S20.E03: Cheeky Pints and Pub Bites

[dleighg]

4 hours ago, marybennet said:

I thought the pseudo-scales on the Buddha/Luciana fish dish were thinly-sliced zucchini. Am I right?

I'm pretty sure you're correct

[LennieBriscoe]

A lifetime ago in some pub in England I ate my first Scotch egg. 

And the angels sang to the music of the Spheres! 😄

So it pained me to see a botched version! 😕

 

[RoseAllDay]

8 hours ago, marybennet said:

I thought the pseudo-scales on the Buddha/Luciana fish dish were thinly-sliced zucchini. Am I right?

May have been. I couldn’t remember. Nevertheless, I thought it looked a little unappetizing.

[Daisychain]

8 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

May I introduce you to The Gallery of Regrettable Food?

Actually there's a challenge; have the chefs create something edible and updated out of this kind of glop. 

Oh my jeebers creebers.  My adult children were with me and we were all snorting out our noses.'

[LennieBriscoe]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:47 AM, Fukui San said:

I liked both Dale and May coming in to this episode. I don't think either of them had made a bad dish yet, but this was a bad partnership to be sure. I was thinking of how I might do an out there version of a Scotch Egg. What I landed on was this: Make a smaller version of the egg, maybe a quail egg. Soft boil and peel them. Then put them into a crispy fried dumpling of some kind with sausage. Maybe a fried wonton or empanada.

Scotch Egg Poppers! Just add some Colman's Hot Mustard and I'll take a basket! 👍

[Rai]

I'm going to stick up for May. Dale was determined to play it safe regardless of getting fish and chips or the scotch egg, and that's usually a Top Chef recipe for disaster, pun intended. Frankly, since everyone harped on the crunch being the biggest factor for both dishes, I think his concept of a fish cake for fish and chips would've bombed too. I don't eat seafood, so I don't know how big of a deal crunch is to a crab cake, say, but a fish cake seems to miss what the judges wanted from fish and chips.

Although we didn't see May specifically say "deconstruction" when she and Dale were trying to plan their dish, she was clearly talking about deconstructing the dish, and Dale would have to be pretty dense not to hear that. An ale reduction sauce? That sounded awesome! She was really getting in the spirit of the challenge, but he just wasn't willing to get into it. Insisting instead that they make a scotch egg in the regular way with Thai flavors felt very reductive to what May could bring to the table. And he messed up the fry on the egg. Which is apparently what sent them packing. I was totally rooting for him in the first two episodes because I liked him on Wall of Chefs, but his approach to both May and the challenge turned me off him completely.

Watching them in their interviews both on this episode and in LCK, it's very clear they're mad at each other and blaming each other, and probably it's both their faults in some sort of way. Based solely on what I saw on camera though, my bias leans much more strongly in favor of May. My final straw was during LCK when Dale interviewed he should've taken a stronger leadership role. My dude, it was a team challenge, and your partner was someone who in the previous episode won the quickfire and nearly won the main challenge. It takes way more integrity and confidence if you respect what she's saying and be open to what she's bringing to the table. And playing it safe is one of Tom's biggest bugaboos.

In contrast, although Buddha can be pretty micromanaging (as we learned in his season), he still treated Luciana like a team partner to her face and fixed what he felt he needed to fix without causing too huge of a blowup. I've never fully warmed up to him, but he handled his obstacles with communication far more productively and gracefully than Dale did. It's okay to have some friction if it does push the team into a stronger dish. Amar and Ali probably could've benefited from some of that! Dale missed the point of the challenge and probably would've been a pain on fish and chips too.

Loving Begona, Gabri despite his chaos, Ali, Tom, and Sara is surprising me with her level of cookery. She actually worked in fine dining NYC restaurants, so I know she can do it, but she really seems to have leveled up since the Kentucky season. Also Nicole is completely correct about needing to heat up the cooking vessels before pouring in the yorkshire pudding batter, but god, if she said "yorkies" one more time -- those poor pups!

Edited March 27, 2023 by Rai

[catrice2]

On 3/25/2023 at 10:24 PM, sharifa70 said:

I grew up on cottage pie (in my house it was “Dad’s casserole”), but it’s a very, very basic (povvo) version: ground beef, onions, tomato sauce, and green beans topped with mashed potatoes and cheese. It’s cheap and freezes well, and it’s a winter staple. I always think I want to try one of the fancier versions but childhood always wins out. 

I also loved the Victoire/Potato Girl team-up (yes, I know it’s Sylwia). My love of potatoes earned me the nickname “Tater” from my dad when I was a kid, so I’ve decided Sylwia is my long-lost bestie.

Sara’s crack about Tom using agar in his perfectly-coiffed hair made me giggle. I didn’t like her in her season but I agree with the earlier poster who commented that she seems a little more mellowed out here.

Oh! All my life I’ve been putting the malt vinegar on my fish, never the fries. I dip my fries in tartar sauce, though. Suddenly, salt & vinegar potato chips make a *whole* lot more sense….

 

They were selling those fries for a while at Steak n Shake but regrettably stopped

[catrice2]

I don't know, it made me uncomfortable the way they focused on Gail asking Victoire about the food when she was clearly uncomfortable with what she was eating and really gave her a resting B faced moment the way it was edited on camera which just perpetuates a certain stereotype.

She probably said nothing because she didn't want to offend or be misunderstood on camera but it was shot to make her look awkward and difficult by seemingly remaining silent IMO. 

I am thrilled with the International element and I really hope that we get to see a lot more of all of the chefs and not just the already obvious favorites. I would love to be able to watch some of the International Top Chef shows.

Mei/Mai? will be back. She is a favorite clearly.

There seems to be some really fun personalities! I want to see what they all can do.

I would think due to the language barriers that they would keep the team challenges to a minimum. That has to be extremely stressful on top of a already difficult situation, and misunderstanding a direction or ingredient could be disastrous.

I did not like the look of the winning dish so I am in the minority. So Budda made the potatoes again?

As a vegetarian I guess this whole pub crawl would have just been horrible for me🙂

[rhofmovalley]

31 minutes ago, catrice2 said:

 

I would think due to the language barriers that they would keep the team challenges to a minimum. That has to be extremely stressful on top of a already difficult situation, and misunderstanding a direction or ingredient could be disastrous.

Gabri and his partner (name help, please, someone!) had this happen with "flour" vs. "flower" and they both speak Spanish! She had to say the word in Spanish for him to understand. What if he spoke a completely different native language? So I can foresee a lot of misunderstandings when they're forced to communicate in English. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

8 hours ago, Rai said:

I'm going to stick up for May. Dale was determined to play it safe regardless of getting fish and chips or the scotch egg, and that's usually a Top Chef recipe for disaster, pun intended.

What would be a worse disaster than getting kicked off?  Playing it safe this early on can't have resulted in something worse than that as that is the worst outcome.

Anyways, I am not sure where the whole playing it safe thing came from.  I just think he wanted to do fish chips and not do a scotch egg, and I don't know if this necessarily translates to I want to play it safe.  He probably just knew what he wanted to do with fish and chips way more.  

Edited March 28, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[Mellowyellow]

12 hours ago, Rai said:

In contrast, although Buddha can be pretty micromanaging (as we learned in his season), he still treated Luciana like a team partner to her face and fixed what he felt he needed to fix without causing too huge of a blowup. I've never fully warmed up to him, but he handled his obstacles with communication far more productively and gracefully than Dale did.

Buddha's talking heads indicated that he was very realistic and had a good grasp of the situation he was trying to manage (fixing potatoes whilst causing as little offence as possible). I felt like both May and Dale either had no idea or neither wanted to acknowledge that there was an issue with their dish/team. It seemed like both were ambling along thinking that they were compromising and neither were happy with the dish but didn't say anything.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Mellowyellow
Spelling

[Rai]

Dale literally said he wanted to play it safe when they were deliberating between which dish to pick and kept advocating for keeping it simple when they were menu planning. Not a read, just a fact. The tension between them was palpable, and their frustration with each other was very clear, and the form of compromising each of them thought they were doing was resulting in a weak dish. For me though, Dale's strategy more strongly damaged their overall output, and he couldn't pull off the technique that the judges valued the most. The other common wisdom on this show is that if you're going to do a simple, classic approach, you have to nail it perfectly. Otherwise, the errors are glaring. And so it was with Dale's fry.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Rai

[blixie]

Quote

While I love the idea of pub food, I did get food poisoning in London after eating in one, so I tend to have a slightly soured outlook. 

I have no problem saying traditional English foods kinda leave me barfy. I ate exclusively ethnic foods in my two trips to London, primarily kabobs and Indian, and maybe some Chinese, oh yeah and the #1 recommendation from Londoner's in 1986: Pizza Hut's two pan pizza/two pitchers of coke deal. But that was over 20 years ago, back when Kensington Market still existed in London, and even the winner of the challenge Luciana who moved there said even 10 years ago pub food was still kind of yikes and it's only since then the food has been "elevated".  Also I was recently in New Orleans, and was struck of course by the imprint French culture leaves behind in all the places it colonized, and mean while, non white English colonies are like Meat Pies? NO THANKYOU. I said this on the street and an English lady passing by LOL'D. 

Now that is the Buddha who could still go all the way, and I do love that he won a challenge about heavy pub foods, by making the most beautiful and delicately flavored fish pie that ever existed.  It was a very amazing contrast in winning losing "team work", Luciana swallowed her pride, and let Buddha redo her potatoes, trusting in his skill/judgement. Dale and may both made compromises that sank them. Douching out Dale, going with May's insistence on a difficult dish choice, and May then letting Dale dictate how to cook it.  I thought Buddha was basically not saying Luciana's potatoes were bad only that they were too runny to work with the dish conceptually and that helped her listen to his critique.

My big take away from this ep: TOM IS SAFE, and  he's still getting good notices for all his techniques at least, still hoping he can survive and pop up into the top tier. He and Sara worked pretty well together despite wildly divergent styles. Really nice to see.

[sharifa70]

16 minutes ago, blixie said:

I ate exclusively ethnic foods in my two trips to London, primarily kabobs and Indian,

You know? Now that you said that, my visits to London (4 between 2002-2005) were very similar. We did eat pub food but none of it really stood out other than the servers being very helpful. My then-boyfriend and I lived on amazing Thai, Chinese, and kebabs, though we did stop in at Hard Rock Cafe for some fajitas because my one weird, huge craving whenever I travel overseas is Mexican food. At that time, Hard Rock Cafe was the closest we could find.

Now I feel like I need to go back and give pub food another shot.

Edited March 28, 2023 by sharifa70

[blixie]

Quote

What makes you all say May lied?  We don’t hear the whole conversation, and it sounded to me, from what we heard, that she was making suggestions, and Dale said no to everything.

This I feel like this thread is bizarro-verse. Dale clearly caved on the scotch egg, but when May described her plans, he immediately said NO, since he felt like he compromised on which dish it was clear he wasn't going to l let her have any input on  how to cook it, and generally speaking I'd think a maritime Canadian would know better about how to cook a Scotch egg, but given the brief was to elevate/transform the dish, May's ideas should have been listened to. Also wildly all the Thai stuff was at Dale's insistence and seemed like a way to placate May, just add your Thai flavors and shut up lady. But still May should have asserted herself more, and while she might have had plans to deconstruct I'm not sure she ever actually voiced that to Dale because she just went with his plan from the get.

[Harry24]

Two thoughts: where was Padma most of the episode?  Not that Gail didn’t do a great job, but it was a bit odd that there was no explanation (unless I missed it?  Did I?)

Second thought: I don’t believe I’ve ever seen TC cheftestants be so openly contemptuous of the local cuisine before.  It’s usually “oohs” and “ahs,’ and excitement about learning something new.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Harry24

[Rai]

I can fully see Padma being like ABSOLUTELY NOT when it came to a pub crawl. But it's nice to frame it as it gives the chefs time with Tom and Gail that they don't normally have. 😃

[seacliffsal]

I have always really liked pub food and try to eat lunch in pubs when in the UK (and have been going there since the early 1980s), so I was super excited about this challenge.  What I don't love though are Scotch Eggs.  I was surprised that the team that got to pick first ended up with Scotch Eggs (and their second choice was fish and chips).  I was surprised they didn't pick something else.  Both May and Dale were responsible for their loss, so I am not on one "team" or the other.  I really think that neither one knew what to do with it after choosing it (May's suggestion was to not cut it in half and Dale's suggestion was to make a Thai Scotch Egg).  I was worried for Alli as I like him-and am concerned that it seemed like he left the Judge's Table thinking the judges wanted everything deconstructed (I personally don't like deconstructed food as I want the chef to put everything together-not expect me to put everything together on my fork [I don't want to work that hard when going out to eat-put everything together the way you want me to taste it!]).  

So many of the chefs seem wonderful.

Oh, and Gordon Ramsey got a shout out from Buddha (3 mentions so far this season and I don't think he has ever been referenced on air prior to this season).

[Norma Desmond]

Aww I love May! She's so rootable. I felt like she lost because of Dale and not the other way around. Well, they weren't a good match and he didn't really accept her suggestions. Anyway, elimination challenges should be solo, I think, or at least with people they  choose. It's not fair to be paired up with someone you don't jell with.

I watched Luciana's season on Top Chef Brasil, and aghhh, I cannot stand her. She totally benefitted from Buddha doing, well, everything.

[hula-la]

15 hours ago, blixie said:

This I feel like this thread is bizarro-verse. Dale clearly caved on the scotch egg, but when May described her plans, he immediately said NO, since he felt like he compromised on which dish it was clear he wasn't going to l let her have any input on  how to cook it, and generally speaking I'd think a maritime Canadian would know better about how to cook a Scotch egg, but given the brief was to elevate/transform the dish, May's ideas should have been listened to. Also wildly all the Thai stuff was at Dale's insistence and seemed like a way to placate May, just add your Thai flavors and shut up lady. But still May should have asserted herself more, and while she might have had plans to deconstruct I'm not sure she ever actually voiced that to Dale because she just went with his plan from the get.

Dale is from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He’s a prairie boy, not from the Maritimes. I remember being excited when he won his season, but for some reason, I’ve soured on him over the years (though I can’t remember if there was a reason for it). 

[blixie]

Huh I have no idea why I heard Nova Scotia v. Saskatchewan. But any Canadian (as one of the few colonies that embraces English culture, along with as Buddha said Australia) should be pretty familiar with a scotch egg. I really liked him in the first two eps but he definitely turned like a bad penny, and it sounds like he continued to show his ass on LCK, his unwillingness to see he ran right over May and his unwillingness to see her as partner and given her last two challenge wins as the leader, says nothing good about him. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 3/28/2023 at 10:50 AM, Harry24 said:

Two thoughts: where was Padma most of the episode?  Not that Gail didn’t do a great job, but it was a bit odd that there was no explanation (unless I missed it?  Did I?)

I noticed that too.

[7-Zark-7]

On 3/27/2023 at 6:32 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

Anyways, I am not sure where the whole playing it safe thing came from.  I just think he wanted to do fish chips and not do a scotch egg, and I don't know if this necessarily translates to I want to play it safe.

 

On 3/28/2023 at 12:40 AM, Rai said:

Dale literally said he wanted to play it safe when they were deliberating between which dish to pick and kept advocating for keeping it simple when they were menu planning.

I went back over this scene because I also thought Dale had said that he wanted to play it safe. He didn't. When May brought up the idea of an ale reduction sauce Dale countered, “Let’s just do a delicious salad, a delicious scotch egg with Thai flavors.” Then, in May's talking head segment, she says "This is quite simple, and I would like to do something different... but Dale, he just wants to do something safe.”

I don't think either of them were lying to the judges. May wanted to do something different, but did not use the word "deconstructed". It's possible that she didn't know how to convey concerns about the dish being too simple and safe to Dale. And Dale didn't seem open to trying anything new when he said "If we just play this smart and make sure everything is cooked and delicious, we're going to be fine." His words implied that he was seeking safety rather than ingenuity, which is not good for Top Chef in general, much less one with a bunch of winners and finalists. Dale seemed to be surprised when he looked around the kitchen and saw that everyone was "taking their dishes a lot more fine dining", and I wondered if he was under the impression that this was a new season of Chopped.

Edited March 30, 2023 by 7-Zark-7

[Ms Blue Jay]

Thank you, I appreciate that.

[stewedsquash]

On 3/26/2023 at 3:05 AM, HurricaneVal said:

I'm still chuckling about Victoria's deadpan "WTF?" expression throughout, so I am glad they did well.  

 

I listened intently when Victoria, in a talking head discussing the planning stage at the pub or possibly discussing the first part of prepping in the kitchen, and she was very detailed in what the back and forth was between her and Sylvia. She ended with, "She says trust me." (longer than normal pause, deadpan demeanor when she spoke again) "The last time someone told me to trust them I lost my house."  End of scene. 

Not at all laughing at Victoria. She has stories to tell and food to cook. 

[JTMacc99]

17 hours ago, 7-Zark-7 said:

His words implied that he was seeking safety rather than ingenuity, which is not good for Top Chef in general, much less one with a bunch of winners and finalists.

I interpreted his thoughts on the challenge as "It's still early in the competition, and good strategy is to make delicious food and let somebody else make the mistake that gets them sent home."

Given that they were in a forced collaboration challenge, I thought it was good strategy. Better to be in the middle, which is worst case scenario if you put really good but boring food on the plate in episode 3, than potentially the bottom.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, JTMacc99 said:

I interpreted his thoughts on the challenge as "It's still early in the competition, and good strategy is to make delicious food and let somebody else make the mistake that gets them sent home."

That has a better shot at working in a regular TC competition than in one where everyone has already won or been a finalist already.

[Rai]

Plus, when it's a team challenge, there are way fewer dishes being judged. You can't hide in the middle. You certainly shouldn't aim for it.

[JTMacc99]

28 minutes ago, Bastet said:

That has a better shot at working in a regular TC competition than in one where everyone has already won or been a finalist already.

In theory, yes.

In practice so far this season, it would have been a sound decision when Dale said, "Let’s just do a delicious salad, a delicious scotch egg with Thai flavors.”

Here's why:

If they had executed that dish

• They wouldn't have been in the bottom or lost week one to the uncleaned shrimp.
• In week two they wouldn't have been in the bottom or lost to Dawn and the mistake she made.
• And here in week three, they wouldn't have been in the bottom or lost to soggy crispy fish. 

I specified that I think it's good strategy in week three, because it is good strategy in week 3. Despite the fact that it's an all star cast, there are still a LOT of chefs in the kitchen and there is almost no shot that somebody is "going home despite making a great dish".  And sure enough, through three weeks, at least two people each week made losing dishes. 

Later in this season? Damn right you can't shoot for just simple and delicious. You need to try to be great. 

And another thing that made Dale's point about "let's just make delicious food" reasonable, was that he realized that they were already struggling to even agree on which dish to make. Other than saying, "I give up; you just tell me what you want to make and I'll stay out of the way", Dale was attempting to just come up with a way to get through it without going home. 

It's unfortunate that they were so different in style and game play style. 

[SemiCharmedLife]

I was in May's camp until this episode.  I felt she was rather unmovable when working with Dale.  She insisted on the Scotch egg and seemed to shut down ideas that Dale had.  In fairness, he shot down a few of her ideas, too.  I was gobsmacked when she told the judges that she wanted to present a deconstructed dish...maybe that was a language problem.  It's really too bad they couldn't get it together to work as a team, but I guess I'm glad that saved Ali, because it would have been a shame for him to go home for Amar's fish batter.  I am very opposed to double eliminations as a team.  Not fair!

[VintageJ]

On 3/24/2023 at 12:07 AM, The Solution said:

There were a lot of things I did not like about this episode: this type of food is my least favorite on earth, to the point of being almost inedible; I thought it was kind of cruel to take them on a pub crawl with all that heavy and fried food and knew they would expect something after the beer and glop; and the teams and double elimination were pretty cruel at this point in the competition.

I wish Sylwia and Victoire had gotten some more credit as their dish actually looked pretty good, and kudos to Sylwia for getting Victoire to actually like Toad in the Hole. Buddha and Luciana's dish looked good as well and I was happy to see them win.

Not sad to see Dale leave. I thought he undermined May the whole challenge and was pretentious and arrogant as well.

I agree about the pub crawl, even though I understand why they did that. But I would have been miserable eating all of that heavy food. Sad to see May go.  I liked her and thought she was going to go much farther. 

[VintageJ]

On 3/27/2023 at 12:37 PM, Rai said:

Loving Begona, Gabri despite his chaos, Ali, Tom, and Sara is surprising me with her level of cookery. She actually worked in fine dining NYC restaurants, so I know she can do it, but she really seems to have leveled up since the Kentucky season. Also Nicole is completely correct about needing to heat up the cooking vessels before pouring in the yorkshire pudding batter, but god, if she said "yorkies" one more time -- those poor pups!

From what I remember of the Kentucky season, Sarah surprised herself during the season, and it really gave her a lot of confidence. I think that is what you are seeing.