S17.E07: Pitch Perfect

[Miss chi chi]

I love Eric so this was a tough one. I would totally watch Eric do an African food and travel themed show. Great idea HurricaneVal. I hope he kicks butt on LCK.

I'm a Chicago gal and adore Stephanie Izzard. GATG green beans are my favorite dish evah!! She swims at my husband's gym and he says she is super down to earth and absolutely lovely and he knows nothing about Top Chef.

I will worry about Gregory until Thursday!!!

 

 

[ShawnaLanne]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:18 AM, Ashforth said:

Welcome to Middle Passage! I'll just shackle you to your chair so we can get started. There we go! We'll begin with an Amuse Bouche of Let Me Enlighten Your Uneducated Ass, and then move on to a delicious West African-inspired entree served with a complimentary side of horror and sorrow for the people who were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped to the Americas. Enjoy!

That'll be $330.00 before the the salt wine.

I remember Lee Anne being much more together in her season. This is painful to watch.

Malarkey strikes me as the kind of person who makes an asshole joke and then calls the person he made it about humurlous when they don't laugh.

Edited May 3, 2020 by ShawnaLanne

[candle96]

22 hours ago, LucindaWalsh said:

 

When I grow up I want to be Stephanie Izard. She is so darn cool and successful and on the shallow part I have so much hair envy towards her. 

A few years ago I was getting my haircut and look next to me and there's Stephanie Izard, getting hers cut, too! That stylist specializes in curly hair, every time I go there she's doing someone with curly hair.

I was too shy to say anything, just smiled. But she is by far my favorite Top Chef contestant and winner. And yes, Girl and the Goat and her other restaurants are just down the street, so I guess it's convenient for her.

[Irlandesa]

21 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I think that if Eric's food was better and his restaurant concept a little more well thought out, they would have preferred him over Kevin.  I don't think there was any preference paid to cultural narrative in the judges' final decision.  They have been very open to all cultural narratives in the past. 

Right. I don't see this about political correctness or anything other than what restaurant the judges feel would be successful on a conceptual and culinary front.  Eric didn't do well on the culinary front and the name of his restaurant is going to make it a hard sell.  I know many people who would want to celebrate African food and the food that slaves developed.  But I know few who'd want to eat at a restaurant that evokes a brutal time in history that has repercussions still today.  Guillotine?  Sure.  But Middle Passage?  Eh.

[biakbiak]

On 5/1/2020 at 12:40 PM, seltzer3 said:

Also, the idea of being asked how many customers would be seated is a stupid question as well.  Because they are obviously not going to follow the # of customers, to be fair for both teams.

Perhaps as narrowly applied to this one night but having an idea of the number of covers you need to do a night is something that you should know early on in the process of seeking funding because it literally funds everything else and how quickly you will be paying back the investment. 

[Rai]

In regards to Eric's vs. Kevin's concepts, I don't think the judges consciously chose to pit them against each other, or were really thinking much about Kevin's inspiration at all. I think they focused on the local dish tradition and how tasty Kevin's execution of that was for them. Which, cool. That's fine.

But that's part of the problem to me. They didn't even think about what the spice trade could truly evoke, and how the optics of choosing that concept while booting the Middle Passage one might look a little iffy.

Anyway, I concede the true issue was how Eric cooked the food, but the dishes sounded tasty. If only he'd turned them out properly.

[slaterain]

 

On 5/1/2020 at 1:57 AM, buttersister said:

Big fan of Stephanie and have eaten at all her Chicago restaurants. She and the Boka guy were perfect judges for this episode. Still, sorry about Eric’s bad day in the kitchen. 

Love seeing Stephanie Izard again - she is by far one of my all time Top Chef favorites. She is also the only one who I have been to a few of her restaurants. I didn't realize she had opened a third as I have only been to her first two. I don't live in Chicago anymore but hopefully she is doing well enough that I will be able to check it out after all this craziness is over and I can come back for a visit!

On 5/1/2020 at 2:04 AM, Quilt Fairy said:

It reminded me of a fast food chain in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels called "Cluck in a Bucket".

For some reason, when I hear "middle passage" I think of a vagina. 

Ha! On both points!!! I forgot about Cluck in a Bucket!!! 

On 5/1/2020 at 6:51 PM, HurricaneVal said:

And I do love Eric, and I would love to try his food, but I just don't think this is the show for him.  He has a certain something that is very watchable and approachable.  Even when he's being painfully earnest about African culinary roots, he comes off as eager and sincere and not patronizing or lecturing.  That's kind of hard to do, especially when talking about touchy subjects like slavery, racism, and African and African-American cultures.  Eric needs a show on the Travel Channel or CNN where he travels around Africa and the US showcasing the cultures and foods and how African roots inform a lot of southern and other cooking today.  I'd watch the hell out of that show!

I would love to see him do a travel show exploring the African American influences on global cuisine! That would be amazing! And if he had pitched it that way he would have had a much better shot. 

On 5/1/2020 at 9:23 PM, Archery said:

Honestly, I was more skeeved out by the Caucasian Brian Malarkey's concept of marrying food from the Baja (Mexican) with Asian cuisine -- all I could think was, yes, go ahead and marry up the cuisine of two oppressed California peoples and act like you invented it.

Me too! Granted part of it is the mattress/used-car salesman vibe I get from Malarkey, but the other part was that is seemed appropriated. Which got me thinking - where do you draw the line? Rick Bayless is not of Mexican decent but has a doctorate in anthropology/linguistics and lived in Mexico for a time. His food seems to build on authenticity (and is delicious!) but is he considered a good example or a bad? 

[carrps]

1 hour ago, slaterain said:

 

Love seeing Stephanie Izard again - she is by far one of my all time Top Chef favorites. She is also the only one who I have been to a few of her restaurants. I didn't realize she had opened a third as I have only been to her first two. I don't live in Chicago anymore but hopefully she is doing well enough that I will be able to check it out after all this craziness is over and I can come back for a visit!

Ha! On both points!!! I forgot about Cluck in a Bucket!!! 

I would love to see him do a travel show exploring the African American influences on global cuisine! That would be amazing! And if he had pitched it that way he would have had a much better shot. 

Me too! Granted part of it is the mattress/used-car salesman vibe I get from Malarkey, but the other part was that is seemed appropriated. Which got me thinking - where do you draw the line? Rick Bayless is not of Mexican decent but has a doctorate in anthropology/linguistics and lived in Mexico for a time. His food seems to build on authenticity (and is delicious!) but is he considered a good example or a bad? 

Oh, Rick Bayless is definitely a good example. He's very respectful and also promotes Latin chefs.

[slaterain]

3 hours ago, carrps said:

Oh, Rick Bayless is definitely a good example. He's very respectful and also promotes Latin chefs.

That's good to hear - I hoped that was the case with the latin community - He always seemed to be respectful when I have seen his shows and his restaurants are ridiculously good. Anytime I was on the 606 I always noticed his house too with the gorgeous outside space. I miss Chicago!!!

[buttersister]

Slaterain, Stephanie’s 4th place, after Girl & the Goat, Little Goat Diner and Duck Duck Goat (Asian-influenced). I was treated to dinner there when it opened (not by Stephanie;-) Wonderful flavors, warm service, another winner. Also why I thought she was a good choice to judge this epi.

I’d be bummed if Gregory gets burnt In RW. Guess he can cook his way back in and still win, but who needs the stress?

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by buttersister

[catrice2]

I can't think of too many people that I would be excited or nervous to see or speak to and no one on a reality show makes that list.  There are plenty of great chefs in our local restaurants, hey just haven't been on television. 

I personally think that Bryan is just as confident as his brother Michael I just think they chose different paths in life and have different personalities.  Maybe Michael is an introvert with people he doesn't know, or didn't want to play to the camera.  Some people are also just very blunt in their delivery.  Not everyone is the same.  The thing about "reality" shows is that they can be edited to make people look  a certain way, and people are only as good as they were that day.  That day, in the eyes of the judges Michael was the better chef.  I am rarely happy with the winners of competition shows. 

 Running a profitable restaurant is hard.  Most restaurants and night clubs have a short life span.  5 years is an accomplishment, 10 or more amazing. 

[heavysnaxx]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:24 AM, Rai said:

I admit, although I've been rooting for Eric and his passion for West African food, I felt a concept built around showcasing the slave trade seemed like a tough sell. When he phrased it as "the African diaspora through food," I definitely found that more appealing, but honestly, it feels like a pretty way to say "slave trade." I enjoy being challenged politically, and yet, I can't help but default to a reaction of "who needs a big serving of guilt with every meal?" to his concept. (But then again, there are potential customers who would see it as an honoring of their roots, not guilt, so I gotta stop centering my reaction, I guess. But it is a lot to wrap my head around.)

So. Difficult to get on board with that concept. BUT. In a similar vein, I'm a little uncomfortable with Kevin's concept being one of the winners, since a Southern restaurant inspired by the spice trade (at least the European era, which I assume Kevin was referencing) evokes colonialism at best, and also could fall into slave trade territory, only from the slavers' perspective, which. Gross. I can't help but wonder how Eric thought about that. This may be entirely too much thematic analysis of restaurant concepts, but to further illustrate my point, Columbus was part of this spice trade era and emblematic of it. In short, it just feels like problematic territory.

Yeah, I had thoughts along the same lines - Eric's concept brings in a marginalized (to say the least) point of view by presenting a heritage and a whole range of foods and flavors in an incredibly meaningful way. While I wouldn't use the Middle Passage name, I would definitely find a word or phrase that perhaps references place and culture - what is being honored, rather than how people tried to destroy it.

I would have preferred Melissa's to Kevin's - I liked the complete specificity of it being about her grandmother, plus it just felt fresher than more elevated-but-keepin'-it-real-Southern.

...and then there was MALARKEY. He had no authentic point of view in that crude mash-up of 2 food cultures. (And I like Karen but I had some similar feelings about her using the term dim sum in her concept. The reference felt unearned.) It felt glib, crass, and opportunistic. I get it - it's business. But It seemed...wrong that no one mentioned the reality that a white man with lots of financing experience has just the kind of confidence that can make a mediocre idea seem brilliant during the pitch. The thought that this was judged alongside Eric's concept made me feel gross.

Edited June 25, 2020 by heavysnaxx