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Top Chef Texas

March 1, 2012 by · Comments Off on Top Chef Texas 

Top Chef Texas, After 29 chefs (and what felt like 29 episodes), “Top Chef: Texas” crowned a winner. In the end, Paul got the Food and Wine magazine feature and added $125,000 to his already sizable stack of winnings. And it was never really in doubt.

OK, that last part is a lie. This was one of the tightest finales in the show’s nine seasons, with Tom saying it was the best food they’ve eaten.

For the final challenge, Paul and Sarah had to create a four-course tasting menu. A bunch of booted “Texas” chefs and two established American chefs each made a Quickfire dish, which Paul and Sarah blind taste-tested to determine teams.

Paul’s first pick turned out to be master chef Barbara Lynch, and he rounded out his crew with Ty-Lor, Keith and Pretty Chris.

Sarah had a strong group with Nyesha, Heather and Grayson. Unfortunately she also chose Tyler, who made the quickest exit in “Top Chef” history after flubbing basic butchering on day one. Both chefs blatantly avoided making eye contact with this guy, like when some hack cruise ship comedian is looking to pluck a volunteer.

When it came time to plan the dishes and cook, though, Paul and Sarah were in command, determined not to let anyone derail them. As Sarah put it: “I’m trying to get Tyler to feel like he’s part of the group, when really I don’t give a s***.” For once, I agreed with her.

For Paul’s first course, he presented chawanmushi (which the Google machine says is a Japanese steamed egg custard) with spot prawns. The first group of judges said it was exceptional, citing the silky smooth texture. But for the second rotation, the batch was an overcooked mess.

Next was grilled sea bass with clam dashi, radishes and mushrooms. The whole dish exhibited Paul’s deft use of contrast, and the broth was “brilliant.”

Top Chef Texas

December 22, 2011 by · Comments Off on Top Chef Texas 

Top Chef TexasTop Chef Texas, Immediately following the ugly dust-up between “Queen of Mean” (Padma’s words, not mine) Heather and the surprisingly resilient Beverly – more on their ongoing feud later – Padma announced that the Top Chef caravan is heading to Austin! I’ve never been, but it’s awfully trendy to sing Austin’s praises, so I’ll do so: Austin rocks, it’s totally the Little Five Points of Central Texas! (A thousand Disqus “likes” to anyone who gets that reference).

Paul, who’s been extremely preoccupied with representing Austin all season, was “sweating balls” (or sweating “from” them? I don’t get it and don’t want to) over the prospect of getting eliminated in his hometown. Previously, all we knew about Paul was that he’s from Texas and he doubts himself a lot even though he’s kinda awesome. But last night we got a disturbing glimpse at his misspent youth: Before he found his way to culinary school, he sold weed and was too lazy to rid his nasty apartment of dog doodie. As it did for Keith Rhodes, cooking saved Paul from a life of crime. Cheffing is my anti-drug!

Last night’s “high-tech” Quickfire Challenge was probably better in theory than in execution, but it made for some small thrills nevertheless. Fans could decide the twists and turns of the challenge by tweeting in suggestions. The Twitterverse started by lobbing a real softball at the chefs: Cook something with bacon! In reality competition terms, cooking with bacon is the equivalent to singing “God Bless America” on American Idol or the opposite of stepping up as Project Manager on Celebrity Apprentice. It’s the safest move you can make because everyone loves bacon, and everyone loves talking about how much they love bacon.

Of course, the Tweeters threw e-wrenches into things. In honor of hashtags, everyone had to incorporate a hash into their dish. Then, each contestant had to incorporate an ingredient selected by a competitor. Ooh, to the Twitter troll who dreamed that one up, nice thinking! Lindsay handed Crary maple syrup, and Crary handed her a bottle of Sriracha sauce, which Lindsay treated like a Mario Kart banana peel. My powers of reasoning tell me Beverly would have been happy to receive Sriracha sauce.

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