Monday, March 7, 2011

Recap Roundup - Top Chef All-Stars Episode 12


My Monkey Could Do That on Padma in the Hizzous: "Richard hopes for a challenge with less than 50 plates. He asks Antonia what she thinks will happen today, since she seems to have a good psychic vibe about this stuff. She asks 'Is Padma coming here today?' and the other girls agree they felt that too. Cue Padma coming around the corner of the kitchen. Hee. Richard likes it but says it’s like she’s coming into the zoo. Padma summons them to the roof. Antonia thinks they will base jump off the roof and scramble eggs on the way down."

Minxeats on roofies: "Padma tells the recheftestants to meet her on the roof. Every time I see reality show contestants on a roof, I'm hoping 1) someone will get tossed off; 2) Tim Gunn will be there. Unfortunately, neither happen this time. Instead, after admiring the view, Padma tells them they are headed to Ellis Island, where DoucheyMike is being deported back to New Jersey."

Monkeys as Critics on the Quickfire dishes: "Richard makes little hot dog banh mi sandwiches which don’t look half bad. They don’t look half good, either, but considering what he’s working with, good job. Tiffany makes nachos and popcorn –oh, she dresses up the popcorn with some dried fruit. Wow, that’s what I call trying, Tiffany. Mike makes hot dog bun soup, which he admits he wouldn’t feed to his cat. Carla makes an orange salad with a sprinkling of dried fruit and rosemary essence. Where’d she get rosemary essence? Clever, Carla. Antonia made a cheese sandwich. Although it looks kind of tasty, Antonia isn’t going to win points for originality, either."

Eater on ingeniuity: "No fan of junk food, Carla infuses some juice with rosemary potato chips and makes a sliced orange salad. It is wet, and it is not much to look at. (That is what Carla said.) It is nothing compared to Richard's. Richard makes a crazy bahn mi sandwich. How does he boil the hot dogs you're wondering? Oh just with the MRE pack he keeps in his knife kit at all times. Are you kidding me? This guy is Richard Blais Dean Anderson. A total winner."

David Dust on relatives: "The Cheftestants sit down with their twins to discuss their families, and their dishes. Not much came out of this, besides the HUGE bombshell that ANTONIA AND BIGHEAD MIKE ARE ACTUALLY BROTHER AND SISTER!!! AND DARTH VADER IS THEIR FATHER!!! I know, right?!? Weird!!!"

Cliffieland on loved ones: "Normally at this point, we'd see each loved one either paired up with a different chef who would have to make a dish for him or her, or there would be some kind of challenge where Tiffany's mom would have to race out into the East River to retrieve a bag of puzzle pieces and get them back to Carla's husband before Richard's pregnant wife can start a fire using only flint and liquid nitrogen."

Jordan Baker on online dating: "Matthew talks about how he and Carla met on match.com. Awesome. They should do an ad, because they’re the best. And it’s totally a great selling point for match: 'you can meet actual awesome people on match.com, like Top Chef’s Carla Hall, not just a bunch of guys who say they’re 5’11” when they’re actually 5’8”, and don’t realize that everyone has caught onto the fact that a baseball cap is like the universal symbol for bald.'"

Reality TV Calendar on sexy food: "Richard will be presenting braised short ribs, fried bone marrow, corn puree and pickled glass worts. Glass worts are also known as sea beans. Glass wort sounds sexier, says Richard and that’s what they call them in England and Ireland."

Max the Girl on food preferences: "Tiffany wants to make okra, then remembers that Tom C. hates okra and finds it slimy (world-class chefs: They’re just like us!) but decides to make it anyway. She WILL make Tom an okra convert. (My new nickname for Tiffany: Okra Winfrey.)"

Serious Eats on boring: "The chefs served Tom, Padma, Gail, and their families, and every dish looked absolutely delicious. The next 20 minutes were like one big episode of the Brady Bunch; everything was perfect! There wasn't one negative comment during the entire tasting portion of the show. Everyone loved everything, and sadly, I found the utopian-ness of it all to be mind-numbingly boring. Where's Bourdain when you need him?"

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