Previously on Top Chef...
I'm in the mood for fried chicken.
Hey, bro, this is what fried chicken's
supposed to look like.
- Whoa! - Just put a bowl down, dude.
- Whoa! - Relax.
They have no idea what they have waiting for them.
They got some fried chicken fools at this table.
My time is running out. The oil was not hot.
It's gonna be disgusting.
This is the worst day I've had, by far.
What did you think of Josh's chicken?
It had the most flavor of any chicken on the table.
- Josie's threw me off. - Do you want some grease?
[Laughter] What did you think
of Brooke's chicken?
- What is the show called here? - Top Chef.
I wouldn't even call it The Apprentice.
[Laughter]
The winner for the fried chicken contest...
Josh. Thank you.
It's such a relief to win.
I thought I'd just put a twist on it because--
- How is that a twist? - Yeah.
Mm.
Such a bull[bleep]er.
There was literally a pool of grease.
I didn't have enough time.
This seems to be happening a lot now,
running out of time.
Josie, please pack your knives and go.
Five chefs remain, all fighting to win
a feature in Food & Wine magazine,
a showcase at the annual Food & Wine classic in Aspen,
$125,000 furnished by Healthy Choice,
and the title Top Chef.
[Rock music]
♪ Top Chef: Seattle 10x13 ♪ Chefs at Sea Original Air Date on January 30, 2013
== sync, corrected by elderman ==
God.
Doesn't it feel good sometimes to dodge a bullet?
- No, it doesn't feel good. - [Laughs]
You're still here.
Final five.
I finally got a win, so I feel great about that.
I think it was time for Josie to go home.
I actually think she should've gone home
a couple of times before.
You two are just way better cooks than she is.
For me, it's hard to see her moving forward in challenges
because she's-- I understand.
But it's about the challenge, right?
- Right? - Right?
I am so lucky to not have gone home just now,
and I can't make those mistakes again.
I've been at Judges' Table, I think, almost every challenge,
except for maybe two, whether it's bottom or top.
- Hello. - Oh, hi.
Chefs, tomorrow, you'll be saying bon voyage to Seattle
and packing your bags to get on a cruise...
to...
Alaska.
- Ooh! - Awesome.
- Yay.
[Laughter]
I've never been to Alaska.
I've always wanted to go and check it out.
Man, I knew I was gonna have to take a boat at some point.
[Laughter]
Unfortunately, you guys are not going sight-seeing.
- Of course not. - You're the last five left.
We're expecting some great stuff, so good luck.
See you there.
I've never been on a cruise.
- At least Alaska's not far. - I have never been to Alaska.
I haven't either, yeah.
- Me too. - I don't know if I packed
a jacket heavy enough for Alaska.
Let's go home and pack.
- Let's go. - Let's go.
Awesome.
Hot fudge!
Seattle was amazing.
We had some great experiences, but we're moving on.
I'm excited.
What's your favorite moment or memorable moment
up to this point?
- Berry Farm. - Oysters.
We got to experience so much things.
Yup.
Cheers to us.
- Cheers to that. - Cheers to that.
[Laughter] Cheers.
From 24 chefs,
to make it to the top five is just,
you know, that's an incredible feat in itself.
I've got a shot at winning Top Chef.
Ooh. Gonna need that heavy coat.
- I bought "pyants." - What?
I bought "pyants" for "cyamping."
- That's not you. - "Cyamping pyants."
Cruises, for me, is more like the booze cruise.
In the army, we used to all the time.
Army's been good to me.
I wasn't a bad kid, but my mom kind of signed me up for it,
and we drove to Finland-- I thought we going on vacation.
They dropped me off at army base.
"Hey, bye, son. Have a good [bleep] time.
Pick you up in eight months."
And from eight months was a year,
and I was driving tanks and cooking.
- You're gonna need that. - I'm gonna need that, man.
[Sighs] I'm not a fan of boats.
You've got your Dramamine, though, or your stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm trying to not let my fear get the best of me.
Before I came here,
my husband made me book a trip to Catalina,
and on the boat ride, my four-year-old son said to me,
"Mommy, I think I'm afraid of boats,"
and I realized, I can't do that to my own child.
I cannot turn these fears into his fears,
and I really need to be a stronger person for his sake.
The only really big ship I've ever been on was theQE2.
It's, like, a really famous English ship.
What's up, ladies?
Ready to go to Alaska? Ready to go to Alaska.
Alaska, here we come.
It's gonna be okay, Brooke. Just breathe deep, baby.
- Smells awesome, doesn't it? - Smells like the ocean.
- Beautiful, isn't it? - It's gorgeous.
It's gorgeous.
- Wow, it looks awesome. - It's awesome. It's huge.
We are on celebrity cruises and the ship called Infinity.
Super-cool ship, beautiful views of Seattle,
and going off to Alaska.
It's super-exciting.
Jacuzzi! There's a jacuzzi.
To make it to the final five is a big deal.
Sheldon's my boy. I love that guy.
He's got really good technique.
Brooke's worked for some great chefs.
You know, Stefan, he made it to the finale before,
so everybody here is super-talented.
- Cheers. - Final Five.
Whoo!
- Hello, Alaska. - Whoo!
I've never been on a cruise ship before.
This ship is massive.
Everyone's having a great time.
Whoo!
You're too close.
But I'm not gonna get too comfortable.
We know that business is right around the corner.
[Ship horn blows] [Cheering]
- Bye-bye, Seattle! - Bye-bye, Seattle.
Cheers, Seattle.
The kitchen is enormous,
and I see Curtis Stone is standing with Padma.
He's an amazing chef, and he looks really cute.
I wonder what we're gonna have to do.
Please welcome your guest judge for this challenge.
He's the host of Top Chef Masters,
Mr. Curtis Stone.
Welcome aboard. Nice to see you all.
- Hi. - How are ya?
Chefs, there's only five of you left,
and you're that much closer
to the $125,000 prize,
furnished by Healthy Choice,
and the coveted title of Top Chef.
For your quickfire challenge, you'll be cooking
for the celebrity cruises' "welcome aboard" party.
We're giving you two hours to complete your dishes,
but you'll need to make enough to serve
200 guests.
200 portions, that's a pretty tough challenge.
It's a long quickfire, but I know
those two hours will go by fast.
For your quickfire challenge, you'll be working
with the non-foodie member of the lettuce family.
If you can't tell, we're talking about iceberg lettuce.
Iceberg.
It's kind of funny, no? I don't think Josh got it.
He was like, "iceberg? Why iceberg lettuce?"
Dude, iceberg "on the ship." Got it?
Chefs, we want to see how you can feature
this simple ingredient in just one bite.
Chefs, while the iceberg lettuce might have
quite a simple flavor,
it's actually a very interesting one.
Think about the texture, the flavor.
Serve us something delicious.
It's crazy to think that we're doing a challenge
using iceberg lettuce.
It's a very boring lettuce.
There's so much other lettuces to choose from,
so it's gonna be definitely a challenge.
Don't worry, we've brought all your Anolon pots and pans
from the Top Chef kitchen.
Good luck. I hope you have your sea legs.
Your time starts now.
Good luck, chefs.
Party in the walk-in. Oh, look at all the iceberg.
Obviously, we're on a ship.
There can't be gas. Everything's electric.
You have no idea where anything is,
plus the sheer number of plates
that I have to put together in two hours.
This is really difficult.
My idea is to do a play on, like, a blt,
but have a scallop instead of tomato.
Where the [bleep] are the ovens?
Portions...
Oh, my God. What a [bleep] show.
How do you change it to Fahrenheit?
This is the ship's kitchen, so there's no flames.
Everything's electric.
Their kitchens are built to withstand the weather
when, you know, the elements aren't so calm.
There's special locks on all the oven doors,
the refrigerator.
I found it particularly frustrating
to deal with under pressure.
I don't know how to work that thing.
When it comes to iceberg lettuce, you just think
of crappy filling for a taco, a lame salad.
We're gonna have to take
the iceberg lettuce to the next level.
Where are the ovens?
I love iceberg.
I have a iceberg wedge on my menu.
I really enjoy it.
Cheese, cheese, cheese. Have you seen any blue cheese?
So I'm thinking, I'm gonna braise
the iceberg kind of like a cabbage,
some kind of brined pork,
I think would be a good idea, and potato.
They're freezing upstairs, and, you know,
Padma should have something warm in her mouth.
[Laughter]
- Well, cheers, Curtis. - Cheers, Padma.
What would you do with lettuce?
You can do all sorts of stuff with lettuce.
You can caramelize it, you can serve it fresh, of course.
There's a million things to do with it.
I'm anxious to see what they're gonna do
because they seem pretty freaked out.
[Laughter]
Electricity-- doesn't look like it, huh?
There's some plug-ins over there
on Lizzie's station, I think.
- Oh, [bleep]. - I don't know if those are
the only ones that work or not.
- See any plugs anywhere? - Plug over here.
Look, you're dragging your stuff in my food.
I'm so sorry, honey.
Oh. You can work here,
but don't--like, don't work on top of my food.
Oh, I got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Whoa.
Ooh.
Sorry.
People underestimate Lizzie.
She's just doing her thing, and, oh, a little accent.
I don't fall for that stuff because I have my accent myself.
I've tried that already.
One hour and two minutes.
I hate iceberg lettuce.
I don't work with iceberg lettuce
'cause it's pretty flavorless, so I don't usually use it a lot.
- Of course. - Of course what?
- Bacon. - Hey, you got ground pork.
What are you talking about? Of course.
I'm gonna serve the lettuce rolls
with a bacon jam. Surprise, surprise.
You know, it's all gonna taste like
a wedge salad in your mouth, basically, is the goal.
Beautiful.
To me, ingredients, you have to treat with respect,
no matter it's the best caviar in the world
or this boring iceberg lettuce.
What I have in mind is a Vietnamese lettuce wrap.
I'm gonna use the iceberg lettuce as a base,
but I don't want anything to go to waste,
so I'm gonna try pickling the core of the lettuce.
It gives it different layers of crunch when you bite it.
Whoever's got quinoa or whatever,
it's getting ready to boil over.
Ugh!
Yeah, just like that. Holy [bleep] show.
The fire probably won't affect the flavor of my sauce.
Luckily, I look inside the pot,
and I have enough left for my dish.
That's gonna leave a mark.
Sheldon made a mess.
The trick here is to make this iceberg lettuce stand out.
It's a great carrier
for something that does have an enormous amount of flavor.
I'm dressing my iceberg lettuce.
I'm doing a warm, little salad with bacon,
and an anchovy acciughe dressing.
I want it to be
small enough that you can use a fork and eat
everything in one mouthful.
- Two minutes! - Ow, it's hot.
Two hours to prepare 200 portions
from scratch, with nothing prepped
and no one helping you.
That's a tough task.
At this point, I'm honestly just throwing
my ingredients into the lettuce cups.
One, two, three.
All right, perfect.
It doesn't look the way I would like it to look,
but I know it tastes good,
so hopefully that's what matters most.
I'm gonna get a manicure.
I could get used to it.
Where I come from, men don't get manicures.
[Ding]
[Ship horn blows]
[Indistinct chatter]
Well, to our first quickfire at sea.
I'm just hoping the only iceberg
that we see is on the plate... Yeah.
And not in the water.
Here's to Alaska.
Bon appetit.
Oh, here comes Stefan.
- Hi. How are you? - Hi, Stefan.
How is it working down there?
It's about 12 minutes from here.
So this is pastrami and cabbage
with a roast fingerling potato.
I braised the iceberg
with bacon in it and pastrami,
and it has blue cheese sauce.
It's an intense flavor.
Mmhmm. Very nice.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
- Thank you. - That's beautiful.
I loved the fingerling potato in there
with the ham-- mmm!
This is definitely a comfort food.
I enjoyed it a lot.
Mmm. Oh, my.
Hi, Sheldon. What did you do for us?
I have a vietnamese lettuce wrap.
Iceberg lettuce on the bottom and then some pork
and shrimp that's been cooked in coconut milk.
And on top, I have pickled iceberg lettuce hearts
with some green mango.
It has a lot of flavor.
Sheldon, were you worried about serving it as one bite?
Because, normally, that would be an entire lettuce cup, right?
Uh, I was worried about
if it's gonna be too much in one bite.
I had to shrink down my lettuce a little bit.
- Right. - It's very nice.
Thank you. Thank you.
Mmm.
It's bright, it's fresh. Ooh!
I would eat a dozen of those. [Laughter]
Lizzie works for Traci Des Jardins
in San Francisco. That right?
Traci was actually on Top Chef Masters
and did really well.
She was a runner-up. Hi.
- Hi, Lizzie. - Nice to see you.
So today, I've prepared you a iceberg salad
with crispy bacon and shallots.
And finished with a acciughe dressing.
Is a little, petty salad something
that you would serve in the restaurant?
Perhaps.
These are a little bit bigger
than I would normally choose,
but I just used what I could find.
- Thank you, Lizzie. - You're welcome.
I really liked it, actually,
just 'cause it had bacon, and I love bacon.
Hi, Josh. What have you done for us?
So what I've done today is a little iceberg lettuce roll.
I took the outside of the leaves and blanched them off
to make a little roll out of it.
I left the inside raw,
tossed in a little apple cider vinaigrette
that I made with bacon fat as well,
and then a little blue cheese.
Basically, the inspiration for the dish
was the wedge salad.
- Thanks, Josh. - Thank you.
Thank you very much.
- He walks like a chef. - He does.
I did like the flavors. It was very...
- Punchy. It had a good punch. - Yes.
Good punch to it.
- Hi, Brooke. - Hi.
So I have a bacon, lettuce, and scallop wrap
with some caramelized onion and a little crunchy quinoa.
Now, am I just supposed to put this whole thing in my mouth?
You could make it a two-biter, I suppose.
I'll go back for a second bite.
That's a good sign.
Thank you. Thanks, Brooke.
The scallop's perfect.
Yes. Yeah. It's really good.
[Laughing] We want more.
It's always much better with scenery like this.
- Oh, yeah. - Yeah.
You can't get much nicer than this.
So, Curtis, how did the chefs do today?
Well, I have to say that every one of the dishes
that we ate, I absolutely loved.
- Thank you. - Thanks.
What did you think of Stefan's?
I applaud the way you approached the lettuce.
I think it's beautiful when it's cooked,
and you did a really good job
with keeping the texture, so well done.
Thank you.
Josh, I felt like you played it really safe.
You went for the wedge salad,
but you did a brilliant job of it.
You took a classic dish and elevated it.
Thank you.
Sheldon, your Vietnamese wrap was really creative.
You had sweet, you had salty.
You pickled the hearts, which gave it
a really complex flavor, which was delicious,
as well as a beautiful texture.
Thank you.
How did Brooke do?
The scallop was perfectly cooked.
The bacon worked really well with it.
I like the quinoa.
I like the crunch that it gave us.
I just thought that it was really difficult to eat.
Lizzie, your iceberg salad,
I thought, was really tasty.
I'm not sure whether you got the one-bite thing perfectly,
but the flavors worked really well.
Thanks.
Curtis, please announce our winner.
That's a difficult one
'cause we were served five great bites of food,
but there has to be a winner.
The dish that had the incredible flavor
and the brilliant use of the ingredient...
Goes to Sheldon.
Well done.
- [Laughs] - [Laughs]
That just warmed me up.
Congratulations, Sheldon, you'll have
an advantage in the next elimination challenge.
It feels good to get this win.
I don't have no idea what the advantage is,
but at this late in the game, I'll take it.
I've made reservations for you guys tonight
at Qsine.
But for now, go explore the ship
and relax.
- Have fun, guys. - Thank you.
We never really get to take some time out, relax.
So Sheldon and I decided to go and get a manicure.
- Your first time to Alaska? - Yes.
First time on a ship, actually.
- Really? - Yeah.
I could get used to it...
- [Laughs] - Especially like this,
getting pampered.
[Laughs]
I hate to admit it,
but I actually love getting manicures.
Especially for chefs,
you have to take care of your hands.
Hopefully, I don't get judged on my masculinity.
Cheers, guys.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Yay! Finally, some liquor.
I wish I had somebody here, besides you.
Wish you had somebody here besides me?
[Laughs] Yes, like female companionship.
Oh, yeah.
Hang out and do a little party pants.
I got laid the first time on a cruise.
That was from Helsinki to Stockholm.
A girl named Sana.
Maybe one day she will hear it
and then know she was the first one.
Oh, God, is it beautiful. I love it.
I just need a fishing pole to go off the back of this.
Hey, Lizzie, she's from South Africa.
Oh, really? I'm from Durban.
- Oh? Where about? - Kloof.
- Small world. - Yeah.
- You still live in Kloof? - No, no.
Um, actually, we've just packed up my parents' home,
um, at the end of last year.
It was very sad.
My dad was an avid fisherman
and taught us to fish at a very early age.
My father had such an amazing passion for the ocean,
and he recently passed away.
And it's still very, um,
you know, it's still very raw.
So traveling by ship
to Alaska seems very fitting for me.
It just brings up lots-- lots of memories.
Oh, yeah, are you kidding me?
I'll never lose it. Ah, that's good.
I can't get over how pretty it is.
- It's amazing. - It's really cool.
This is fantastic.
Today's actually the due date for my baby.
I haven't been able
to talk to my wife or anything like that,
so I don't really know how all that's going.
I'm here to create an opportunity
that's gonna benefit me and my family.
This is probably the most difficult thing I've had to do,
and I miss her.
Let me shuffle them.
I wanna go see Sheldon's manicure, see if--
I want to see Sheldon's manicure.
I wanna see if he's a woman now.
[Laughing] Kinky manicure.
Where I come from, men don't get manicures.
[Ding]
I wonder if he got French tips.
[Laughter]
[Bleep] show.
The scallop pasta just didn't set in time.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm just freaking out.
[Ship horn blows]
Very good evening. Welcome to Qsine restaurant.
This is fun.
Of course it's fun.
It's kind of nice to put on a little lipstick
and actually go have, like, a nice night out
with my friends.
Cheers. Cheers to that.
- Here's to...Top five? - Top five.
- To the most awesomest-- - Top five.
- Most awesomest top five ever. - Top five in ten seasons.
The most awesomest five friends that anybody ever had.
♪ We're the five best friends that anyone could have ♪
[Laughter]
Very good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
This is our menu.
The most unique restaurant on the seven seas.
Wow. Look at this.
This is a really... Pretty cool.
Cool way to do a menu.
That's really cool.
Oh, it's all upside-down.
Sort of Alice in wonderland.
- See the chandeliers? - I said that forever ago.
Me and Sheldon had a whole conversation about it.
Oh, [bleep], that must have been
when I totally stopped listening to you.
Well, you should keep on not listening to me.
Fried chicken.
Worked out well for you, didn't it?
Ouch.
- [Laughing] - Whoa. Whoa.
- Whoa. - Be nice.
- Whoa, wait. - I'm just kidding.
Because you got lucky once.
With a fried chicken challenge.
Really? You're gonna talk too?
Wait, how many challenges have you won?
- One. - You won one?
How many challenges has Stefan won?
Anything else, okay, Mr. poached pork?
- Hey, let's not go there. - Candied cabbage.
- Candied cabbage man. - I already pulled it out.
It's too late. What else? Oh, and...
- Breakfast Sushi. - Uh, Chicken Cordon Bleu...
For a fried chicken challenge.
- Breakfast Sushi. - What's wrong with that?
Hey, breakfast-- I don't do Sushi.
All right? How many breakfast-- breakfast Sushi.
Okay, we all have to shut the [bleep] up for a second.
[Laughing] It was, like, this much rice.
[Laughter]
- All right, guys. - Oh, wow, that was fast.
Let's start our journey.
Sushi lollipops.
This is disco shrimp.
The plating at Qsine, it's quirky, it's fun.
Oh, wow! It's like an actual drawer.
- Look at that. - What is going on here?
And here we have, uh, goat cheese cigars.
These are za'atar lamb chops.
Here we have falafel.
Enjoy your journey. You're welcome. Pleasure.
That looks amazing.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
This is too much for you?
- He wants to organize it all. - I know.
I was thinking about moving this over here,
moving this over here,
but it doesn't work because this doesn't match
because this is a smaller container.
What about the flavors?
The f--aww!
[Laughs]
Oh. Ooh!
Chocolate tombstone.
Tombstone? It's good.
Good texture of the mousse. Great texture.
Oh.
I had this enormous wave
of panic come over me.
I get the feeling that we might be standing up to quickly go
and start a challenge.
[Giggles]
Chefs, I hope you liked what you tasted here at Qsine,
because tomorrow night,
you'll be running dinner service here.
- Hmm. - Hmm.
We'd like you to take a classic dish
and turn it on its head.
Want to know what dish you'll all be making?
Surf and turf.
Brooke, you look a little bit nervous. Why?
They're making me nervous by fidgeting so much.
Actually. [Laughter]
Sorry.
Now, we all know that surf and turf
has a bit of a bad rap,
because people would put shrimp on top of a steak,
and that'd be it.
Your surf and turf pairing should work together
as one single dish.
We want you to be innovative.
You know, let the dishes that you were served
the beautiful food tonight on
take you down a certain path.
Think outside the box.
Surf and turf kind of seems old to me.
Back then, in the '70s, '80s, and '90s,
surf and turf was cool at, like, weddings.
It's not my favorite, but I'm super-creative,
so I'm not really worried about it.
Tomorrow, you'll get
to explore the ship's pantry and refrigerators.
And, Sheldon, since you won the quickfire,
you'll get first pick of your proteins.
And whatever surf and turf proteins
you decide to use will be off limits
for everyone else.
We're gonna let you enjoy the rest of your meal,
and please, be creative tomorrow.
- Good luck. - Thank you.
- Wow. - Hmm, hmm.
Surf and turf?
Now it's time to think.
We don't know what we're gonna find tomorrow.
How do we think?
It's really hard to plan something
in your head when you don't know
what Sheldon is gonna choose.
[Stefan laughing]
So just pick chicken and canned tuna.
Yeah. Canned tuna and spam!
- [Laughs] - Dude, you got it.
You totally got it.
Well, making whimsical, creative,
kind of fun food like that is not really
something that I do.
And then not knowing what your proteins are?
This is a multi-stepped challenge.
It's a lot of added pressure to get to the top four.
If you could do us a favor and choose something
really, like, crazy, like ostrich.
- Bear. - Bear!
Bear and alligator. With Alaska-
You got it. All right, done.
The gears in Stefan's head is going crazy right now.
If you could do anything you wanted to do,
what would you do?
I can't really pin it down to one thing,
and I'm like, "[bleep]."
If I could pick first,
I would probably go for... Beef.
So what you pickin'?
This pig is looking at you over here.
[Squeals]
Yeah.
Come on, Sheldon, quickly, choose something.
Filet?
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
I'm trying to get inspired, but it's difficult.
I want to choose something
that I can execute within the time that we have.
Lobster!
Lobster tail and beef tenderloin.
Why?
That's what surf and turf used to be for years.
Very safe-- played very safe.
I got the pork belly!
Can I have some pork belly too?
There's a lot. Yeah.
I got eel and pork belly.
I'm doing pork belly and scallops and bacon.
- Can I have half? - Yeah.
And I'm gonna take the pig.
Frog leg and...
I kind of want to set myself apart with my proteins
and do something fun and whimsical.
So I ultimately decide on frogs' legs and mussels.
I'm not sure
if I'm totally insane for choosing those.
Wow.
It's kind of cool, all this stuff down there.
The warehouses are huge,
because you're gone for 10, 15 days,
there is no, "hey, we forgot the onions.
We forgot the bacon."
- Oh, it's so huge. - Yeah.
There is so much food.
It's sort of this maze.
So I am actually developing my dish as I go along
because I have no idea what's in these rooms.
I hit a dead end. 14 minutes, guys.
Holy [bleep]!
Being in the bowels of the ship,
it actually reminds me of my days
working at Walt Disney World.
Out in front, it's all this happiness,
and when you're behind the scenes,
you actually see what it takes to put on this show.
Two minutes, Sheldon! Two minutes!
- Holy [bleep] show! - Come on, go!
Go, go, go!
Whoo! My God.
- Time, guys. - Time.
[Ship horn blows]
[Laughter]
- I'll take this one. - I'll take this.
This doesn't fit.
The goal is
to put our own take on a very classic dish
and make it playful and colorful,
and the vessels
are gonna play a major role.
Doing this dish in 2 1/2 hours
is gonna be challenging.
[Hisses]
[Squeals]
Cute!
I do it often.
I do it at home.
- So polite. - She's so polite.
Lizzie is an impressive butcher.
It's so funny too 'cause Lizzie is very sweet,
proper, but to actually watch her get down
on a little pig like that and tear it apart,
it's definitely something you don't see every day.
Sometimes they're bigger than I am,
so it's a bit of a wrestling match.
The pork and the scallop
are beautifully paired together.
Coming behind, hot.
You know, I had bad luck previously
with the scallops that were not fresh.
I don't want to mess them up for a second time.
♪ Somebody's makin' cabbage rolls ♪
I'm gonna make, uh, pasta carbonara,
but I'm gonna turn the scallops into the pasta.
Do you know how to do it?
Uh, no.
Thanks for your concern.
I wanna make it to the finale,
so I'm really gonna push it and do something
completely out of the box.
I'm gonna take scallops and blend them with gelatin
and egg whites and get it in the fridge
to hopefully set in time.
If you're not living on the edge, you know,
you're taking up too much space.
That is yum.
My dish is gonna be a ravioli with eel,
and I will have a pork belly
braised in beer.
Ah, you [bleep] me.
Final five is not gonna cut it for me.
I have to go to the finale.
I was so close last time.
I think it's time for me to be Top Chef.
Sorry.
Brooke, what are you making?
Frogs' legs and mussels.
I'm not gonna braise something
'cause that'll take too much time.
Instead, I'm gonna debone frogs' legs.
Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
I feel like I've taken a huge risk
in my ingredients alone.
Frogs' legs aren't necessarily turf.
I'm not really sure how this is gonna go over.
How are you making your dish playful, Sheldon?
- I'm not. - You're not?
I'm kind of regretting my decision I made
with the proteins.
I see the other chefs around me going outside of the box.
My dish is very straightforward.
Steak with tempura-fried lobster.
At the roller derby, I put out
tempura that wasn't up to par.
This time, I just want to execute my dish properly.
I'm kind of sweating bullets.
I don't want to be known as the Asian guy
that only cooks Asian food.
Well, then, maybe you should stop
cooking Asian food all the time.
I'm not doing Asian, guys.
Bull[bleep], you're not doing Asian.
[Laughing]
Oh, yeah.
It's real crunchy.
I like my pork really crunchy and crispy.
That's what we eat at home.
My mom used to put the pork shoulder in the oven
all the time, and it's super-crunchy
and crispy and yummy.
- Come on. - No, you can't!
- Just the didn't-burn piece. - No.
19!
Ah, [bleep] show.
I don't know what I'm doing.
The scallop pasta just doesn't have the texture that I want.
It's a little soft, and I'm afraid
that it wouldn't be really recognizable as a pasta.
On the inside, I'm just freaking out.
[Crunching]
- Ooh! - Ooh.
- Have you lost a tooth?
Is that a tooth? [Laughter]
Both: Ohh.
- Look. - Oh, that's beautiful.
- That's a little-- - Cute!
Cute little house.
We move into our stateroom,
and I have Stefan as my roommate.
It's gonna be crazy. That's awesome.
Oh, wow.
Hello.
Cheeky boy.
What are you guys doing over here
on this part of town?
We're on a gay cruise.
It's-- [Laughter]
This is my boyfriend Jonathan.
Party pants.
Ready for some sexy time?
[Grunts]
[Sizzling]
Time is running out to finish cooking
and plate up our spin on surf and turf,
but I'm still trying to figure out
what I'm gonna do with my scallop pasta.
I didn't like the way the texture
of the pasta was coming out.
It was too soft, so now I am scrambling
the scallops like eggs.
So it's like a play on breakfast--bacon and eggs.
The egg whites and the scallops themselves,
you can cook them just like scrambled eggs,
and they will resemble scrambled eggs
but taste like scallops.
That's really the only recovery I can see,
you know, in the amount of time that I have.
Really? Josh is doing breakfast?
Come on. Bacon again?
He only cooks one item. Smart move.
Right this way.
Good evening.
Very nice.
The way they serve the food here,
it's almost like Alice in Wonderland.
And we said to the chefs, you know,
"be inspired by what the restaurant does,
and let your imagination run wild."
Getting to the final four is a major hurdle.
As much as you don't want to be the first one to go home,
I think, when you get down to five,
you don't want to be the one
that doesn't get into the final four.
It's big. This is it.
I'm sure they're sweating it right now.
This is, by far, the most intricate plate
that I've ever worked with.
Don't underestimate how many plates
this actually is, Josh.
I have a lot of components to my dish.
I have to hit every single one of my plates
seven times with different ingredients.
Oh, my God, Josh.
- You gonna make it? - I don't know.
You don't know? Hurry, mama.
Ah, [bleep]. 30 seconds.
It is the most stressful 30 seconds of my life.
[Beeping]
Hi, Brooke.
I'd like to introduce you to your judges and diners.
Hugh Acheson, chef and owner of Empire State South.
Head judge Tom Colicchio of Craft restaurants.
Caissie Stafford, cruise director.
Sheldon Thompson, hotel director.
Guest judge, Curtis Stone.
And John Suley, Celebrity Cruises head chef.
Tell us about your dish.
It is a bed of celery root
and fennel puree,
a clarified-butter-poached mussel,
a frog's leg in a little beet glaze,
papadums and shallot chutney.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
I didn't know we had frog legs on board. Amazing.
I mean, you've got to hand it to her,
straight out of the bat, before you even taste it.
It's really inventive, right? Yeah.
It's really inventive,
and I think the flavors are really good.
The frog leg isn't the most earthy thing,
and yet adding the beet, it actually sort of
made the dish more earthy.
It's funny, it really did marry well as a surf and turf,
and it's a very modern view of it.
Brooke definitely captured the concept of Qsine
with the creativeness of her presentation.
I think the colors look great. It looked very appetizing.
I mean, the only negative is this is...
- Is the greasiness of that. - Very greasy.
- It was pretty. - It was very pretty.
Definitely points for presentation.
[Laughter]
Are you plating, herr Stefan?
What? Yeah, I'm plating on this wall.
On the back wall, yeah. Yeah, okay.
I have to.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
I'm pretty happy with my dish.
The ravioli's great. The pork belly's good.
The beer sauce is yummy.
But in the end, it's five people left.
You know, they pick you apart.
There could be, you know, one wrong item,
the rest is great,
and you could go home for it.
[Bleep]-A.
Nice weather. If you're a whale.
We saw a whale yesterday.
I saw two yesterday.
I'm still waiting for the narwhal.
I saw a seal.
It was either that or a scuba diver.
[Indistinct chatter]
How are you?
I made braised pork belly with beer sauce,
and the ravioli is filled with parsnip puree and eel.
Enjoy your meal.
I feel like it's a paint palette.
That is the greasiest-looking sauce I've ever seen.
[Crunching] Oh, my God.
- Ooh! - Ooh.
- Ooh, I hear it. - Ooh.
- Have you lost a tooth? - Is that a tooth?
[Crunching]
That's not pleasant.
I love that crunchy pork.
It reminds me of the roast pork my mum used to make
when I was a little kid.
This is a bit of a cultural thing.
I mean, if you go to Australia or Great Britain,
and you order roast pork in a pub on a Sunday,
it comes out with crunchy, crunchy skin.
They call it the cracklings, and people absolutely love it.
And I understand that, but, I mean,
if it's beautiful people like you with strong, fluoride teeth,
or it's a guy with, like, two teeth,
gnawing on it in the corner.
[Laughter] It's England.
So it's different.
I do think Stefan pushed the envelope.
I've never had an eel and parsnip ravioli.
All I can taste is parsnip.
This is what we make over campfire in Romania.
So, John, you cooked on land,
and now you're cooking on sea.
What's the big difference? It is a big difference
because you're actually, you know, on the ocean,
but at the same time, it's almost the same
because this is a huge, floating island.
How big is the culinary team onboard?
- 200 to 250. - Wow.
We have staff from, you know, 60, 70 nationalities
from all around the world.
So if you want to create a dish
that's Indian food, we're gonna go
from one of our chefs that's from, you know, Bombay,
or Goa or somewhere like that, and he's gonna turn out
the most, you know, unbelievable Indian food
you've ever had before.
Sheldon, 45 minutes goes by real fast, brother.
It's all good. It's all good, bro.
I thought you was using chopsticks too, bro.
- No time for chopsticks. - [Laughs]
You know, I don't think
anybody's ever seen scrambled scallops before.
I know that I haven't,
but I've been on kind of a roll lately,
and I just hope I keep riding that wave of momentum.
What I've prepared today is pork and scallop.
Originally, I wanted to do a pasta.
But, uh, I didn't like the way it set up,
so I decided to kind of scramble it like scrambled eggs.
So it's kind of my play on breakfast.
There's some braised pork belly, scrambled scallop, and bacon.
Sprinkle that on there, get you a little texture.
- Thank you, Josh. - Thank you.
I'm putting a lot of bacon on that.
If he didn't say this was scrambled scallop,
I'd never know,
but it has a sea flavor.
I think, flavor-wise, this is packing good punch.
I don't get enough scallop.
I think the turf is overpowering the surf.
But, personally, I like the presentation.
I think it goes very much with the theme.
I think Josh is a pretty traditionalist chef.
So to see Josh doing a dish like this,
I mean, it is a leap of faith on his part.
I'm actually surprised he was able to recover from it.
But I'm pleasantly surprised by it.
I think he's been super-inventive.
The scallop and the pork tasted really nice together.
I like the pork. It's a good texture.
Yeah, it was a good texture.
[Muttering]
[Clatter] I'm frustrated.
The food's uninspiring.
My tempura's soggy.
It's just like the roller derby challenge.
It's definitely not my best work,
and it sucks when it's so close to finale.
I'm taking you through a journey through Korea and Japan.
Korean barbecue filet mignon
and tempura lobster with a dynamite sauce.
And we have some sesame cabbage,
kimchi, and a teriyaki sauce.
Thank you. Thank you, Sheldon.
I think Sheldon did a great job of presentation here.
But why do people continually think
that tempura is a good idea?
I'm encountering softy again.
It came out of a fryer, and it's cold,
so it had to be sitting back there
for ten minutes before it was plated.
I could eat his kimchi all day, though.
Kimchi beef and the scallion is amazing.
For me, I just didn't get the dynamite lobster.
You're saying dynamite, it's an explosion.
It's wow, it's big, it's huge,
you know? And this is not dynamite.
It's difficult to see what Sheldon was really after.
This is still harkening back to, I think,
the origins of surf and turf,
which is that people wanted two different items
on the same plate-- they weren't married.
I agree, they're not married.
I don't even know if they're dating.
[Laughter] They're not even talking.
They don't even like each other.
They haven't even met.
We had a singles night the first night--
they missed it all.
[Laughter]
The lobster was not crispy,
and if they're gonna call it tempura,
then you're expecting it to be crispy.
[Beep]
My cabbage bundles,
I want to make sure that the cabbage
is wilted around the filling,
and that they're hot on the outside
and warm to the center.
This is not working. [Bleep]!
I go to pull my cabbage rolls,
and the steamer's off.
[Bleep] kidding me.
[Beeping]
It's agonizing. I should be plating now.
I can't leave it any longer.
I pull my cabbage rolls and start plating.
Ugh! [Whimpers]
[Beeping]
I've made you a pork and scallop dish.
The cabbage is stuffed with suckling pig,
seared bay scallops, and bacon.
It's finished with a little bit of crackling.
The sauce is a mustard sour cream,
and the pickles are shallot and apple.
Enjoy. Thank you.
Lizzie's dish looks like this beautiful,
fancy, little dim sum.
The cabbage, as soon as I put my fork in it,
the whole thing just fell apart.
The cabbage, it's not cooked enough,
so it's just-- it's hard to eat.
It's really chewy. I love suckling pig.
But the thing that Lizzie's missed on is the scallop
is overpowered by the rest of the dish.
That being said, it's still a really tasty dish.
I love the pickles with it.
I think, once you get a little bit of the pickle,
some of the apple, some of the pork,
and some of the scallop,
I think it's a really good bite.
All in all, I actually-- I'm enjoying Lizzie's dish.
It's not easy to eat. It falls apart.
I liked the insides.
I like the scallops. I like the pork.
All the elements of my dish, they were brilliant.
Like, I had it. I had this.
But one little mistake, and you're out.
Frustrating.
There's a couple of things that were almost inedible.
- It was a mistake. - After today,
there will only be four of you remaining.
All in all, I think the chefs were pretty creative.
Yeah, and this idea of creativity,
the idea of doing something different,
it takes time to develop something that's
that out of the box.
And so I think for 2 1/2 hours to cook,
serving this many people, I think they did a good job.
And some of them really worked.
Let's talk about who we think could win today.
I would have to say Brooke.
You know, she took a frog leg that is a very delicate dish.
You know, she put the beet on there.
She put the spice on there.
She really thought about that dish.
I've got complaints about the chutney.
I've got complaints about the papadum.
But, you know, at the end of the day, they're minimal.
You know, you always say there's nothing new.
I would say frogs' legs and mussels...
- That's new. - Are new.
And I think, for the most part, it worked.
But I think it was out there.
I literally garnished my last plate
just as that timer went off.
Given everything, I think that Josh
actually put out one of the better dishes today.
Everything was enveloped in this wonderful seawater goodness,
and I think, if you're hitting surf and turf,
he hit it out of the park.
Yeah, I was scrambling to get it all plated.
- Literally. - It sucks, dude. Oh, yeah.
I like the way Lizzie approached her dish.
She cooked that suckling pig beautifully.
That dish needed one more element.
It needed-- it needed something
just to bring it all together.
It was really one-note.
I think that we can definitely put Lizzie
in the mix, though, in the bottom--I'm sorry.
I don't think it was really a new, modern vision of food.
It was very much leaning on a simple stuffed cabbage leaf
that was underdone.
So is that who you think should go home?
Lizzie? [Sighs]
But it was all cooked, though, wasn't it?
Yeah, but it was warm. It wasn't as...
Stefan's dish, I mean, the flavors
didn't capture the surf and turf.
Not taking off the skin on the belly
really made it just a difficult dish to eat.
The unagi just didn't come through in the eel flavor.
I'm with you.
I wouldn't eat Stefan's dish again.
- That was rough, oh, my God. - That was rough.
- That was a rough one. - That was a rough one.
I can't get over Sheldon's dish.
Because, listen, I mean, tempura--you gotta nail that.
And it was just a failure.
To me, he chose the worst proteins
and he executed them really badly.
It was hard to get inspired by those ingredients also.
Well, I want to thank you all for giving us your input.
We're gonna stay and talk to the chefs.
Nice to talk with you. Take care.
Bye-bye.
- It was brutal. - That took it out of me.
[Yawning] I'm tired.
Yeah, that 45 minutes went fast.
Everyone plated to the last second?
- Yeah. - The last second.
I mean, last second.
I was garnishing at the last second.
- Yeah. - It's crazy.
[Suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Chefs, we asked you for a unique take
on surf and turf.
To reinvent a surf and turf
is actually a really difficult challenge,
and, you know, we asked you to think out of the box.
Some people really understood the challenge
and did a really great job of integrating
the surf and the turf,
and some missed the mark.
And after today, there will only be four of you remaining.
Brooke, have you worked with a lot of frog legs?
I've had them on my menu.
We wanted you to push the boundaries of surf and turf,
and you did that. Thank you.
Talk about thinking outside of the box, Brooke.
I mean, you used frogs' legs,
matched it with a marsala, and then the mussels.
I mean, we weren't even sure whether it
did fit into surf and turf
because a frog is actually amphibious.
[Laughter]
I thought you did a nice job.
The papadum was really greasy--
I'm not sure what happened with that--
but flavors were great.
Sheldon, how did you feel about this challenge?
Well, I felt
that the challenge was uninspiring to me.
I like to cook through my ingredients,
and some of the ingredients
before us just didn't speak to me.
But you chose your ingredients.
You were the first one to choose the ingredients.
Why did you choose
filet and lobster if they weren't speaking to you?
I felt the filet and the lobster
I could execute.
That's why I chose those items.
Unfortunately, today,
I think there was a couple of things
that were almost inedible on your plate.
It doesn't matter what restaurant you go to.
If you get served cold tempura that's soggy
and a dynamite sauce that has no spice to it,
you'd send it back.
Ii think that the challenge
was really to reimagine surf and turf.
The main issue is
I think you imagined surf and turf.
You didn't reimagine it, so it's just--
it was a very tried and true surf and turf.
Josh.
I've never heard of a scallop scramble before,
and to be quite truthful,
when you put it on the plate,
I thought, "oh, my goodness.
I have to eat this?"
But I actually found the texture and the, uh,
the flavor of the scallop to be really fabulous,
and it worked for me.
Your pork belly was spot-on. I mean, it was great.
The scallop-- it was a little strange.
It was the first time I'd ever done anything like that,
so obviously...
I'd venture to say it's probably the first person
ever to scramble scallop. Yes.
Yeah, yeah, it worked well
because of the sort of nice sea creaminess
around the pork.
And I thought those flavors
were really succinct and really nice
and really well integrated.
Stefan.
I was really excited when I heard you were doing eel,
because I remember from the last season of Top Chef,
you seemed to have a deft hand with eel.
Did you taste the parsnip with the eel
before you made the ravioli?
I tasted it. It tasted fine to me.
I couldn't taste the eel at all.
You had a sauce that, I gotta say,
you put it in that little beaker,
and there was about that much grease
floating on the top of it, um,
which is-- it's a mistake.
I skimmed a lot of them, that pork fat off.
But, again, you have 45 minutes to plate up,
and I'm skimming, skimming.
You guys need to conceptualize dishes
that work under the pressures of the challenge.
And I think the biggest problem,
the skin just got really hard.
Like--like...
I thought I was gonna break a tooth.
How crispy did you want to serve the pork, Stefan?
I like crispy pork.
I like when you bite it and it crunches between your teeth.
I enjoy that.
I personally love crispy-skin pork.
This was right on the verge.
I mean, I could hear Tom chewing
from the other side of the table, loud and clear,
and he was the first one to bite into it,
which made everybody else frightened
to put the pork into their mouth.
Lizzie.
I liked the dish. I liked the idea.
The flavors, you know, worked well together.
I think the big problem with the dish is--
is when you--it kind of just opened up and,
you know-- you know, fell apart.
It could have been tucked in a little bit more overall
with the formation of the cabbage roll,
but it was good, and I loved the ambition
of doing the whole suckling pig in that amount of time.
Lizzie, I loved your dish,
and the way it was presented I thought was really beautiful.
Thank you.
Curtis, please announce the winner.
Well, the winning surf and turf
really was a dish that was very innovative,
it was imaginative,
and it really combined both the surf and the turf
extremely well.
And the person that cooked that dish...
was Brooke.
- Thank you. - Well done.
Congrats, Brooke.
Thank you.
That feels good. Thank you.
And, Brooke, Celebrity Cruises will be giving you
a seven-night Caribbean vacation for two
on their new ship, the Celebrity Reflection.
That's ironic.
[Laughter]
Thank you.
I am ecstatic to have won a cruise.
Being on this floating city
has shown me that maybe my fear of boats
was all in my head.
Lizzie and Josh,
the two of you are safe from elimination.
You can return to the kitchen.
Thank you.
Chefs, unfortunately, one of you
will be going home.
[Bleep] me.
Either one of us could go home.
I just want to go in the finale.
That's the point, because I've been there before.
I have redemption to do.
It's already been an honor
to actually make it this far,
but I could see myself going home for this.
It sucks!
[Suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Chefs, today's challenge was to give us
a unique twist on surf and turf,
and you're both here for the same reason.
We got surf, and we got turf.
Never really came together.
Sheldon, I'm not quite sure why you had
a hard time with this challenge because
all season long, you gave us great versions of surf and turf.
You just seemed to freeze up here.
The biggest problem was
your tempura was just completely soft and soggy.
Stefan, really good choice of ingredients,
but they were two separate dishes,
and at least for some of us,
that pork belly was just way too hard.
Crispy's fine, but this thing was just dense.
I hate to see either one of you go,
but unfortunately, one of you will not
be joining us in Alaska.
Padma.
Stefan...
Please pack your knives and go.
Thank you.
Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Stefan.
I've cooked 65 dishes on Top Chef.
And that's it.
Of course I'm sad.
I don't want to go home. No.
Thanks for the second round.
Come here, buddy.
- Thanks. - Congrats.
Sheldon, we'll see you
and the other chefs in Juneau.
Thank you.
It's me. I'm going.
- Is it really? - Yeah.
Come here.
I've learned a lot on this journey of Top Chef
the second time around.
The whole Top Chef thing kind of reminds you
of how important cooking is in your life,
and in the end, it boils down to being creative.
It's hard sometimes to be doing what you do every day,
and you just, you know,
got to get inspiration somewhere.
And that stuff is what Top Chef does to you.
- See ya. - Bye, guys.
Have a good one. That's a first one for me.
[Bleep]!
"Pack your knives and [bleep] go!" Really?
[Laughs] Bye, guys. Thank you.
I'm not going home yet.
I got one more chance to cook.
See you on [bleep] Last Chance Kitchen, mother[bleep].
Right now, on Last Chance Kitchen...
Of course it is wifey. I knew it.
We head outdoors for the wildest challenge yet.
You look so handsome now.
As Stefan and Kristen's romance heats back up.
You look beautiful as well.
It's gonna be super-sad, but I can't wait to beat her.
- Is divorce on the horizon? - It might be.
- It might be divorce now. - Yeah.
To watch, go to bravotv.com now.
Next on Top Chef...
- Brr. - [Laughing]
Better throw on a couple extra underwear,
keep the package nice and warm.
- Check it out. - Oh, mama.
How awesome is this?
My dad would love to watch me today.
Any news yet on the baby?
She's dilated and having some contractions.
Oh, so that's any moment.
It's tough, but stay focused.
It sucks.
I'm really pushing myself to be creative on this one.
There's some bears hanging out around here.
I would be a little bit more daring myself.
At this stage of the game, this is all about focus.
It sorta ruined the dish for me.
It's what they use to feed the dogs.
== sync, corrected by elderman ==