Ashforth
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Posts posted by Ashforth
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23 hours ago, slaterain said:
My one wish on restaurant wars is that they would at least all have time to pitch in putting tables together and getting the restaurant setup the day before separate from prep/cooking time. There is no reason one person should be tasked with all those things. I do think previous seasons where the team split up training the staff while each had time to cook was a better method to balance the setup.
That's an editing cheat for drama - there is no way that Malarkey or Karen had to set up all of the tables, chairs, tablecloths and place settings solo. Directing it? Sure. But we could clearly see painters and a scissor lift. They have the servers. There is a crew that sets up the dining rooms.
16 hours ago, rozen said:I think Gregory was smart to avoid the gunners, who would want and demand to heavily influence his dishes. While a lot of The Country Captain's failures landed on Kevin, I bet a lot of the lack of cohesion came from having him, Bryan V and Melissa all in the same kitchen. If you lined up all 12 (!!) dishes, I think we could accurately guess who cooked what. In contrast, Team Kann was sending out food that looked like Gregory's alone.
I don't know, again we have to rely on the editing, but I didn't see anything to indicate that Bryan V or Melissa demanded to put their stamp on Kevin's vision. They looked like loyal, very hard-working soldiers to me. If he said, "I want a shrimp & grits-type dish, but different: run with it!" then that's on him. As far as I could tell, Kevin chose the dishes for his 12-dish menu.
It wasn't anything like the clip they showed that illustrated previous RWs in which each chef on the "team" was insisting on his or her own vision, resulting in menu mish-mashes like "Asian-Mexican-Pasta-Modern Steakhouse-Family Style Fine dining" (yes, I made that up, but you get the picture).
10 hours ago, Bastet said:Yes, the other diners rate the restaurants - and that indeed happened this time around, per an article in the Media thread from one of those diners
That article is so interesting! I won't quote it here because is that kosher? I also found another that I'll post in the Media thread. It sounds like both writers dined at the same restaurant.
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3 hours ago, dleighg said:
Does anyone quite understand the point the judges were making about the canape course at the Country Captain? I didn't understand what they thought the team should have done, or not done. Was it that they were individually plated? Or too substantial?
I think the point was that they were just plopped onto a plate (to the extent that they could slide right off onto the floor while being carried to the table) and had no relationship to each other or to the theme of the restaurant. And maybe didn't taste too impressive.
@CrazyInAlabama we shared a brain on this LOL.
2 hours ago, carrps said:Also, he couldn't get the same bottle of curry spice? If this is a homemade dish elevated, I'd fully expect him to have his own spice blend. Just adding jarred spices is about on a par with making grandma's green beans with Campbell Cream of Mushroom soup.
I was startled by that as well. I can make a quite tasty curry-flavored dish with curry powder I buy at the grocery store, but I sure wouldn't expect to build a restaurant around it.
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18 minutes ago, AttackTurtle said:
Gregory picking Malarkey was super smart. Love him or hate him (I actually like him), he’s been crazy successful opening restaurants. He also knew that the win for them likely meant the ouster of a huge threat. (Hopefully not for long).
It's easy to assume when watching that the "pick your team" decisions are made somewhat on the fly, but it seems pretty clear that Gregory and Malarkey strategized that move together, specifically to get the three biggest threats on one team in hope of picking one off. Gregory seems like such a sweet, earnest guy that one may not expect him to be a calculating competitor, but yes, hey, you go Gregory!
And Malarkey was nothing less than brilliant as FOH.
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Gregory's choice to not do the oxtail again was so smart - if it had not lived up to the memory the judges had of the first time, it could have really hurt him.
That's part of what happened to Kevin - his centerpiece dish, the Country Captain, was not nearly as good as when he made it for the pitch. He also refused to edit his menu despite the obvious misgivings of Bryan V and Melissa. If you're going to choose the arguably highest caliber chefs remaining in the competition to form your team, why not listen to them?
That being said, if it is possible to simultaneously take the high road while going down with the ship, Kevin did it. That was a class act.
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1 minute ago, MerBearHou said:
Admirable way to go out. Kevin was so enamored with recreating a big meal like at his grandmother’s home and he couldn’t look at the realities objectively. It did him in.
He went out with integrity.
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quick predictions? I think Kevin may go.
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so the Leeanne drama was the fakeout
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6 minutes ago, MerBearHou said:
You just knew that oxtail not on the Haiti Kann menu was going to be a big deal. I didn’t realize they had to exactly mimic the menu that was in their pitch. What if the items aren’t available when they shop?
The chicken thighs were the redemption.
I have long had a great fondness for Leanne, but she really had a stank attitude here: freaking out and berating the servers, then saying in a po'd way "okay, I'll just make salads" when calm, collected Stephanie said she could take over expediting.
and Stephanie! What a star utility player! Crazy that she was chosen last.
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Gregory choosing Malarkey over Melissa: insanity or genius?
I predict Leeanne for the PYKAG.
@NowVoyager jinx
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I have an odd affection for the Popeye's commercial that features people eating the infamous chicken sandwich, in which a woman says, "I'm experiencing some thangs right now." I find that hilarious and so cute. Under other circumstances, I might hate it, but for some reason, it cracks me up.
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6 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:
Plaintiff dog lost a couple of toes in the attack. Defendant claims his insurance company denied the claim. Defendants claim their dog's face and head is too wide to fit through the fence
I actually had this exact thing happen when I was walking my large dog past the dog park at my apartment complex. A neighbor's small dog rushed to the fence, going crazy and sticking its paws through the wrought iron bars. My dog lunged and before I was able to pull him back, he bit the small dog's paw. My neighbor told the apartment management that my dog stuck his head through the fence and bit her dog. I pointed out that my dog's head was too big to fit through the bars and it was impossible for him to bite her dog if it hadn't put its paws through the fence.
Nonetheless, I paid the vet bill because I'm a good neighbor and I could afford it and I needed to stay on the good side of management. But it was totally the small dog's fault (and of course the fault of its owner who was lollygagging around chatting up another neighbor in the dog park instead of keeping her dog from rushing the fence to antagonize a passing big dog).
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4 hours ago, funky-rat said:
I missed part of this one (pre-empted) but I know Home Depot rents tools.
So THAT'S where they get all the tools that appear on this show!
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9 hours ago, Snookums said:
That Lincoln town car ad that has the moody blonde all sad and lonely and socially isolated in her ultra modern mansion; she then cheers herself up by ORDERING AN EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online. They deliver it to her door as she peers moodily yet richly out from between her costly curtains. The narrator coos the whole time about how much Lincoln understands.
I don't want to hear about your problems, moody rich blonde lady. If they can be solved by ordering an EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online and have it delivered by some guy who now either has to walk back to town or risk infection hitching a ride, they are problems I would love to have.
(The most enraging part is when the voiceover offers delayed financing. If you can order a Goddamn EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online like I do paperbacks and cat food, you can shell out up front, dammit.)
Sanctuary. That's the name of the ad. I've been hating on this one for a while.
So she's in her mountain treehouse glass-walled mansion (which should be handy for spotting the zombies when they swarm up her long driveway) but then goes outside, mask-less, to have a hand-to-hand exchange of the keys to her fine new ride from the also mask-less delivery guy, before going back in to expose her sleeping infant to whatever virus she may have just acquired. Couldn't Lincoln at least CGI some masks for them?
I'm pretty sure the delivery guy drives away in her equally fancy, late model trade in, so at least he's not on the hoof to get back to the dealership.
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11 hours ago, chessiegal said:
Why would you try to whisper this across a large kitchen island?
Yeah, that's the silly part, it's ridiculous that she would ask him t that time and from that distance. If she was headed out to the store to get something for her mom and he was standing closer to her mom helping her cook or something, it would make more sense. It's still funny, though. The Dad's delivery is perfect.
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Saw this one today for the first time. It's silly, but hilarious.
"She wants to know if you brought condoms, Charlie."
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@Fukui San Thank you for starting this topic! I was just thinking that my last post in the Pitch Perfect thread was veering toward speculation, but I stay out of the spoilers thread. So I'll quote myself:
38 minutes ago, Ashforth said:FOH has long been a perilous role in RW. From the preview it looked like Karen and Malarkey are FOH this time. Other non-head chefs have been sent packing as well. Dessert is a dangerous course to take on (it's also often combined with the FOH role, so double jeopardy).
Let us not forget that while Stephanie won immunity at the beginning of this episode, and I was happy for her that she did, it was burned in the pitch process, so everyone is available for PYKAG. She and Leeanne have been struggling, and Nini will be back (I assume) so it should be interesting.
Either Head Chef would be lucky to have Melissa or Bryan on their team (and if they get both...) but sometimes the "lesser" players surprise. Stephanie may be able to grind it out in a non-spectacular but totally supportive way. It's possible that Leanne could do so as well.
I liked the pitch process to choose the head chefs and I wonder how much it will change the dynamic of RW, which often has involved the individual chefs fighting to execute their own ideas instead of achieving a cohesive concept for the restaurant.
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17 hours ago, Archery said:
And for celebration of white Southern cooking without acknowledging the buried racial heritage of it, see Exhibit A: Paula Deen. Her whole shtick was “here’s how we cook in the South” (unspoken: “just like our Negro domestics used to make for our family for generations”).
Ugh, I had banished nasty racist Pauler from my memory. And I don't think she used the word "Negro." So yeah, there's that for sure. 😢
9 hours ago, Fukui San said:It needs to be said that any chef can get eliminated next episode, not just Kevin and Gregory. If Front of House is the problem or if someone makes an egregious dish, they can be sent home.
FOH has long been a perilous role in RW. From the preview it looked like Karen and Malarkey are FOH this time. Other non-head chefs have been sent packing as well. Dessert is a dangerous course to take on (it's also often combined with the FOH role, so double jeopardy).
Let us not forget that while Stephanie won immunity at the beginning of this episode, and I was happy for her that she did, it was burned in the pitch process, so everyone is available for PYKAG. She and Leeanne have been struggling,
Spoilerand Nini will be back (I assume)
so it should be interesting.
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So I watched this to the end. meh.
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8 hours ago, Yeah No said:
No, but I bet she could have told you down to the table linen what it would have looked like!
My sense is that if Julia Child had opened a restaurant, it would have been totally unfussy, probably with communal seating and family-style service.
9 hours ago, rozen said:Yup, exactly how I thought. This is not the first time a black chef has pushed cuisine that celebrates the diversity of food born of tragedy while a white southern chef goes "whee, look at our Cool. Neat. Culinary Heritage!" while eliding the underlying genocidal colonialism. It is gross and tiresome.
I think it's well established that Black slaves from Africa have hugely influenced Southern, Creole, and other food. I have never seen a White chef directly or indirectly indicate that he or she thought that slavery was groovy or cool as part of our culinary heritage. Instead, they largely seem respectful and love the food and want to celebrate it.
That being said, the deeply embedded racism of the US and the systemic oppression of Black Americans has kept Black chefs from getting funding to open restaurants, while White chefs with the same concept are more likely to get financial backing.
This is an interesting article: https://www.eater.com/2016/3/22/11264104/gullah-food-charleston
Edited to add: Southern American food and other food influenced by African slaves are a part of the lives of White Americans as well, and it isn't fair, in my opinion, to say that White people have to deny that it is now part of White culture as well. We're talking about hundreds of years of cultural melding.
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Angel's garment was showing all the goods when the model walked. I swear at one point they had to blur the crotch. But not a word was said. Hmm.
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I fell asleep during this one and didn't even go back to watch the runway. Unfortunately, I spoiled myself by clicking on a spoiler-tagged post in a different thread, so knowing the ultimate outcome hasn't improved my enthusiasm level for the show.
The premise and the premises are great, I like the hosts, the talent and skill levels of the designers are high (except Angelo, sorry honey), but as the show has progressed, it just feels like a big set-up.
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2 hours ago, Kiki777 said:
I haven’t seen that ad yet, but I gotta say I enjoy Flo, she’s a straight-up weirdo and makes me laugh.
I haven't seen it yet either, but I am also a fan of Flo.
Sprinkles are for winners.
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4 hours ago, kathyk2 said:
I'm also annoyed by the ad encouraging people to sell their life insurance. That money isn't for you it's to help your family pay your debts.
Not really. If you are paying for a life insurance policy, you can do whatever you want to with it, including selling it, cashing it in if possible, or simply letting it lapse. It isn't an entitlement for your family members (who normally aren't responsible for your debts and are definitely not obligated to use life insurance proceeds to pay them).
Topic: Tom Selleck is gross now. So unfortunate.
2 hours ago, Kiki777 said:My mind is actually blown, I didn’t realize there were 2 varieties. Now I wanna buy some of the red bear TP so I can compare and contrast.
Charmin Ultra Strong is really good TP.
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Just now, Sew Sumi said:
See the Spoilers thread. I'm not sure previews have definitively shown the teams.
and PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE ABOUT WHAT'S IN THE SPOILERS THREAD! That's not for you, @Sew Sumi but for others who may not know.
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S17.E08: Restaurant Wars
in Top Chef
He pulled the heartstrings with his "I nearly died" story and that made him seem pretty sympathetic to me. I'm actually going to re-watch this episode because it was so full of moments.
I have always intensely disliked RW but the way they did it this year won me over. I wish it had been a three-part arc (pitches, ramp-up to opening, the actual meal service). I could go for that.