so tonight's 2nd ep starts with a craps table, which Gordon Ramsey started with last night on Hells Kitchen...hmmmmm.

but anyway, who's watching Season 6? cash money at stake this year!

no fun europeans this year, just the guy w/ the freakin bandanna.

8/26/2009 10:16:54 PM

i watch this with my fiancee, although we don't have cable so we have to wait a week for it to come up online somewhere

we did watch the top chef masters thing too, which was good.

8/26/2009 11:14:41 PM

I'm glad Bayless won masters, that menu he did for the final competition looked flat-out incredible. Would love to try that black mole.

I don't understand bandana dude. Strangest accessory ever. Though so far I think the two eliminations have been the right call...

8/27/2009 9:45:22 AM

Bandanna dude is not actually bandanna dude. Mattin wears a kerchief that's traditional in the Basque region of France, where he's originally from.

So glad Eve went home. Her speech impediment was distracting. And she looks like Mary Kay LeTourneau.

Eli reminds me of Jonah Hill. I keep waiting for him to crack jokes. I wanted to love him since he worked under Richard Blais, but so far I'm not very impressed.

My favs for final four are the brothers, Kevin and Jen. The brothers absolutely wowed me in the last episode--the gazpacho sounded awesome! And Bryan's macaroon? YUM! I want Bryan V to win it all. He reminds me of Harold from Season 1 ... very stoic and all about the food.

The prob with Jen making it through to the end is that we may not get to see Eric Ripert as a judge, since she works for him. Maybe they'll do a blind judging with Ripert? I am so in love with Eric Ripert. And after TC Masters, I'm also in love with Hubert Keller and Rick Bayless. Oh. God. TC Masters was awesome. Rick made tongue sound delicious.

PS-Isn't Ash Fulk a really unfortunate name for a gay man?

[Edited on September 1, 2009 at 1:07 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2009 12:59:31 PM

Hector's restaurant Pura Vida in Atlanta was my #2 favorite restaurant in Atlanta behind Rathbun's

best fucking tapas in town AND they can make a great Dark and Stormy

[Edited on September 1, 2009 at 5:44 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2009 5:44:44 PM

Quote :

"Mattin wears a kerchief"

I think this is what we in the business call "semantics." There is barely a difference b/w a bandanna and a kercief.

Either way it makes him look douchey. If a texan was constantly wearing the "traditional" cowboy hat all the time, I would prob call him a douche too.

9/1/2009 9:56:47 PM

^^ Hector kind of lost me in the first ep when he smoked and deep fried the steak. Like, really?

^ And it does look douchey, but I'm sure we all wear douchey things based on where we live. I wear flip flops every day, even to work.

So, tonight I'm praying for no whiny lesbians.

9/2/2009 8:31:59 AM

^i'm surprised she didnt whine about homosexuals being allowed in the military

i guess she only cares about equal rights when it is personally helpful.

9/5/2009 9:08:04 PM

in her defense, she was probably baited into complaining about the marriage thing by the producers.

9/6/2009 12:20:38 PM

my top 4 are the brothers, the blonde bitchy chick, and the fat dude with the red beard.


the brothers seem too accomplished for this show. one of them won the james beard award already...the other already has a star at his restaurant. they're on the show to get a quick quarter mil.

9/6/2009 11:05:51 PM

Jen (the bitchy blonde) is an exec chef under eric ripert. She doesn't have tons to gain from the show. Kevin (red beard) stands to gain a ton. I think Bryan's restaurant, Volt, will get tons more biz from the show. And Mike V wants to open his own restaurant, so that's prob what he'll use the $$$ for if he wins.

I wanted my southern boys, kevin and eli, to win the air force challenge. I fell in love with their dish.

And thank the lord Preeti is gone. Too bad she couldn't have taken Laurine and Jessie with her.

9/7/2009 9:32:51 PM

The producers of this show are really going to have to do something special to make the rest of this season at all interesting. It has been clear from the beginning that only 4 contestants have any shot at winning - the brothers, the blond girl from Philly, and redbeard. The rest of the contestants are hardly in the same league and they know it.

9/10/2009 3:43:33 PM

Jen and Mike V are SO hooking up this season. They have some pretty great chemistry. These two are so cute! It's not nasty like Hosea and Leah from last season.

I really want them to go ahead and send everyone home except Kevin, Jen, the brothers and Ash (for comic relief only--he's entertaining).

Last night's ep made me really hungry for escargot. And the chocolate peanut butter bread pudding from last week sounded divine!

I think I would eat anything that Kevin put in front of me. He seems to be able to make down-home food sophisticated and amazing. Bacon jam? DOES WANT.

[Edited on September 10, 2009 at 3:51 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2009 3:48:59 PM

^Mike V. is totally sexy but he is married and has two kids.

I am hoping Mike, Jen, Bryan, or Ashley will win. I know Ashley is annoying but her food, excluding the panna cotta, looks really great.

Overall I think Jen should win. She has yet to mess up anything.

9/10/2009 3:56:10 PM

I'm pretty sure Mike V is single. Bryan is married with children.

9/10/2009 5:11:44 PM

any way to watch this show on the interwebs?

9/10/2009 5:19:55 PM

The episodes usually show up on the day after on http://www.surfthechannel.com

[Edited on September 10, 2009 at 5:24 PM. Reason : http://www.surfthechannel.com/show/3537.html]

9/10/2009 5:24:00 PM

I agree that the brothers, beardface and jen are the good chefs that I enjoy watching. my gf and I seem to agree that this season is bad, maybe the worst, in terms of chef personalities, but it's still top chef, so it's still a good show....

but, still

this season has so many characters that I flat out don't like
1) robin: old creepy "I've never done this!" (how is that possible at such an age?) lady who teamed with
2) ron: whiny Haitian (I really wanted to like a big fat black guy from the carib but he is kind of a little bitch)
3) Ashley (shutup shutup shutup and take off the ben folds glasses)
4) ey yo mikeyyyyyyyy
man he's annoying. glad to see he got his balls busted last week after coming in swinging in ep 1

mattin I lost a lot of interest in after being a little bitch at the judges table with his excuses

ash and eli I can see hanging for another 4-5 shows just cause they are likeable-enough to the producers and are pretty decent

and
... who are you again?

9/11/2009 11:55:52 AM

I think everyone's in agreement that those four are the four to beat.

Aside from cooking, I was particularly impressed by Jen's job as the exec chef during the Air Force challenge. That kind of role always tends to crash and burn on cooking reality shows because everyone always has such strong personalities and they usually clash with whoever is given that authority.

With the producers honing in on her comments about being a bitch in the kitchen, and the general tendency to exaggerate any drama in a reality show, if there were any complaints at all about her performance coordinating, we would have heard about it to no end. But apparently, despite the scarcity of proper cooking apparatuses, she must have done brilliantly, because no one seemed to have anything but respect for her.


They've obviously made a conscious effort to raise the bar on the quality of contestants this season, but the problem is that if you're going to do that, you have to go all out. They should either all be like in previous seasons, or all be award nominees and/or starred chefs. Having a half-and-half mix of James Beard nominees and regular catering or restaurant exec chefs, even though I'm sure they run pretty nice restaurants, results in having a small group of obvious frontrunners, and weeks worth of sorting through chefs who wouldn't exactly have been dead weight in previous seasons, but clearly don't have a shot at the podium this time.

[Edited on September 11, 2009 at 2:06 PM. Reason : ]

9/11/2009 2:05:52 PM

I agree to an extent, but careful viewing of previous seasons shows that the judges (at least theoretically) vote people off based solely on the day's performance-- not their overall pedigree or even their overall performance on the show. Thus, anyone can (and likely will) have a bad day and get sent packing earlier than we expect. Perfect example-- Tre from season 3

9/11/2009 2:17:11 PM

you've got to remember the disclaimer in the end though...

judge's decisions were made with input from the producers. I think moreso now than ever they won't let a "good", likeable judge get voted off too early even on a bad day

9/11/2009 4:13:26 PM

i make some bomb ass escargot

and jen would be prob be pretty hot/cute if she had a chin

9/15/2009 10:20:06 PM

^^ not like i pay attention, but i hadn't seen that disclaimer before. i think last week's decision may have been an instance where producer interference occurred. that girl who was with the french guy has continually sucked and she basically just sat there and said "yeah, it sucked". i don't think the producers wanted to send home 5 chicks in a row to start the season.

9/15/2009 10:49:12 PM

^in this case, this dish sucking wasn't her fault. she was following frenchie's lead and he fucked it up then tried to blame her. meanwhile, dude fucked that beef up pretty hardcore

they're being judged on how they do that day, not overall

9/15/2009 11:42:58 PM

I think Hector was sent home because he screwed up something as basic as beef.

I'm thinking the loser tonight will be either Mattin or Robin.

9/16/2009 8:35:09 AM

everyone in the bottom could have been sent packing. everyone gave some sort of lame excuse. hector was arguably the worst, if only because he had the simplest task. still, we are deciding between different levels of suckitude, and I would like to think that given similarly inept performances, the contestant with the most promising prior performance would be spared.

i'm thinking the girl who got pissed about gay marriage, the old lady with cancer, or frenchy are do for the chopping block tonight. also, god help the guy from jersey if he doesn't have someone more talented think up his dish for him.

9/16/2009 10:24:58 AM

I just love this show for (as much as it possibly can) always putting the competitions and the cooking first.

Very little drama. And when there is, like with Stefan being a control freak last season, it was competition-oriented and not just a "clashing personalities under the same roof" kinda crap we see on other shows. Hell's Kitchen comes to mind.

I liked Hector, but that guy fucked up steak more than once on a cooking show. Both brothers are awesome, but I love the ridiculous levels of competence the older one shows off. He freaking KNOWS how to do EVERYTHING, and he seems to fall back on realy simple steak preparations as his go-to.

Robin, Ashley, Mattin, Ash, Laurine (who? exactly.) all seem lowest-rung.

Eli, Jersey Mike, and Ron seem to have a little more going for them, but barring anything ridiculous, we'll probably see a beardly/brotherly/chinless hottie top 4.

9/16/2009 11:42:33 AM

spoiler ---> looks like frenchy couldn't take the heat. usa #1

it is really looking like a contest between the two brothers now. philly girl seems like she can only do fish.

9/16/2009 11:07:46 PM

Padma is preggers! http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b146928_miracle_baby_top_chefs_padma_lakshmi.html

Baby daddy and due date a mystery atm.

10/2/2009 7:46:47 AM

Kind of bullshit that there was no new episode this week. Switched from cable to directv and went to great lengths to make sure the service was set up by Wednesday evening, and was greatly disappointed when I turned it on to find a repeat.

10/2/2009 10:04:08 AM

Especially considering last night's episode, I don't think Ash or Eli will be around much longer. Seems like Ash has already decided he's not going to win, and Eli murdered that gnocchi and didn't seem to contribute a whole lot.

And I'm kind of confused how Mike I/Robin managed to come up with a decent dish, considering that neither one of them is that great and Mike was actively trying to keep Robin's input/cooking out despite not knowing anything about asian cuisine. Both of them can go too as far as I'm concerned.

10/8/2009 9:16:45 AM

just leave jennifer, the brothers, and kevin. lose everyone else.

10/8/2009 3:03:23 PM

man i was hoping they'd ditch Robin last night, i liked Ash.

yeah he should have done better, and shouldn't have changed his mind about the dish.... but they said the 2 girls dishes tasted like cat food and instant coffee sludge. i think they just can't keep ditching the females, even though most of them clearly suck.

10/15/2009 1:42:39 PM

I liked Ash...he seemed like one of the good guys and he was funny. I guess they considered his lack of confidence/willingness to cook his own food a worse sin than producing something that tasted nasty, which is a judgment call. I was expecting cat food lady to go personally, and I've never really liked her anyway...she had one good run when she was paired with Brian V, other than that she's extremely bitchy and doesn't seem that talented. Then again neither does Robin, but maybe they're keeping her around to prolong the drama...

The longer this runs, the more I find myself hoping Kevin wins. Though I don't think there's any question the final four will be the brothers, Kevin, and Jen.

10/15/2009 3:15:37 PM

^ ding, ding, ding. we have a winner

the more the other chefs bitch and moan about robin, the longer they'll keep her. she's also "oh, i survived cancer lady" so they'll keep her just for that as well.

here is my prediction for the next eleminations

Laurine
Eli
Robin
Michael I.

then the brother, jenn, and kevin will be the last 4. I think kevin will win personally, but it is up in the air. and wtf is it with kevin winning eliminations and getting shitty prizes. jenn wins and gets 10k when she was paired with kevin. kevin wins twice and gets a set of non stick cookware he'll never use and spot as a guest cook next year. WTF

10/15/2009 4:41:27 PM

^last time he took $50k $15k as the quick fire prize.... which seems like a decent amount. could have sworn i heard them say $50k when watching the episode....

i think kevin has a good shot at winning, but even if he doesn't, i'm sure he'll at least make top 3-4... and with the number of rounds he won, i'm sure his restaurant(s?) will be extremely successful.

[Edited on October 15, 2009 at 8:50 PM. Reason : ]

10/15/2009 8:48:21 PM

Quote :

"I guess they considered his lack of confidence/willingness to cook his own food a worse sin than producing something that tasted nasty, which is a judgment call. I was expecting cat food lady to go personally, and I've never really liked her anyway...she had one good run when she was paired with Brian V, other than that she's extremely bitchy and doesn't seem that talented. Then again neither does Robin, but maybe they're keeping her around to prolong the drama..."

while eating, they all seemed to be hardest on hers, but they changed their tune at judge's table after the producer's told them they were having a real hard time cooking up drama b/w the brothers, so they couldnt lose her

10/15/2009 10:53:24 PM

1 down, 3 to go

10/22/2009 12:26:16 AM

thought tonight was an excellent episode, although the entire elimination challenge was blatantly setting what's her name up to lose.

I really enjoyed the quickfire challenge. Also I'm really glad they switched up the restaurant wars competition, it had grown kinda stale and seemed to just be too complicated for the true cooking show that Top Chef is.

It's really crazy how badly the "Mission" team did. If Jennifer wasn't a clear front runner and basically shoe in for the final 3 (just to keep the genders balanced) she would have gone home. That trout just looked like complete shit, something you'd find at like an Appleby's or something.

10/22/2009 12:31:44 AM

^ yeah, laurine really fucked herself when she said. "i'll make sure anything that doesn't look good won't leave the kitchen"

10/22/2009 8:01:28 AM

^^ Yeah. Aside from the producers' influence on judging, it really comes down to a philosophical question about how much you take each episode in isolation versus the cumulative performance of each chef over the entire show. In isolation, clearly Jen would have been screwed, but aside from the occasional inconsistency problem, it's been evident from the first two episodes on that she belongs in the top four at the very least.

[Edited on October 22, 2009 at 11:07 PM. Reason : In the first two episodes, we didn't even know who Laurine was.]

10/22/2009 11:06:56 PM

i dont think jennifer was the front runner. Kevin was -- he's won the most competitions and probably has the highest average performance. Top 4 clearly will be the brothers, kevin, and jen.

The eliminations here are no mystery -- thank god the producers do a good job of weeding out the bad cooks. (That's why you want to pick the worst cook for your team when you do restaurant wars because you know you will have a safety valve)

Also, jen would be pretty damn attractive if she had a chin. I'd still hit it and get her to cook a meal afterwards.

10/22/2009 11:36:04 PM

^yea

Quote :

"and jen would be prob be pretty hot/cute if she had a chin"

and yea, jen couldnt go home, she screwed up but is obv top 4

10/23/2009 12:16:45 AM

It seems like volunteering for front of the house is a ticket to get sent home, at least according to the last few seasons. I would avoid that shit like the plague if I was one of the competitors.

However, I'm glad Laurine is gone. Never liked her anyway, way too bitchy, and the only really good showing she had was when she was paired up with Brian V.

10/27/2009 4:05:38 PM

We must preserve the gender balance!!!111one
Robin must stay!

But seriously. She should have been gone almost a month ago. Even the contestants are aggrevated.

10/29/2009 12:24:55 PM

Eli's pulling ahead of Jen at this point... just sayin'

10/29/2009 1:19:41 PM

yeah, don't know what's up with jen.

10/29/2009 5:18:43 PM

Seems like she's just in a funk...has she lost confidence in herself? Or wonder if there are factors external to the show at work.

^^True, if she doesn't shape up, Eli may sneak into the final 4. And for all that is good, please please please send Robin home nest week!

10/30/2009 1:58:58 PM

I can't help but think that robin cries a little inside each time she says, "i'm happy I've made it this far". the lies, the LIES! if that were me I'd be embarrassed to know they kept my sorry ass around for drama.

the V brothers arrogance/pettiness is also starting to grate on me a little. sure kevin's dish didn't look pretty, but I'm sure it tasted amazing and in the end I think the best tasting dish should win. I think too much is lost trying to make the plate look like a work of art instead of just serving up some awesome food.

[Edited on October 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM. Reason : .]

10/30/2009 2:02:25 PM

^I actually think Michael's crazy dish was fancier and tastier than Kevin's based on reactions. However, Kevin's was terrific and filling. They seemed to make a big point about vegitarians not always getting food that felt like dinner, and Kevin's was by far the hardiest.

If the judges (as opposed to the special guest) were to determine the winner, I think they would have given it to Michael. He chose the wrong person to cater to!

10/30/2009 3:02:34 PM