Top Chef Masters Chains of Love

When we last left our chefs, Susan and Tony had just won the Quickfire Challenge. She Who Does Not Eat now explains that despite the fact that only one person will ultimately be named the Top Chef Master, the chefs will continue to be chained to their partner. This can mean only one thing....Romantic Elimination Challenge because nothing says chemistry like being paired to someone you don't know.

The challenge (besides working as a team) is to create a duo dish for 30 couples on their first date. Immediately the stories of Master Chefs cooing and wooing the targets of their affections start rolling in which is frankly more interesting than the chefs shopping at Whole Foods. The best story? Teenager Govind Armstrong working for a young Susan Feniger and having the hormonal hots for his boss.

I will give the young man points for trying but it was not to be. Back at the kitchen the chefs settle down to cooking. Things appear to be calm and productive except for the one chef who has the most Top Chef experience. Govind. Seems that the most important thing he learned from Top Chef is the Art of the Off Camera Confessional.



For those of you at home playing Top Chef Bingo check your cards for the square containing the Whine: All He Did Was Make a Salad. Bingo? Anyone, bingo? No? Moving on.

At this point, Feniger is starting to scare me. She's chosen shrimp and scallops for her half of the duo. Seafood is tricky to serve for a timed event like this. You have to cook it enough to not have it be undercooked but you have to time it just right so by the time it gets to your customers it's not a tough rubbery lump. Let's hope nearly 30 years of restaurant cooking experience trumps Top Chef TV timetables.

Welcome back to our judges, James Oseland, Gael Greene, and Jay Rayner. James seems to moving away from his Church Lady persona and drifting more towards...

Which is fine but if this freaky little puppet starts showing up at Judges Table?

I'm texting Andy Cohen.



Shamu's Blessing before this meal? Dear Lord, please bless this bountiful food and please do not reveal unto me or my peeps the Details of any of Gael Greene's First Dates....Amen. Speaking of bountiful food.



Govind and Jimmy serve their duo of lamb. Govind prepared a lamb chop with a cauliflower couscous, swiss chard and a pomegranate reduction while Jimmy made a seared lamb carpaccio with the all consuming baby arugula salad. It seems well received by the judges but in a weird sort of development, the suggested method of eating the lamb chop with one's hands got more air time than some of the chefs. (OK the fact that I don't need a chef to tell me to gnaw meat off a bone could have something to do with too many years spent living in bbq country)



Jerry and Ana serve the most interesting dish of the night. Their method of romanticizing their duo of duck was by seasoning it with very floral flavors. Jerry did a duck breast that was flavored with a lavender rub on top of red cabbage, pomegranates and golden beets (cabbage on a first date? maybe not) and Ana did crispy duck legs nestled beneath vermicelli with orange blossom and smoked cinnamon almonds. That's a whole lot of interesting flavors going on in that duo. The judges rave about Jerry's duck breast but are really put off by the appearance of Ana's dish but not the taste.



Up last is Tony and Susan's Love Potion. Susan's risky Black Pepper Shrimp and Scallops and Tony's home made pasta with Taleggio cheese, mushrooms and truffles. Susan may not be totally comfortable with the whole racing against the clock aspect of TC Masters but she certainly has the dish presentation patter nailed down. Her talk of the "the whole total mythic aphrodisiac of it envelope you and guaranteeing you your second date" talk got She Who Does Not Eat all hot and bothered. Even better is that it appears none of the judges would kick Susan and Tony's food out of their beds. Who would Jay Raynor kick out of his bed?

Sorry James, Keeping Hope Alive might work better somewhere else.

Judge's Table is fairly uneventful at least for the viewers. For the Chefs it's never fun having to face your critics. The one big surprise is that Jimmy's salad got better reviews than Govind's lamb chops. That has got to hurt.







Well you know I'm sitting on a big old pile of happy now that half of my Karmic Dilemma Duo is in the Champions Round.



But where's my French Cheese Ludo?

Top Chef Masters Season Two

Why Hello Top Chef Masters, I've missed you. What sort of wonderful surprises do you have hidden in your knife block and what sort of changes did you make since your first season? In case you missed Season One, here's the skinny. Top Chef Masters is a cooking competition that pits established, award winning, iconic chefs from around the US, against each other in round robin episodes. Each episode has a Quickfire Round, shopping and cooking a dish for guest judges who award stars for each dish. Then the Elimination Round, again shopping and cooking for another group of guest judges and the three regular judges. Two winners are chosen to advance to the Champions Round. Another set of episodes to trim down the chefs to three (?) finalists. Or at least that's how they did Season One. Piece of cake, right?


These six certainly think so. Meet your first six Master Chefs. From left to right you have Jimmy Bradley, Ana Sortun, Tony Mantuano, Susan Feniger, Govind Armstrong and Jerry Traunfeld. Only one has been a judge on previous seasons of Top Chef and that's Govind. Will that experience help him or hurt him?

The chefs are immediately paired up to produce their Quickfire dishes which they will be serving to a band I've never heard of, The Bravery. She That Does Not Eat (hostess Kelly Choi) tells the chefs to get into their Pimpmobiles (Lexus) to shop "..at a Chinatown establishment that serves hundreds of people every day." Here's Reason #1 of Why I Love Top Chef Masters: They mess with the Master Chefs heads. From the very first season of Top Chef, the contestants bitterly complain about the insane challenges and how they have no basis in the real world of restaurant cooking. To which I say, shut the hell up all ready, it's freakin' reality TV, you whores. At least the TC Masters know better than complain when their best laid plans of shopping in Chinatown are cruelly dashed on the sharp Doritos laden edges of this gas station.

BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAH. The Gas Station challenge. Excellent. You've got James Beard award winners trying to make a gourmet dish from minimart food. Talk about whacking that ego down a bit. Still gotta hand it to Govind for going for the Cheetos.

You never know Frito Lay might come a'calling for a little cross promotional tie in?

(This is just creepy)

Look, I know it's LA but really? Clamato in a Chinatown minimart? I'm sure it's pushing Red Bull right out of the cold cases. And two chefs thought it was a good component for a dish.



Back at the kitchen, Jimmy discovers his purveyor has mistakenly delivered the Heirloom Flaming Hot Red Cheetos Puffs instead of the Classic Orange Crunchy Cheetos that he ordered. Not that it will stop the team from making Mac and Cheetos and Grilled Slim Jims.

Again, work the cross promotion. Slim Jim = ConAgra.

Their 45 minutes of cooking time ticks off the clock and it's time for She Who Does Not Eat to serve the results to the Bravery which is a perfect name for these poor guys considering what they are about to eat.


Folks, this stuff may taste halfway decent but it's some of the ugliest food I've seen on both regular Top Chef and TC Masters. You have been warned.

For some strange reason they start off with Susan and Tony's Bread Pudding.

It's pretty much love all around for the fruit laden dish.
Next is the very scary Cheetos Mac and Grilled Slim Jim.

They don't hate the Mac and Cheese but it's definitely not getting a Dave's Truffle Mac and Cheese sort of love either. The V-8 juice tomato soup is getting dissed pretty heavily when up pops Reason #2 Why I Love This Show: Chefs dissing their customers. Govind starts to tell his guests (off camera of course) to "get over it". So not becoming of a Master Chef.

Last up is Ana and Jerry's Crispy Rice Cake with "Clamesco" Sauce. At first it looks like a home run until one band member calls it bland. To him it may have been but what's interesting is that Jerry thinks it's because the guy is used to consuming a high salt/high fat diet. Therein lies Jerry's problem. He and Ana failed to adjust their dish to their customers as opposed to Susan and Tony who went heavy on the sweet. Jerry and Ana's dish may have scored better if served to customers in their own restaurants but that wasn't the challenge. Tony and Susan take the top score with four stars.


Next up? Romance is in the air.