Tournament of Champions - Season 6 Discussion Thread

[Harry24]

Anyone watch last night’s opening round of qualifying?  They have 16 chefs (including Jonathon Sawyer, Chris Oh, Carlos Anthony, Dawn Burrell, and others who were familiar to me), who are each competing in a single one-on-one “cook in” to claim one of eight free spots in the main draw.

Some thoughts:

I really do like Jonathon and wish him well in his continuing work for sobriety (didn’t know that about him.  Love that he and Stephanie Izzard are a pickleball team - although I’m not a pickleball fan.  Play tennis, people under 85!!!  It’s amazing!). He won against Jacob Town, who is a DDD chef who evidently excelled in at least one GGG appearance.  Unfortunately he seemed overmatched in this context.

Oh, Dawn ....... !!!  Dawn Burrell once again graced our screens with her beautiful and evidently extraordinarily delicious cooking, as well as her propensity to flame out in competitive situations.  She forgot to plate one of her randomizer ingredients until the last five seconds and only got a slice or two of button mushrooms onto the plate.  She lost by seven points (!!!) to Carlos Anthony.  Sigh.

Chris Oh looks different.  I didn’t recognize him.  It may simply be the aging process that bites us all, but damn.  He beat a chef whose first name is Mika by one point.

 

[woofy]

Two reasons not to watch -- the exceedingly arrogant Carlos Anthony and the child lackey Hunter Fieri.  Enough already!

[DEL901]

Thanks for the reminder.  Watching now.   I can’t (well, really I can), Dawn didn’t just forget to plate the mushrooms right until the last second, she forgot to even cook them!  And then she thought she still might win. 

Not surprised, though.  She went on Beat Bobby Flay and didn’t make it to go against Bobby.  Btw, from her first Top Chef season, he who shall not be named lost to Bobby.  And Shota won his episode.  

Edited February 17 by DEL901

[MerBearHou]

I like Dawn so much but my gosh, she cannot manage the clock in these things AT ALL.  It happens over and over for her.

[mlp]

2 hours ago, Harry24 said:

Chris Oh looks different.  I didn’t recognize him.  It may simply be the aging process that bites us all, but damn.  He beat a chef whose first name is Mika by one point.

 

When Chris was on 24 in 24 he had white hair.  I liked it.  Now he's back to his natural color but his face is older so he looks different.  He's come a long way since he was on TGFTR due to hard work.  I've always liked him.  I did not like Mika on 24 in 24.  I thought she seemed overly impressed with herself.

Carlos has toned down his mini-Malarkey shtick.  Thank goodness.  I wish he'd drop it altogether.  He didn't act like that when he was on Wildcard Kitchen and I liked him a lot better.  From things I've read, I gather that he's an excellent chef.

Dawn is just not cut out to be a competition chef.  No shame in that.

Did Hunter Fieri get married?  I thought he was wearing a wedding ring but couldn't be sure.

[Bastet]

I haven't watched yet, but am bummed about Dawn.  Not remotely surprised, though.  Some day she has to acknowledge timed competition is not her thing.  For her to go so far in Top Chef despite missing plating deadlines speaks to how utterly delicious her food is, and she often missed by mere seconds, so I can see thinking she'd improve on the timing with practice.  But it's not happening.

[Grizzly]

4 hours ago, mlp said:

Did Hunter Fieri get married?  I thought he was wearing a wedding ring but couldn't be sure.

Last I knew, he had a fiancee. She's a pickle ball champion 🤣

I'm eager to see how well Stephanie Boswell does at this since I've only watched her do baking shows. Besides Carlos's round, I was happy with the results. As a James Beard winner, it's sad that Jonathan has to get in through qualifying. 

Edited February 18 by Grizzly

[bad things are bad]

I hated that they felt the need to zhuzh it up, with some shots of cooking in slo-mo, then sped up. Just straightforward cooking, please. And dial the Hunter down to 10 seconds per episode

[Salacious Kitty]

I think there will be less Hunter when they get to the main brackets in a couple weeks. 

[Ancaster]

5 hours ago, woofy said:

Two reasons not to watch -- the exceedingly arrogant Carlos Anthony and the child lackey Hunter Fieri.  Enough already!

Too bad Hunter Fieri still hasn't learnt how to grow a personality, and Guy Fieri still hasn't learnt to leave him at home.

And what the hell was with that hideous denim bow/shirt on Tiffani Faison?

Edited February 18 by Ancaster

[ALittleShelfish]

I don't know if I can take much more Carlos.  Regardless of whatever he's talking about, he seems like he's trying to hit a word count.  He could make watching water boil sound simply exhausting. 

[janeyjay]

10 hours ago, ALittleShelfish said:

I don't know if I can take much more Carlos.  Regardless of whatever he's talking about, he seems like he's trying to hit a word count.  He could make watching water boil sound simply exhausting. 

I feel like he's the person version of "fetch" -- stop trying to make Carlos Anthony happen.

[meep.meep]

A little late, but happy that Maria made it!

[Bastet]

Ugh.  While I already knew Dawn beat herself again (I loved Tiffani saying it broke her heart the chef didn't use mushrooms well enough), I didn't realize it was against Carlos.  He better go out in the first round (of the main competition) again like the last two times, because I cannot stand him!

On the flip side, I absolutely adored Maria on her season of Top Chef and always wanted to reach through the screen and grab her food.  Her dish here looked and sounded fantastic, too.  I'm glad she won.  I was really surprised Bruce got one more presentation point than she did; I thought hers was more interesting visually. 

[HyeChaps]

I believe that Tiff will be the second commentator with Justin for the real competition.

I wonder if the chefs stuck with Hunter describing their dishes were at a disadvantage.

[Salacious Kitty]

30 minutes ago, HyeChaps said:

I believe that Tiff will be the second commentator with Justin for the real competition.

I wonder if the chefs stuck with Hunter describing their dishes were at a disadvantage.

Hunter's chefs won two and lost two on Sunday's broadcast. But his descriptions were nowhere near Justin's. 

[Ancaster]

What I don't understand is how Dawn had the discipline to be an Olympic athlete, but not the discipline to get a plate of food out on time.  My timeline with her is:

• Liked her
• Was frustrated by her terrible timing
• Rolled my eyes at the producers constantly reminding us that she was an Olympian but still liked her
• Tried to keep on liking her despite her excuse-making regarding timing
• Wondered how she won any athletic events that involved timing (including long jump)
• Threw my hands up again at her ineptitude regarding timing
• Lost all patience with her
• Wondered why she kept thinking she would excel at timed competitions  - is it hubris, ego, or does she just live in LaLa Land?
• Was glad to see her gone

Edited Wednesday at 07:05 AM by Ancaster

[jcbrown]

I was sad to see Dawn lose and, more to the point, to see Carlos win. Glad to see Jonathan go through. I liked both Chris Oh and Mika but I do think he is a better chef.

Please, Guy, get your inarticulate charisma-sink of a son off our screens.

Oh, and I also wondered who Tiffani pissed off to end up in that atrocious denim bow monstrosity of a shirt.

[DEL901]

I didn’t like Pyet before, and now I really dislike her and hope she is knocked out in the first round by a really lopsided score.  

[susannot]

OK, Pyet got in on her second chance.  Good luck to her. 

I love Brittany Anderson.

[Grizzly]

I was soooo happy Brittany beat Demetry. He rubs me the wrong way. Was hoping Stephanie could advance but she didn't utilize the randomizer well. I didn't know anyone in the other 2 contests so didn't care. 

[MerBearHou]

Interesting to watch the after-show tonight and see all of the match-ups and hear the bits of commentary from Justin and Tiffani.  Shallow note:   Tiffani’s style was awful again tonight — yikes.  Some of the match-ups are tough because I really, really like both chefs; others are a PLEASE beat so-and-so.  Now that I’ve seen the whole field, I am more confused than ever why Jonathon Sawyer was a qualifier who had to cook-in to get to the big board.  He is as acclaimed as many of those who didn’t have to “play in”.  

[Ancaster]

1 hour ago, MerBearHou said:

Interesting to watch the after-show tonight and see all of the match-ups and hear the bits of commentary from Justin and Tiffani.  Shallow note:   Tiffani’s style was awful again tonight — yikes.  Some of the match-ups are tough because I really, really like both chefs; others are a PLEASE beat so-and-so.  Now that I’ve seen the whole field, I am more confused than ever why Jonathon Sawyer was a qualifier who had to cook-in to get to the big board.  He is as acclaimed as many of those who didn’t have to “play in”.  

I'm right by you with the shallow note.  Don't they have a stylist on this show?  Between Tiffani's shirt and Maneet's dress, not to mention the abomination that is Guy's jewelry (and his son), it's a disaster.

And what the hell do you mean by "Biggest tournament in the food world", Guy?  Biggest shitstorm?  Biggest cast of random cooks?  (And by the way, despite what you said, we haven't all heard of the Botoxed pastry chef whose name I've already forgotten.)

Edited 8 hours ago by Ancaster

[Salacious Kitty]

The pastry chef is Stephanie Boswell. She's awesome, but I think she needs to stay in her lane. 

[mlp]

I didn't know many of the chefs this round so I didn't get very excited about any of the matches.  I didn't care for Pyet on Next Level Chef so I was hoping her opponent would win.  It was sort of interesting to see Dara all grown up,  I have nothing against her but I was happy David moved on.  I like Stephanie Boswell but her concept wasn't great and her fish sandwich didn't look all that good so I wasn't surprised when she lost.

I can't believe that Maneet agreed to wear that awful dress.  It looked like something I wore to the junior prom in 1961.

[LexieLily]

The second matchup, Pyet vs. Ashleigh, was a hot mess on both sides, to be honest. Guy didn't look pleased with either of them. Are 67/60 the lowest scores on TOC thus far?

[Bastet]

I'm happy for Brittany; I remember her from her defeat of the titans on Bobby's Triple Threat, because her (German) cuisine was not high up on my list of favorites yet I was quite impressed by what she did and cheered that win.  I hate potatoes but love me some chicken wings (so I wanted someone to use the potato masher on something other than potatoes), and I wanted hers much more than the other chef's.  It's interesting that while she beat him by two points each on taste and presentation, he got two more randomizer points than she did -- just on the cheesy?  I didn't perceive that much of a difference.

I really liked Ashleigh on Top Chef and was unfamiliar with Pyet, so I was really bummed to see Ashleigh implode like that.  Pyet obviously won big (four points) on randomizer, which I get, but she won the other categories as well (two on presentation and one on taste), so it's interesting even her winning score was so low.  Yikes.