Top Chef Fans Visit Paul Qui's Uchiko

Lori Gardner from "Been There Eaten That" visits Uchiko in Austin.


Click here for the full review including lots of photos of the food!

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Lindsay Autry at The Downtown Food and Wine Festival in Orlando

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Top Chef Texas Contestant, Dakota Weiss Offers Cooking Classes in L.A.

The W Hotel in Los Angeles is offering cooking classes with Chef Dakota.



Click here for more information.


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Top Chef Texas Winner, Paul Qui, Talks About His Win

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Top Chef Texas Champion, Paul Qui on "Last Call with Carson Daly"

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Top Chef Texas Contestant, Beverly Kim on ABC7 Chicago

Click here for the recipes!

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James Beard Award Poll

Both Top Chef Master/Top Chef Texas judge Hugh Acheson and Top Chef Texas cheftestant Edward Lee are finalists in the James Beard 2012 Best Chef Southeast category. Who do you think will win it? Vote here and then tune in after May 7 when the winners will be announced.

poll by twiigs.com

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Recap Roundup - Top Chef Texas Reunion

A Just Recompense offers her thoughts on the season as a whole: "In summary: more cooking, less crap. I want to know more about the process they go through to choose what they’ll make, and how they overcome culinary obstacles (a forced ingredient, time limitations, etc) not who hates whom and who best rides a bicycle. But a lot of us have been saying this since Episode One, and it seems someone thinks drama is the road to success. The editing has improved – we can tell the arugula was not going to eliminate Paul; Tom just looked like an idiot harping on it – but there’s still too much focus on suspense and not enough on what happened. Since we don’t taste the food, we need to hear what the judges say, good and bad, and if there isn’t anything bad, say that. And stop it with the Trophy Kids approach: 'Everyone did a super job so we’re splitting hairs.' Arugula is splitting hairs. Overcooked custard and lumpy polenta is not. Leave that for the truly slight differences, things people disagree on: was the chicken undercooked? Was the fish on the edge of over? Tell the truth, that’s all. Tell the whole truth."

My Monkey Could Do That on Would You Rather: "Really, Andy? 'Would You Rather?' you couldn’t find a better use of your last five minutes? Heather, make out with Beverly or cook Asian food forever? Make out with Bev. Sarah, Texas or Italy? Padma is like, uh…not that hard. Italy. Malibu, would you rather be a porn star or an action hero? OK, that one is funny. Action hero? What? Apparently we were short on quotes this season, because the T-shirt has no quotes, it just is black with white dotted lines outlining a torso. A weird looking torso. It kind of looks like boobs, and an hourglass figure, but there are some weird lines that do not correspond to anything. And then a giant knife in the middle. This T-shirt sucks. Oh, that was the Commercial Interlude. Just like the T-shirt: nonsensical and stupid."

PopWatch on fun things: "But honestly, after a whole season in which the food took a backseat to all the undercooked drama in the kitchen, I was glad that most of the reunion focused on other topics — like Ty-lör and his furry bottom. Oh my God. Seriously, why were we subjected to that? He’s a good-looking guy, but in that photo he looks like an unholy union between Bluto and the Coppertone girl. That wasn’t the most disturbing moment of the night, though: We also learned that Sarah has 'teary orgasms.' Thanks, Bravo. I can’t un-know that. I need a nice sorbet to cleanse that from my brain-palate."

Minxeats is all photos this time, to make up for the lack thereof for the past several episodes.

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Top Chefs in the News

The Chicago Tribune has a nice article on the Chicago chefs who participated in Top Chef Texas (Heather Terhune, Sarah Grueneberg, Richie Farina, Chris Jones, Chuy Valencia, and Beverly Kim.)

Photo credit: Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune

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Congratulations, Fan Favorite Chris Crary!

Chris Crary racked up 63,504,625 points in this season's Fan Favorite competition. While there's some grumbling about his social media campaigning for votes, Fan Favorite is, after all, just a popularity contest.

Who was your favorite chef this season?

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Reactions to the Top Chef Texas Reunion

NOW season 9 is officially over.

What did you think about this year's reunion? Any surprises? Anything you think was particularly interesting? Please tell us in the comments!

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Top Chef Texas Reunion Previews

Don't forget - the reunion special airs one hour earlier than usual, 9pm ET!

Watch the first video here.
Watch the second video here.

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Recap Roundup - Top Chef Texas Finale

Minxeats on an annoying sous chef: "The next day, the chefs finalize their work. StoneTylerStone - who, I just realized, is dressed like an evil dentist - has been a huge pain the whole time. Grayson in particular seems annoyed. She tells us that the girls will 'jam out with their clams out,' (and this is why we should be thankful that chefs wear pants and aprons, for both safety and hygienic reasons) while StoneTylerStone does his own thang. Which just so happens to be chopping celery, the only thing Sarah trusts him to do."

Jordan Baker on truth: "(seriously, it’s like the different departments at Bravo are in cahoots to drive me away from this show. The production end makes a lackluster program, designed to destroy my interest. The casting folks pick a punch of bland chefs with midrange talent. And the web interns just go on fucking strike and refuse to do their job, making putting aesthetically pleasant recaps together an impossible dream)"

A Just Recompense on choosing sous:
"Paul picks Barbara Lynch; he’s thrilled, but worried about being able to treat her like a sous chef.
Sarah picks halibut with green lentils and pomegranate, and gets Nyesha. Sarah’s happy, because she can do sauces. We don’t hear much from Nyesha.
Paul picks buckwheat noodles, and gets Ty-lör. Also good.
Sarah really wants Heather, and she sees dumplings and knows that’s Heather’s dish but she also sees scallops with raisins and citrus, and thinks she recognizes it as something on Heather’s menu so picks that… except it isn’t Heather, it’s Tyler Stone. Thank you God. Someone mutters, 'That’s unfortunate.' Actually, I think Sarah can handle him (meaning squash his ass); he’d undo Paul. Sarah says, 'I’m not letting you butcher.' Me, I’d send him out for pizza. No, no, that isn’t fair, give him a chance.
Paul likes the lamb with blueberry mustard and crispy parsnips and gets Malibu Chris, who intentionally used Asian flavors to lure Paul. Sarah had said she wasn’t sure she could work with him because he’s so hot, so this works for both of them.
Sarah takes chicken with black pepper and dumplings, and that’s Heather like she knew it was in the first place. Sarah’s glad because she’s a pastry chef and she can run a kitchen. Wait – isn’t that supposed to be Sarah’s job?
Paul picks dungeness crab and gets Keith. I guess having him go to Sarah, who he butted heads with in his only episode, would’ve been too much to hope for. Just don’t send him out to buy shrimp.
Sarah chooses pasta carbonara with fried brussels sprouts and it’s Grayson. Grayson takes the high road and has very nice things to say about her."

Max the Girl on Stone, Tyler Stone: "First, Tyler shows up in the kitchen in dress pants and shoes. (Hey, you never know if a Hollywood casting agent is watching the show, people! You can all have your bandanas and drawstring pants and comfortable shoes. Stone, Tyler Stone, is a sharp-dressed man.)Then, his mise en place skills are mise en whack. Seriously, I can chop celery faster than he does. And I have the knife skills of a particularly adroit monkey. Later, he assures Sarah that he knows how to whip up a white-chocolate ganache better than she does. 'It’s going to be super smooth like me this,' he says. 'You’re going to have the perfect texture.'"

Eater on issues at the grocery store: "Everyone heads to the Farmer's Market and to Whole Foods to shop. Tyler's the worst and seems bent on Sarah doing things she's not comfortable with, so she tries to corral him by giving her simple tasks. 'Tyler, can you count how many aisles there are in the store, then can you find a man with a red hat and ask him what his favorite ice cream is? If you can count backwards from a thousand real slow it'll really help my dish.' Paul says his parents were disappointed when he failed out of college. Did we know he failed out? To hammer the point home that he did not finish college, they show him counting money at the register and looking a little confused. He must have trouble keeping track of figures."

Entertainment Weekly on a class act: "The first group of judges got a taste of Paul's 'nice and jiggly' chawanmushi (egg custard) with edamame, pea shoots, and spot prawns — and they loved it. But when it came time to serve the second group of judges, Keith overcooked the batch. Paul didn't bite Keith's head off, as Sarah undoubtedly would have. He said he couldn't get mad at Keith because he trained him in cooking the chawanmushi. (Hear that, Lindsay??!!)"

Gail Simmons for PopWatch on picking the Top Chef: "[We started deliberation] at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. [and] I think we were there until 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m. There was a breakfast taco truck waiting for us when we finished. It’s never cut and dry. We all saw great sparks of talent in both menus [and] none of us could deny that both were great. It’s always a back and forth. What’s interesting about this judges table is that it was the first time ever in nine seasons that we had five judges. We were basically squishing in at judges table. It changed the balance of things a little bit and I thought it was really productive actually to have an odd number because it really does create a different dialogue, a different conversation.

"How do we [decide who's Top Chef]? We talk, we talk, we talk. We go through every element and we go through them again. There’s so many things to be said about every course and there’s so much that I may think when I eat something but then when I talk to people who ate it and experienced it differently they bring up things I hadn’t thought about. I learn from them, they learn from me. We discuss elements and often someone will have a really convincing argument that you understand and that makes sense. So it’s just a process from beginning to end. That’s why it takes so long. We talk it out, we really do. Sometimes to the point of exhaustion, where we turn to our producers and say, 'Please come on, help us out here.'"

My Monkey Could Do That on wine tasting: "Tom and Emeril meet Sarah and Paul to pair wines with their dishes. This is also stupid. There are like, maybe 8 wines there. And they’re all the same winery. You can probably pair them, but a real restaurant wouldn’t restrict the options like that. Emeril tells them to take a snapshot of Restaurant Wars. Yeah, seriously. Paul regrets that, because he should have been team leader and expedited, but he was afraid to step on people‘s toes. Sarah says nothing about regretting Restaurant Wars."

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Interview with Top Chef Texas Champion, Paul Qui

Chef Qui talks about his experience on the show.

A highlight:

ATC: How much money did you win total in all of the challenges and the finale?

PQ: $185,000, the Prius and two trips!

ATC: That must be a record! Have you received your check yet?

PQ: Not yet.

ATC: The car?

PQ: Not yet.

Click here for the full interview.

Thank you Chef Paul!

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Top Recipe - Paul Qui's Chawanmushi

Chawanmushi, Steamed Egg Custard, Prawns and Pea Shoots

3 cups dashi stock
1 cup eggs, scrambled
1/4 cup edamame
8 spotted prawns
1/4 pound clarified butter
Salt, to taste
1 lemon, zested
Pea shoots, garnish

1. Combine dashi and eggs and place in tea cups. Place 4 ounces in each container and cover in plastic wrap, you should have 8 portions.
2. Place cups in a pan and pour water covering a quarter of each cup.
3. Put in oven at 300 degrees Celsius until chawanmushi sets, approximately 1 hour.
4. Poach spotted prawns in clarified butter.
5. Warm edamame in clarified butter and place in chawanmushi cup.
6. Garnish with pea shoots and finish with lemon zest, and juice. Season to taste.

© 2012 PAUL QUI

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All Top Chef Interview with Top Chef Texas Finalist, Sarah Grueneberg

Top Chef Texas finalist, Sarah Grueneberg talks about her experience on the show.

A highlight:

ATC: What did you do to prepare for the finale?

SG: Well, I "staged" at many different restaurants, I went to every Asian market that I could find with my mentor. I worked on the dishes that I wanted to create. I took some pastry classes. I just wanted to be completely confident going in to the finale.

Click here to continue.

Thank you Chef Sarah!

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Bravo Exit Interview - Paul Qui

Click here to watch the video.

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Bravo Exit Interview - Sarah Grueneberg

Click here to watch the video.

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Chef Paul Qui is Top Chef!

In this final battle, Chefs Paul and Sarah cooked their hearts out, each making a 4-course meal that dazzled the judges, who went so far as to proclaim it the best finale dinner ever. You know the decision had to be difficult! But in the end, Chef Qui's chawanmushi, loup de mer, congee, and sweet/savory dessert won out.


Congratulations to Chef Paul Qui, the newest Top Chef!

This post is only for positive comments about Chef Qui. If you have anything negative to say, please do so on our Reactions post.

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Reactions to Top Chef Texas Finale Part 3

In this final episode, we were first treated to a mini competition between former cheftestants and renowned chefs Marco Canora and Barbara Lynch as they fought for eight coveted sous chef positions. Paul ended up with Barbara Lynch, Ty-Lor, Chris Crary, and Keith, while Sarah got Nyesha, Heather, Grayson, and Stone, Tyler Stone. (Remember him? Nope, me either.)

After Paul and Sarah made their choices, the teams planned menus and did a ton of shopping because the goal was to dazzle 100 guests and judges with four carefully-crafted, amazing, stupendous dishes.

Paul stayed in his comfort zone, creating a Japanese-influenced Asian menu. Sarah mostly stuck with her Italian style, but added in some German touches. The judges were blown away by each course - despite small issues here and there - and had a difficult decision to make.

In the end, Paul's menu won out, and he was awarded the title of Top Chef, with all of the accompanying goodies.

88% of voting Bravo viewers thought Paul should win. What did you think? Please leave a comment!

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