S18.E09: Portland-ia

[Irlandesa]

6 minutes ago, xfuse said:

They really aren't. I always found electric consistent.

Consistent is good for the oven.  But for the stove top?  Consistent is part of the problem.  Electric burners, in my experience, don't make temperature changes as quickly as gas stove tops do.  When I cook on my electric stove top, I have a harder time controlling the heat my pan or pot receives compared to when I'm cooking on my parents' gas burners. 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Irlandesa

[dleighg]

1 minute ago, carrps said:

I only had them in apartments, so I wasn't dealing with quality to begin with. I hated with a passion how slowly the burners heated up and cooled down. I just prefer the more instantaneous response you get with gas

sure, but saying they are "horribly difficult to cook with" negates the experience of millions of home cooks who have made wonderful food over the last 100 years or so using exactly these-- my mother and mother-in-law among them. Sure, gas is really nice, and responsive. But saying it is horrible and unusable is really over the top. I mean, Top Chef has had folks cook on wood burning grills on a beach a number of times. Grow up!

[carrps]

Just now, dleighg said:

sure, but saying they are "horribly difficult to cook with" negates the experience of millions of home cooks who have made wonderful food over the last 100 years or so using exactly these-- my mother and mother-in-law among them. Sure, gas is really nice, and responsive. But saying it is horrible and unusable is really over the top. I mean, Top Chef has had folks cook on wood burning grills on a beach a number of times. Grow up!

Dang. I have a preference. For me I prefer gas. I thought it was obvious that was my personal opinion. I apologize if it was not. No offense intended to your many relatives.

[Irlandesa]

10 minutes ago, dleighg said:

but saying they are "horribly difficult to cook with" negates the experience of millions of home cooks who have made wonderful food over the last 100 years or so using exactly these

I think it's like asking a NASCAR driver to race with an automatic transmission in your standard Engine Subaru as opposed to their manual shifting cars with souped up engines.  Sure, both will get them from Point A to Point B and even offer nice drives but the latter offers more precision.  Some of the food these chefs make requires that kind of precision.  It's why they're "Top Chefs" as opposed to really good home cooks.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Irlandesa

[sharifa70]

15 minutes ago, xfuse said:

They really aren't. I always found electric consistent. And decent chef should be able to work with anything, wood, charcoal, gas, electric or propane. 

I’m suffering with one of those godawful ceramic-topped stoves and I would do just about anything for one like they had for the Quickfire! I mean, I’d prefer gas of course but the ceramic top is sheer hell.

I actually squeeed a bit when Padma said they were going to cook in Departure: I’ve actually eaten there! Delicious food, though I don’t know if Gregory was the chef at the time; it’s been a minute. I did laugh a little at one of the city-scape shots immediately after a commercial break during the EC. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to make it look like that building was where they were, but it was actually the new county courthouse. The Nines where Departure is is a few blocks farther west, and though it’s a nice historic building, downtown wasn’t exactly camera-ready last summer. Still isn’t; I was there yesterday and everything is still pretty much boarded up.

I also giggled a bit when Chris didn’t seem to recognize the “whisker.” I mean, it’s not like kitchen appliances have evolved that much. Also, count me in with everyone else who rolled their eyes at yet another pasta dish from him. He might need to take another look at his menus and see if his pasta dishes really sell as well as he must think they do.... 

[Rammchick]

I'm thinking this episode was supposed to be a tie-in to Gail's Top Chef Amateurs show, with home cooks, coming this summer.  I thought the sneak-preview was pretty good.  I'll be watching it come July.

[Thumper]

I grew up with electric stoves and ovens and really didn’t know the difference until later in life when I had a gas stove/oven.  I agree about a gas cooktop, although the ones i had were pretty cheap and not very responsive.  Would love to have a gas cooktop with an electric oven.  I still get weirded out about gas and leaks, though!  😂

[mlp]

19 minutes ago, Thumper said:

 I still get weirded out about gas and leaks, though!

Me too. :)  My apartment is all electric.  The only problem with the electric stove isn't really a big problem.  When you turn the burner off, it takes awhile to cool down so I either adjust for that or simply move the pan to a cold burner.  Not a big deal and I don't have to worry about anything blowing up.

[watchingtvaddict]

5 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

It's always hard for me to believe that chefs can cook without a recipe and just "nudge" it along the way until they get something they like.  I will always remember that in TC - Just Desserts they had to allow the contestants to bring a few recipes and charts with them because there ain't no nudging in baking. 

I did not realize until they started cooking that the contestant chefs were going to have to cook their dishes in addition to the alumni chefs.  I don't think we've seen that twist before and I thought it was a good one.  It looked like the recipes the judges saw also had a picture of the finished dish included.  Did the alumni chefs have a picture or were they going off the written word only when it came to presentation? 

 

It looked like they received the same recipe as the judges. So, they were able to see what the final dish should look like. 

[catrice2]

5 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Neither do I!  And it's incredibly frustrating when a cookbook has some pictures, and you think it's OK, but then you find the recipe that you want to cook and for that recipe, of course, there's no picture. 

Happens to me all the time!  I ordered Gregory's cookbook and I will be disappointed if I don't have pictures! 

[caitmcg]

I enjoyed this EC, and it’s neat to see the producers come up with some completely new ideas after all these seasons. Obviously, part of it was necessity in order to adhere to the safety restrictions of shooting during a pandemic, but still.

In a way it was a little unfair to the contestants, though, given that restaurant chefs' cookbooks very, very often have a coauthor whose job is to do what they were tasked with doing themselves, translating their dishes into something that is achievable by home cooks with typical home kitchen equipment, including rendering ingredients in specific measurements and writing clear instructions that are complete and intelligible to nonprofessionals. Just for example, Melissa Clark played this role for many chefs' cookbooks before landing her New York Times gig and writing her own cookbooks, and Jean-George Vongerichten's string of cookbooks starting in the 1990s were coauthored by Mark Bittman. And so on.

[Fukui San]

We moved into an apartment after owning a home with a gas stove. I was very sad about having to go to an electric stove but this new electric one easily has all the power of the gas one. (Samsung) The glass top when cool is another working surface which a gas stove could never be. The only issue I have with it is the oven inevitably burns anything uncovered on the top rack.

Ive had hotel rooms with electric stoves and they took forever. But there’s at least one out there that doesn’t. 

[meowmommy]

Top Cheftestants have had to cook in the woods, on the beach, in the snow, etc.  An electric stove is not the end of the world.I hope they never have the misfortune of moving into a home that isn't tapped into a gas line.  The horror!  /s 

The day I walked into an antique shop and saw examples of every piece of kitchenware I'd grown up around, I knew I was seriously over-the-hill.

Maybe it's just me, but I've been struck this season by how non-diva Padma has been.  I don't know if it's the pandemic that's humanized her, but she's been softer, nicer, less imperious, less dismissive, and just overall a better person this season.  I don't think, for instance, Padma in a previous season would have pulled off those campy movie trailers with the fun and good humor she gave it.  By way of saying I think she was scripted to be annoyed with Fred and not annoyed for real.

[Bastet]

36 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

By way of saying I think she was scripted to be annoyed with Fred and not annoyed for real.

Yeah.  Does anyone really think they invited those actors on as guest judges and then aired a cut in which Padma resented them for taking over?  As I mentioned before, I don't know the show or the actors, so I just liked Dawn's fangirl reaction imagining how I might do the same with some other shows, so I don't know what might be a specific nod to their characters, but, yeah, their shtick and Padma's reaction to it was clearly planned.

[Vermicious Knid]

The only thing I know about Portlandia is the 'Put a Bird on It!' skit.

Jamie's post-episode interview. Apparently she's dyslexic?

Quote

Tran says writing the recipe, something she does with far more time in her own kitchen at The Black Sheep, proved difficult in that short time period. “I’m not gonna lie, I do have a learning disability so sometimes it was awkward writing stuff. It takes me longer,” she tells Eater Vegas. For example, she might write “salt kosher” instead of kosher salt, she says, but when she worked at the Venetian and Palazzo, she wrote recipes all the time.

 

[ProudMary]

I loved the corn cob shaped mold that Dawn used to make her cornbread. Also, it was a very smart choice on her part to make a baked item, using the electric oven which heats at a consistently accurate temperature, as opposed to the electric stovetop where the cooking temp is harder to control.

As to the EC, it was well past time for the judges to PYKAG Chris but, it should be noted that Melissa, due to time constraints, didn't follow the recipe as Chris had outlined. His recipe called for the gnocchi to be pan seared which Melissa didn't do. Chris's version was still not up to standard, but it wasn't the soggy mess that Melissa presented. 

[Yeah No]

23 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

I don't really cook, so when they flashed the ingredient lists during the Whole Foods shopping I already knew they were making things too complicated. Most of the chefs seemed stuck on the idea of gourmet food that they were forced to write down, not a recipe that would be easier to replicate, or be made by an average cook.

I liked the challenge but most of the chefs didn't seem to get what it meant to tailor a recipe for a home cook.  45 ingredients (some esoteric) and a million steps is not what the judges were looking for.  It should be relatively simple, streamlined and with more common ingredients.  To me that is obvious, and I do think it was explained well enough to them.  It looked to me like some of the chefs went totally in the opposite direction, though, even more than in other challenges, which was a head scratcher for me.  It looked like the chefs that made it to the top got there because their dishes tasted good, not necessarily because they did a good job of making it approachable for the home cook.  Also it wasn't clear to me from the results how the other chefs' replications factored into the judging.

And while I do agree that chefs on this level should be able to work with any kind of heat source, I do know that those old fashioned coil electric stoves can be especially challenging to someone that's not used to working with them even if they have before.  They just seem to run counter to every strength a gas stove has.  Working on an electric stove when you're used to gas is very counterintuitive.  I have been using an electric stove for a long time now after originally learning on a gas stove and I still find it annoying to have to put up with its shortcomings.  I have learned to work around them pretty well, but it did take me some time to master that.  It wasn't automatic.  Comparing this challenge to cooking on grills outdoors isn't fair either because even that is cooking on a flame and therefore more similar to cooking on a gas stove than an electric one.

[caitmcg]

24 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

And while I do agree that chefs on this level should be able to work with any kind of heat source, I do know that those old fashioned coil electric stoves can be especially challenging to someone that's not used to working with them even if they have before.  They just seem to run counter to every strength a gas stove has.  Working on an electric stove when you're used to gas is very counterintuitive.  I have been using an electric stove for a long time now after originally learning on a gas stove and I still find it annoying to have to put up with its shortcomings.  I have learned to work around them pretty well, but it did take me some time to master that.  It wasn't automatic.  

For sure. I grew up cooking on gas stoves, then moved to a series of rental apartments with cheap, lousy coil electric stoves, including an 18-inch wide number for six years, and there’s a real learning curve to cooking well. (No matter that these were in high-rent places in Manhattan and the SF Bay Area, the stoves were always bottom-of-the-line.) I am happily using gas again, but in future the electricity-fueled cooktop I’d really embrace is induction, which is super energy efficient and as responsive as gas. 

Edited May 29, 2021 by caitmcg

[dleighg]

2 hours ago, ProudMary said:

His recipe called for the gnocchi to be pan seared which Melissa didn't do

I think that was because his recipe was so off-base on how to get the proper texture before boiling and then searing that by the time she had something "shapable" there was no time left to sear them. She mentioned that.

[cameron]

15 hours ago, xfuse said:

They really aren't. I always found electric consistent. And decent chef should be able to work with anything, wood, charcoal, gas, electric or propane. 

Professional chefs should be able to cook with anything, and the stove wasn't the issue in the misfires on some of those recipes.  It was the recipe itself and the way it was executed.

[ProudMary]

7 hours ago, dleighg said:

I think that was because his recipe was so off-base on how to get the proper texture before boiling and then searing that by the time she had something "shapable" there was no time left to sear them. She mentioned that.

Yes, in the part of my original post you didn't include in your quote, I mentioned that Melissa chose not to do it due to time constraints. Chris did manage to work in that step within the allotted time frame. I still think Chris deserved to go home because the dish he presented wasn't good and that's not surprising, as he's been circling the drain for weeks now, but it was compounded by the fact that Melissa didn't follow the recipe as written. JMO, but the challenge itself was flawed because this season's cheftestants didn't completely hold their fate in their own hands. It mattered which All-Star chef they drew to cook their recipe. 

[FormerMod-a1]

She couldn't complete the recipe though because part of the challenge was it had to be completed in 90 minutes.  The recipe as written couldn't be done in 90 minutes and that's still on Chris.  Also, Chris even commented to whomever was near by him (Gabe?) while they were both cooking he had something wrong with the gnocchi instructions.  Melissa said there was too much liquid, but she had to follow the recipe as written.  So it's not just that "Melissa chose not to do it" she couldn't do it because 1) the recipe was poorly written, and 2) completing it would have taken more than 90 minutes.

[CatWarmer]

While reading this discussion, I was thinking of Julia Child in The French Chef cooking on an electric stove top and not complaining (well, hardly ever).  I read up a little on why she did so and learned that (1) it would have been too difficult to get gas lines into the TV studio and (2) she was cooking for the home chef and they primarily had electric stoves in homes at that time.  So if Julia could comfortably cook great food on electric burners while simultaneously explaining to viewers how to do what she was doing, it should have been no big deal for the cheftestants.

[Nordly Beaumont]

I imagine in a quickfire where every second counts they wouldn't want to wait for a burner to heat up. But other than Gabe calling electric stoves a pain in the ass (because he used to have one) and Chris saying he was having trouble getting consistent heat, I don't recall any of them having an issue with them or complaining about them.

I like Fred Armison and I laughed when he told Byron they were going to take a half hour break, as Byron stood there with three dishes balanced on his arms! I'm glad Dawn won especially since she's such a Portlandia fan.

I want to go back and see if Shota always has stuff written on his hand. 

I hope future contestants will look at Chris and understand that if you fail at something, it is not at all necessary to prove the judges you really can succeed at that one thing. The judges move on, cheftestants should too.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Nordly Beaumont

[dleighg]

32 minutes ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I hope future contestants will look at Chris and understand that if you fail at something, it is not at all necessary to prove the judges you really can succeed at that one thing.

they really seem to be stuck on that, don't they? LOL.

[bosawks]

4 hours ago, aquarian1 said:

She couldn't complete the recipe though because part of the challenge was it had to be completed in 90 minutes.  The recipe as written couldn't be done in 90 minutes and that's still on Chris.  Also, Chris even commented to whomever was near by him (Gabe?) while they were both cooking he had something wrong with the gnocchi instructions.  Melissa said there was too much liquid, but she had to follow the recipe as written.  So it's not just that "Melissa chose not to do it" she couldn't do it because 1) the recipe was poorly written, and 2) completing it would have taken more than 90 minutes.

Chris admitted he was kind of screwed since his written recipe was by cups not weight and it didn’t include additional flour as needed to get the appropriate texture.

Melissa’s hands were pretty much tied trying to get an appropriate texture to hold together as written.

Gnocchi is almost impossible to make within a narrow construct.  A humid day will really screw with your starch to liquid ratio.

[LennieBriscoe]

Gas lines aren't available everywhere, FWIW.

For some reason I couldn't get interested in this episode. Maybe I missed a lot, but I didn't see the recipes, which was Part One of the challenge. That is to say, I would have liked reading them for myself to judge. 

Secondly, I agree with the poster upthread who opined that having a real home cook, rather than a chef, follow the recipes would have been more to the point of the challenge. 

Finally, those extra minutes with the two home cooks---aka, thirsty Social Media types---completely turned me off, or rather, I turned them off.  Look, "Top Chef," either BE "Top Chef," or be Gordon Ramsay's "Master Chef." 

[Ms Blue Jay]

15 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I liked the challenge but most of the chefs didn't seem to get what it meant to tailor a recipe for a home cook.  45 ingredients (some esoteric) and a million steps is not what the judges were looking for.  It should be relatively simple, streamlined and with more common ingredients.  To me that is obvious, and I do think it was explained well enough to them.  It looked to me like some of the chefs went totally in the opposite direction, though, even more than in other challenges, which was a head scratcher for me.  It looked like the chefs that made it to the top got there because their dishes tasted good, not necessarily because they did a good job of making it approachable for the home cook.  Also it wasn't clear to me from the results how the other chefs' replications factored into the judging.

 I follow recipes a lot and there were a couple of dishes where I immediately rolled my eyes and said I'm not doing that.  One of them had to be the Gnocchi.  I don't know, I'm still a novice so that seems way too complicated for me.   I don't remember what the other one was.

[dleighg]

1 hour ago, LennieBriscoe said:

Finally, those extra minutes with the two home cooks---aka, thirsty Social Media types

who are you referring to?

[Bastet]

Their filming bubble made using the guest host chefs far easier than using home cooks would have been, but on general principle I think it was a better fit anyway.  Before it went into a cookbook for a home cook to rely on, it would undergo a lot more testing, the recipe would be reviewed by an editor, etc.  Under these circumstances, I like instead seeing if another chef can make it turn out well following the recipe as written and in the time allotted.

(And, yeah, restaurant wars is a totally ridiculous challenge compared to the preparation a real-world restaurant undergoes before opening, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for them to challenge make this once, write a recipe, and we'll see if a home cook can do it in 90 minutes - I just like it better this way.  And the judging shows the primary element of the challenge was to make a great dish, as per usual, with writing a good recipe being secondary.)

[Fukui San]

It would not have been out of the realm of possibility for the challenge to be structured this way:

Padma introduces the pandemic trend of Zoom cooking parties, where everyone cooks from the same recipe.

The recipe and groceries are sent to a test home cook making it at home while the contestants make it there.

The judges eat the chef's version, but sees what the home cook did over Zoom. (At least half of them would be total, utter fiascoes based on how the all-stars did)

The test chefs could even be the contestants' loved ones.

The major detraction from the approach would be that the judges don't get to eat the test kitchen dishes, and the home footage wouldn't be as good as what we saw unless they had 8 camera crews somehow. But there would have been some legendary kitchen disasters.

[Ms Blue Jay]

They tried to do this on Guy's Grocery Games and the chefs just DESCRIBED what they made at home to the judges and the judges had to judge the meals based on the video and how it looked and the judges' descriptions.  It didn't go well and I'm sorry to say that I couldn't bear to watch it again.  

[akr]

53 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

 I follow recipes a lot and there were a couple of dishes where I immediately rolled my eyes and said I'm not doing that.  One of them had to be the Gnocchi.  I don't know, I'm still a novice so that seems way too complicated for me.   I don't remember what the other one was.

I'm pretty experienced, but am no longer patient with most complicated recipes. For me, it really is the three on the bottom that I would have no desire to cook. If I make gnocchi, Chris, it won't be with sorghum (and I don't even remember what he accompanied it with). I'm not doing 45 ingredients, Byron, especially if the results are lackluster. And I might try to cook foie gras, if I didn't have to spring for it, Jamie, but not with French toast & blueberry compote. Why would I want foie gras to remind me of PB&J? (Also, I trust Shota, but I'm not drawn to the turnips in his dish. I might order it on a menu if it was highly recommended, but I probably wouldn't put the effort into cooking it myself.)

I wish they'd put the top 4 recipes up on the website. Gabe's, Maria's, and Dawn's all sound good (assuming Dawn has tweaked the buttermilk sauce to her satisfaction - her choice of gai lan as the vegetable drew me in), and if I read Shota's recipe through, it might be more likely to give it a go as well.

[jpgr]

1 hour ago, dleighg said:

who are you referring to?

I assume they are talking about the Top Chef Amateurs preview that followed the regular episode.

[Harry24]

2 hours ago, LennieBriscoe said:

Gas lines aren't available everywhere, FWIW.

Plus, not great for the environment compared to electric: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/fight-over-natural-gas-stoves-are-wedge-issue-on-the-media

This episode was a prime example of one where I would have LOVED to have known exactly what guidelines the chef/testers were given.  For instance, were they instructed 1) to follow the recipe to the letter as fast as they could and plate what they had at 90 minutes (I wish they had gone with this option); 2) adapt the receipt as necessary to get something close to it on the table; or 3) given no specifics at all?

[Ms Blue Jay]

51 minutes ago, akr said:

I wish they'd put the top 4 recipes up on the website. Gabe's, Maria's, and Dawn's all sound good (assuming Dawn has tweaked the buttermilk sauce to her satisfaction - her choice of gai lan as the vegetable drew me in), and if I read Shota's recipe through, it might be more likely to give it a go as well.

They TOTALLY should, that would be brilliant!  I'd be fine with seeing all of them, though!  (It reminds me of how some sites put up all the runway designs after each episode of "Project Runway" so that we can all analyze them further.) I have such a bad memory.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Ms Blue Jay

[LennieBriscoe]

Maybe I missed this segment, too, but was there a beginning point where each chef FIRST, before knowing the nature of the EC, had to write down and/or mention to the judges  the type of cookbook he or she would produce?

Like, did Chris state "Pastas"? Or Maria, "One-Pot Family Style"? Etc. 

They would have gotten a modicum of feedback ("Chris, are you going for Strike 3 here?"; "Byron, remember your target cook.");  plus they would have been locked into a category, so no shenanigans with "I'll  just make whatever I feel like writing down my recipe for" (not that there were; J/S). 

I have a vivid memory of my mother once, on the spur of the moment, making fab potato gnocchi from scratch, with just her hands, grater, and wooden spoon, in my grandmother's  tiny apartment kitchen on a teeny table. No sorghum, FGS! 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by LennieBriscoe

[mlp]

1 hour ago, Harry24 said:

For instance, were they instructed 1) to follow the recipe to the letter as fast as they could and plate what they had at 90 minutes (I wish they had gone with this option);

Based upon some of the comments from the veterans, I'm pretty sure those were the instructions.  I remember things like one of them putting salmon or something into a pan and saying the recipe didn't say to use oil so he didn't.  I think that's also why Melissa (?) didn't add flour or anything to try to fix the gnocchi dough.

[Lois Sandborne]

On 5/28/2021 at 9:10 AM, HighHopes said:

I am not going to go out and buy banana leafs to serve a meal on.

This is all I wanted to say.

[seltzer3]

4 hours ago, Bastet said:

Their filming bubble made using the guest host chefs far easier than using home cooks would have been, but on general principle I think it was a better fit anyway.  Before it went into a cookbook for a home cook to rely on, it would undergo a lot more testing, the recipe would be reviewed by an editor, etc.  Under these circumstances, I like instead seeing if another chef can make it turn out well following the recipe as written and in the time allotted.

(And, yeah, restaurant wars is a totally ridiculous challenge compared to the preparation a real-world restaurant undergoes before opening, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for them to challenge make this once, write a recipe, and we'll see if a home cook can do it in 90 minutes - I just like it better this way.  And the judging shows the primary element of the challenge was to make a great dish, as per usual, with writing a good recipe being secondary.)

Yeah I remember hearing interviews of past contestants in regarding of Restaurant Wars.  One of the main issues, is that in the real world when it comes to restaurant, customers would naturally chat and stay in their tables after they are done with eating their food/dessert.  Customers would have long conversations sometimes maybe and hour or so.   In Restaurant wars?  That is an absolute nightmare as customers who would stay and talk at their tables after being done with their meals would bottle neck the flow.  I think Kevin Gillespie talked about how it would super awkward to push customers who are finished with their dinner out of the restaurant.

2 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

They TOTALLY should, that would be brilliant!  I'd be fine with seeing all of them, though!  (It reminds me of how some sites put up all the runway designs after each episode of "Project Runway" so that we can all analyze them further.) I have such a bad memory.

Dawn I felt of all the restaurant was probably the easiest recipe to follow.  Like the components was a sauce, a vegetable, and a protein.  Which is really easy for a beginning cook to conceptualize.  I feel like Shota's recipe seemed really difficult.  Byron, lol good luck reading through 4 pages just for the stock.

[novhappy]

I found this episode boring and lacking focus. They could have used the vintage equipment and standard home equipment in the EC. Home cooks, home equipment, easily accessible ingredients (no banana leaves!) but make something w depth of flavor, complex and amazing. I like the zoom cooking party idea above, might have been interesting where the home cook says well it didn’t work I’m ordering pizza for my guests. 
these challenges where there are too many factors, such as write a recipe, home cooks, 90 minutes, guest chefs, 2 entrees for judges become so complicated that it is hard to know what to focus on. As is clearly the case in this episode as it just came off boring. 
there was really no point to having the cheftestants cook their entree too. The esteemed judges know what food should taste and look like. They should have just judged what was produced by the recipe. 
 

[Leeds]

10 hours ago, seltzer3 said:

Yeah I remember hearing interviews of past contestants in regarding of Restaurant Wars.  One of the main issues, is that in the real world when it comes to restaurant, customers would naturally chat and stay in their tables after they are done with eating their food/dessert.  Customers would have long conversations sometimes maybe and hour or so.   In Restaurant wars?  That is an absolute nightmare as customers who would stay and talk at their tables after being done with their meals would bottle neck the flow.  I think Kevin Gillespie talked about how it would super awkward to push customers who are finished with their dinner out of the restaurant.

 

 

I don't feel the chefs on Top Chef should have a problem pushing out customers -- the whole episode is an artificial construct and not a restaurant they will be ever be judged on in real life.  They're in a competition and unless they've lived under a rock or done zero prep for the show, they should expect some weird/unusual situations.  This is one of the reasons a firm Maitre D' on the Restaurant Wars has so often proved essential.

(And it's also a situation I've seen/heard about in real life, perhaps connected to price/popularity.)

[stewedsquash]

 

 

On 5/28/2021 at 8:32 PM, Rammchick said:

I'm thinking this episode was supposed to be a tie-in to Gail's Top Chef Amateurs show, with home cooks, coming this summer.  I thought the sneak-preview was pretty good.  I'll be watching it come July.

I was so confused. I had TC on record so wasn't watching closely and passed through the living room and stopped. I thought, Maria? what's happened to your face? No wait, is that someone's sister? Do they have family members cooking the recipes? Why are the guest judges helping? Do the cheftestants have to tell the guest chef judges in their earpieces how to get the cooks through the recipe? ...Oh. It's that new show. Never mind.

I say this as a Gail fan. There's a reason Padma is a host and not you. 

I love Portlandia. It is the only show I have ever gone back and re-watched and will continue to re-watch just for doses of happiness. They were totally in character mode. If they had come out as the Women and Women Bookstore characters, I am sure Dawn would have been a puddle of giggling goo. These two, while not foodies (I guess?) were perfect guests for showing an absurd satire of Portland's hipster schtick. 

Did the chef's get to cook while writing the recipe (pre EC) or just have to write on the fly, then cook their own on the fly recipe at EC? This challenge needs a few tweaks to work correctly. I remember reading several years ago that the way it works is that after they announce the QF/EC they don't just charge ahead and start, like is shown on the show. After the QF/EC is announced, they are given printed out copies with exact details of the challenge and go over it with a crew member and have a clear understanding of what they have to do after reading it. I don't know if that happened this time because there seemed to be a lot of lost in the translation going on here. 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by stewedsquash
hit post too quickly whoa had to edit out a sentence that should have been deleted while editing before posting. Happens all the time. I wonder how long an edit explanation can be probably longer than this I guess. Maybe I should go to the Test Zone and f

[LeighLeigh]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:33 AM, WendyM said:

In an earlier season we had Top Scallop (Jamie, right?), then there was Top Risotto...and now we have Top Pasta.

I thought Mustache Joe’s season was top pasta. Remember Bruce and his spirit noodle?  I find this season to be Top Mole. 

[LennieBriscoe]

16 hours ago, seltzer3 said:

Yeah I remember hearing interviews of past contestants in regarding of Restaurant Wars.  One of the main issues, is that in the real world when it comes to restaurant, customers would naturally chat and stay in their tables after they are done with eating their food/dessert.  Customers would have long conversations sometimes maybe and hour or so.   In Restaurant wars?  That is an absolute nightmare as customers who would stay and talk at their tables after being done with their meals would bottle neck the flow.  I think Kevin Gillespie talked about how it would super awkward to push customers who are finished with their dinner out of the restaurant.

Dawn I felt of all the restaurant was probably the easiest recipe to follow.  Like the components was a sauce, a vegetable, and a protein.  Which is really easy for a beginning cook to conceptualize.  I feel like Shota's recipe seemed really difficult.  Byron, lol good luck reading through 4 pages just for the stock.

I don't think American restaurant-goers linger much at all, post-meal, especially not for "an hour or so." They certainly aren't encouraged  to by management! 

Europeans (and French-Canadians) who smoke after dinner might have a different expectation. 

[meep.meep]

I bet people who may be on TV will linger forever.

nothing wrong with giving them electric stoves to work on for the QF.  Did they not give each of them a stove?  It seemed like some people had to share.  Not fair.

Asking a chef to give you a recipe is common.  My brother in the wine industry does it all the time.  Give me a dish that will pair well with this Pinot noir.  It s good publicity for the winery and the chef.  No cookbook editor involved.

[sharifa70]

4 hours ago, LennieBriscoe said:

don't think American restaurant-goers linger much at all, post-meal, especially not for "an hour or so." They certainly aren't encouraged  to by management

I’ve done this but only when the restaurant wasn’t super-busy, and I’ve never had waitstaff or managers act like it was a problem. Yes, we do tip 2-3 times more to make up for lost tips from not turning the table as quickly. 

[marybennet]

I think the issue re lingering and Restaurant Wars is that, unlike in the real world where timing in re getting the check can be a way of everybody recognizing that it’s the moment for you to go, in RW there’s no check to ask for and thus no hinting that it’s time for you to get the check. Of course you want to hang around to see the judges or to try to suss out what’s happening. Marjorie on the season also featuring Issac Toups (where were they?) handled this problem by inviting people for a glass of champagne on their way out. 

[meowmommy]

8 hours ago, stewedsquash said:

I say this as a Gail fan. There's a reason Padma is a host and not you. 

Didn't Gail host the late, only slightly lamented TC Just Desserts?

[The Solution]

1 hour ago, sharifa70 said:

Yes, we do tip 2-3 times more to make up for lost tips from not turning the table as quickly. 

I always tip well because I've been in the business and servers make horrible money, but if a server treats me well when I'm lingering - ALL kinds of tip!