Top Chef Boston

New season underway and I didn’t see a thread, so thought I’d start one. First thing I noticed is that Richard is pretty annoying. Don’t know that I’d have given him this job. We’ll see, he could yet improve.

Second, the first chef eliminated made a mistake by letting his ego take charge. He picked the guy who works at Jean-Georges to challenge instead of the young woman who took forever to do lobsters and ultimately made broccoli for the challenge.

Also, that girl made broccoli for her first TC challenge. Wow. I’d have sent her home. But the other guy deserved to go home for having such a horrific haircut.

Early ones to watch seem to be the three winners from the episode: the aforementioned chef from J-G, the young Asian woman who works with Mike V, and the short guy. Clearly this is based upon very limited data, and biased by the amount of screen time they were afforded. Either way, they did seem the most impressive in that challenge, though I’ll hardly seem prescient for choosing the obvious. Too early to see much in the way of darker horses. The young woman from Boston maybe, also the bigger gentleman(?).

Very good summary. I agree with everything you posted, especially about Richard. Tom seems a little less visible this year, so I wonder if this is a transition plan? Richard is just too loud for me. Also, I’m just waiting to get his incredible lack of confidence when reviewing a dish.

Aaron is pretty annoying. Curious to see his cooking chops. Overall, I like a most of the cheftestants, minus Aaron.

Someone should bust Aaron’s jaw, so he shuts the hell up.

Thanks for the reminder. Just picked up the season on iTunes so I can stream it over here in Switzerland.

Agreed, I hope that Aaron disappears really soon.

Aaron is probably the biggest d-bag in the history of TC and that’s saying something.

You had two hours to cook and that’s all you made?

They had short ribs but I didn’t see any of them on any plates. I know you can’t make traditional short ribs in two hours but you can get creative. Cook them in a pressure cooker. Make tartare. Make a frikkin’ burger for crying out loud – they’re cops and firefighters!

If all you have to do is grill pork chops, how the heck do you mess that up in 2 hours? I’m assuming they have access to some kind of thermometer type technology. In two hours you should be able to do a 30 minute brine and make sure they’re all done perfectly.

Finally watched last week’s, I’m always behind on these. Aaron is such a D-bag. In the early running to be amongst the most reviled TC chefs ever, though hopefully he won’t stick around that long as he seems to lack focus, vision and talent.

Tim, I assume you mean the veal that was undercooked, not Pork. I think the danger with cooking a large batch of huge pieces of meat is that you want to get it done at just the right time to insure proper doneness and I can see how it would go wrong. You’d also assume that a professional chef would get it right. I’m glad she went home, she tried really hard to blame her error on having to compromise her vision for the team, and that just wasn’t the problem. Even if she had a different preparation idea, it was still simply on her to execute.

It’s a delicate balance in TC to not accept too much blame for that which is out of your control or the direct fault of another, but to not be underhanded or whiney.

James Rigato is a small town guy that has a really nice farm to table restaurant 5 minutes from my house, really in the middle of nowhere. Would love to see him go far on the show. Expect he will.

Yes, the veal. Gail had some interesting comments in her blog. Recall that Joy, at the beginning, said the veal chop was too thick and wanted to take it off the bone. Everyone else said no so she went along with it.

It’s criminal to hack up a nice bone in chop. It is a really simple affair to mark them off on the grill and then finish them on a raised rack in the oven to temp.

Eric, that is really what I was thinking too, baste them in butter too. See no reason to try to finish at the beginning and don’t think anyone would have been thrilled to see them taken off the bone.

Also, that format was tough. Following massive protein servings of great stuff with whatever you get stuck with was a tall order. The fact that the chicken was nailed in the last group was really amazing, so I guess it can be done. In any case I thought it a tremendous disadvantage to the later teams, and no mention was made of that by the judges. I mean, normally its sucks going last but you may at least get to follow small courses, not full on multi-protein meals essentially.

I enjoyed the episode last night. I thought it was interesting how they tried to show a softer side of Aaron. Too bad Katie couldn’t beat him – probably only because she didn’t taste her food. How do you not taste a dish for seasoning before handing it over? A grind of sea salt on top and she might have sent Aaron packing.

If there is one thing TC contestants should know by now – if you are going to make braised short ribs or risotto for Tom, you better absolutely do it perfectly (and it better be what Tom considers perfect). Inexcusable after 11 seasons in the books.

Ron’s dish look unappetizing to me. I’m not quite sure what he was going for there – might have been good on a cold winter’s night in front of a fire but not in the summer alongside 10 other dishes.

Katsuji knows he over-complicates his dishes and yet cannot help it. I don’t think he will last very long.

Gregory is killing it week after week. He’s got the bulls-eye on his back now. Tom warned everyone to not let him run away with it, but everyone knows that one slip up will send him on his way.

Bow & Truss (place where Aaron is the chef) is very average. Went once and was not memorable at all. Bar was decent, but food was average.

On a side note- Girasal, Cj Jacobson’s (Past Season of Top Chef) place is also in my neighborhood and absolutely delicious.

Maybe something will happen, but other than 1 or 2 of the contestants, I don’t feel like the talent is nearly up to the caliber of previous seasons.

Good synopsis Tim. You are right that Ron’s dish looked unappealing. The croquet as baseball metaphor maybe but the entire presentation was disastrous.

Also good call re. short ribs and (particularly) risotto. If you’re going to try it you’d better execute. Not sure I’ve ever seen anyone make risotto Tom actually liked. FWIW, I try to get it as fluid as he wants and find it hard to do so. (Of course I’m not a professional chef so I guess I have some excuse!)
In any case, it’s like some of them haven’t watched the old episodes, which seems a big mistake.

For those that do try to braise tough cuts in short time too few of them use the pressure cooker. I’m not that experienced with it but if I was trying to cheat time I’d certainly try.

Katsuji is probably not long for this game, but is a good personality so they will be loathe to cut him too early. Aaron may be the biggest a*shole in the history of the show, which is saying something.

Gregory looks like the likely winner and has all along. Vision and execution.

Pretty decent episode. Was surprised Katsuji got the win as he doesn’t seem to be all that talented, but maybe I am underrating him.

I liked the Cheers challenge. I liked the elimination challenge as well, with the one caveat being about the gluten free aspect. I guess it shows how a chef can think on their feet, but to spring them at the end, seemed a bit too much of a curveball. I think two of the weaker chefs were eliminated. Nothing in this episode changed my view of the top.

Are they having Last Chance Kitchen this year?

Yes: Last Chance Kitchen Is Coming | Last Chance Kitchen Blog

He’s really lucky he had immunity otherwise he would have been sent packing. He seems to be the most up and down contestant this season. I think he’s skating on thin ice and will be gone soon.

James’ food seemed “strange” to me. It seemed like he was going for some old-school-fancy cuisine. The dishes he put out never looked that good to me.

Richard is really very annoying as a judge. I prefer Emeril which I’m surprised at since he was such an over the top lunatic on Emeril Live. On Top Chef, he was a very down to earth guy not looking like he was trying to impress anyone.

I was talking with my wife about the different personalities on the show. It’s almost as if they have a check-list for each season. Katsuji is the guy with the heavy accent, Aaron is the jerk, Keriann is the attractive blonde, Ron was the heavy guy who cooked simple food, Stacy is the girl who’s rough around the edges… I could go on…

Yeah, the first group got screwed by getting the gluten free memo only at that moment, while subsequent groups had time to prepare. The first group had no time to prepare gluten free pasta or any reasonable stand-in.

Mai is hot !!!

I finally got up on all of these. With the exception of Mai and Gregory, overall talent seems to be down. The sudden death quickfires are interesting, and talk about pressure–one screw up and…

As is typical, the biggest egos on the show are not the best cooks.

If Richard says, “When I was a contestant…” one more time… He’s the Joe Theisman of TC.

Not enough jubilation for Aaron being cut! Maybe I’m blanking on past years, but I thought it was really lazy that he went to the seafood pasta again.