself.  I’m hoping Tim plays his drinking game I’ve heard about where he walks around with a tray of shots that are either tequila or canola oil and there’s only one way to find out which is which.  You know it’s a fun game when you frantically try to find a shot of tequila to get that canola oil taste out of your mouth.  Unfortunately no fun and games just a Quickfire for the chefs to pair up one of the many Don Julio options with a dish.  Ty-Lor spent some time in Jalisco learning about the tequila making process and feels his experience will help him.  Just like two years in a steakhouse helped him with his steaks last week?  No immunity for the winner and 30 minutes to prepare the dish so no time to daydream about having a tequila-filled night with Padma.  Everyone gets their 10 seconds to show what they’re doing except Paul and Nyesha so they were obviously in the middle.  Paul does get a few seconds to talk about regretting not using clams like Ty because the saltiness and brininess of clams is a good pairing for tequila.  Along those shellfish lines, Ty-Lor does steamed clams in a Thai-style fish caramel sauce with the 1942 tequila.  Chris C. uses blanco tequila with a raw oyster, tequila tapioca pearl and sea salt air.  Yes, please.  Lindsay uses añejo to go with her salmon and fennel puree.  Fennel was also a common ingredient.  Those three were the tops so let’s get to the bottoms before we get to the winner.  Heather’s mango avocado salad with rock shrimp was a miss and led to a stinging line from Tim Love, “To me it felt like it was a new special at a chain restaurant.”  Ouch, and ha ha.  Chris J. overcooked his chicken.  Sarah undercooked her risotto, but doesn’t care because she learned how to cook risotto in Italy so la-de-da.  Winner?  Ty-Lör who gets the umlaut for his victory.

Elimination Challenge time and it’s a double-elimination with one of the six teams of two going home.  So how can we ensure that Heather and Beverly have more drama?  Make selecting the teams so contrived as to not even hide your intentions.  No drawing of knives or anything, just straight up your teammate is standing next to you.  Lo and behold Heather is standing next to Beverly.  What are the odds?  Interestingly enough the photos on Top Chef’s home page from this episode show the cheftestants drawing knives.  So they drew knives and then the producers said screw that we want to rig it for Beverly and Heather?!  Wow.  The challenge is for each team to cook one course for a big game dinner hosted by Tim for some of his friends.  Is that?  By god, it is!  That’s Bryan Caswell’s theme music!  @Wholefish struts in as Houston gets mentioned on Top Chef Texas.  What an honor.   Among the others rounding out the guest list are the guys from Animal in LA and Anita Lo.  Each team will cook one of the guest’s favorite animals like Nyesha and Dakota handling venison for Bryan.  The cheftestants will judge each other’s dishes as well and will select the bottom three teams that will be up for elimination at the judges’ table.

Let’s start with Nyesha and Dakota who make a roasted rack of venison with kabocha squash and beet gratin.  Nyesha handles the gratin while Dakota just has to cook that meat.  And yeah, that meat wasn’t cooked but barely.  Everyone likes the flavors, but it was just too rare.  Nyesha is not happy and Dakota is pissed she might be the reason she not only goes home, but Nyesha as well.

Sarah and Paul get squab.  Sarah is going to make sausage because she does it all the time.  “I do it all the time” is pretty much a kiss of death on this show.  The sausage doesn’t turn out as well as Sarah was hoping.  They do a squab breast and sausage with nectarine pickles, shallots and jalapenos.  It gets good enough reviews to make you think they’re safe although Sarah breaks down anyway, “This is not like cooking normally.  This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  This is like…”  Then the voice of calm and reason speaks.  This voice belongs to Beverly of course.  Wait, Beverly?  Calm? 

Heather and Beverly get duck and good God Heather is just a complete biya about every single thing.  Heather, “I just want to make sure that the whole dish isn’t too Asian because that’s not my style and I’m not going home Bev.”  More from the bully, “This is part of my rustic style so we’re just going to have to compromise.”  Then we get Beverly reflecting about an abusive relationship she was in one time and things just got a whole lot more sad.  They make a five-spice duck breast with creamy polenta and pickled cherries.  It doesn’t go over very well and there doesn’t seem to be any continuity to the dish, just a bunch of plated ingredients that don’t connect. 

Grayson and Chris J. handle venison with Chris having one of those patented Chris ideas.  He wants to use some type of carpenter’s trick?  It involves putting sweet potatoes into a salt solution overnight to get them flexible enough to make a sweet potato chainlink fence.  And being that this is Chris the idea is good, the execution doesn’t work, but he plates it anyway.  Juniper roasted elk with sweet potato fries and citrus greens.  Caswell, “Visually as soon as the plate hit the table I was like okay 1982 banquet menu, boom.”  Ah, 1982 was a fine year for banquet menus.  Chris J. is going to get himself sent him for his lack of adjustments when his Plan A fails.  I just hope he doesn’t take Grayson down with him this time.  As they leave the judges here’s how confident Grayson is, “Okay listen, we’re probably going home.”

Lindsay and Chris C. are on boar duty.  They come up with a roasted boar with kohlrabi slaw and faro fried rice.  It seems to be middle of the pack which seems to be where these two are in this show.

Quail is the game for Edward and Ty-Lor.  Sorghum quail with pickled cherries and eggplant is what they come up with.  The judges love it and I think we have ourselves a winning team.  Heather didn’t even spit it out and yell at them so it must be good. 

Padma comes to the back and asks to see Edward and Ty-Lor and everybody knows that they won.  Ty gets himself a clean sweep while Ed gets a boost to his confidence.  They take their compliments and go back as they all have 15 minutes to decide the bottom three teams.  No one wants to say anything until Paul speaks up and gives his three worst.  Then everyone starts bickering until Chris J. says let’s raise some hands and so Heather and Beverly, Grayson and Chris J., and Dakota and Nyesha find themselves going to face the judges.  Tom asks the usual, “Why do you think you’re here” question and Heather takes that opportunity to tell everyone that she thinks her fellow chefs are just jealous because she won last week.  And then comes our weekly bitch session on Beverly in front of the judges.  Heather goes after her for the shrimp from last week yet again!  Let.  It.  Go.  She questions Beverly’s work ethic, her lack of confidence and skills overall.  Dakota defends Beverly and Beverly defends herself in as classy a way as possible.  Nyesha and Dakota know they’re at the bottom because of that rare venison.  Chris J. admits he shouldn’t have plated the sweet potato fries and should have just left his idea back in the kitchen.  The chefs are then sent to the back so Heather can continue to run smack on Beverly.  I think it’s safe to say they aren’t going home because this show wants its drama more than it wants its deserving chefs.  I don’t think Chris J. and Grayson are going home over a sweet potato.  I think it has to be Nyesha and Dakota who genuinely feels terrible they Nyesha might get kicked off because of her.  And yep, Nyesha and Dakota are sent packing as Dakota feels about as low as possible for what transpired. 

Next week Patti LaBelle because nothing says Texas like Patti LaBelle.  Yay.  I’d like to see Heather and Patti on a team.  Pretty sure that would be to the death.

Tagged bitch, bryan caswell, padma, slider, tequila, top chef