Rick Moonen was clearly the winner his simpl but perfectly executed dishes were perfect and his outside the box venison was amazing
Susor Lee was clearly the Top Chef Master day in and day out he should have won
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I completely disagreed with the winner and thought that Rick Moonen should have won with a close second to Susor Lee who was day in and day out an amazing chef.
I think the judges were more interested in his sob story rather then the foodQ
I clearly thought this was bull shit and the real top chef master was clearly not Marcus.
Though perhaps not as vehemently as you, I agree. I was surprised that Susur was as relatively off his game as he was, and that brought it down to Rick and Marcus. It’s all so subjective, and lest we forget, it is a TV show. It’s no less a free lump of clay than American Idol when you get down to it.
I think Susur was stronger throughout the season, but tonight I don’t think his dishes were the best. I think Marcus was the weekest of the three during the whole season, but it seems that there were fewer errors on his dishes in the final. If they held the finale again it could go to any of them.
Big fan of the show. Susur was the strongest throughout. I thought he seemed to have the best dihes, edging Rick (who I wanted to win). With the editing, you really can’t tell what everyone thought of the dishes. Marcus seemed to be #3 to me, but who knows?
I was also surprised… the judges unanimously disliked his fish dish and I was shocked at the 4.5 and 5 star scores for Marcus… generally he was unanimously criticized throughout the competition, though he was stronger in the last two episodes…
Gail’s comment re Marcus’s last dishes probably carried the day - and though I apprieciated the comment, I thought it could be used to defend less than stellar food.
If my mother’s dreadful cooking inspired me to learn to cook, can I serve you grey vegetables and well done meat and have it be deemed good, because it reflects the things that inform my cooking heritage? Sounds like an excuse to me.
I felt the same way. What was really odd is that I’ve had Ethiopian tartare-like dishes (not wrapped in hamachi though) and they have not been tough or chewy which I thought one of the judges had noted.
I thought that Susur was the strongest throughout the entire competition, but his meal did seem a little weak.
It seemed like Marcus did great on the last meal though he did seem to struggle most of the season.
Tough to call without tasting the food though. i will say, this looked like some of the best food cooked on any of the Top Chef programs to me.
I actually thought Susser won. The only real critisism was the shape and size of his dish not really anything to do with flavor. Increasingly I’m finding more politics getting involved with these decisions.
Although the food looked great and he can cook for me anytime, while watching, i felt that with practice I could make many of the things that Rick was making. When I looked at Sussers stuff, even with a recipe and help, I know for a fact my knife skills, etc would not allow me to do it.
This was my problem with the outcome. If someone comes up big in just the finale, but skates through the rest of the season, that is good enough to win? I know that there is something to putting the blinders on for the finale and just take their final meals for what they were, in this case, the differential in the performance between Marcus and Suser, and Marcus and Moonen to a lesser degree, was just too glaring IMO, and the judges should have taken that into account.
That was clear when they sent Susan Feniger home for her “sandwich”. She, in my mind, was the best chef up to that one dish. Not a perfect system, but I think that all the chef’s understand the rules.
Watching Suser and Waxman this season was a real treat. Both chefs have great personalities and made me laugh again and again. Suser’s confusion about “other chefs” at the tailgate was perfect.
If you follow show’s blogs/etc, you will see than Jay Rayner’s lack of understanding about sustainability cost Moonen the .5 star difference.
You do have to admit that Marcus’ pre-emptitive ‘this dish will be challenging to Western palates’ schtick was brilliant psychology as none of the pompous self-important judges would ever be willing to admit they didn’t get it.
Yes that drove me nuts. They have them shopping at a fricking Whole Foods in the middle of a city. WTF. Moonen was working with the best ingredients he had available to him, period. The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy. The thing I dislike most about this show are Oseland and Rayner in particular. They undermine the whole show.
It gets extra-stupid since the sea-shipping of the venison from NZ (where it can be raised in a minimally environmental impact manner) has less carbon footprint than much locally-raised stuff much less air-freighted seafood.
“Food Miles” is the cool thing these days. That said, doesn’t take much skill to cook a chunk of butchered venison loin. “Just don’t screw with it” is the motto.
I took note of that as well. Don’t seem to recall any of the judges liking his last dish and so I was very surprised that Marcus ended up winning. They raved about the other dishes in that course but yet seemed to give Marcus some type of “extra credit” even though they didn’t seem to like the dish. Ultimately, I don’t think that “extra credit” was fair to the other guys because apart from the schtick I got the sense that they didn’t think it was otherwise well prepared.