Previously on Top Chef...
Two chefs will be going home.
Double elimination? That's rough.
Two people in one night. Whew.
I'm immediately looking for Tiffany.
Tim is already paired up with Tiffany.
Alex was like...
I was like, "oh, ."
Can we please just move on, please?
All right, if it's overcooked, it's on you.
Okay, that's fine, but I just want to move on.
Yeah, it's not fine, because I'll be thrown off too.
Angelo's screwin' around with Tamesha.
You know, Tamesha's young,
she's green. She's right up his alley.
Let's go, let's go.
Ed screwed the pooch pretty good.
There's no cake on ours.
There's no cake on yours?
If I had gotten this at Le Bernardin
I would have sent it back.
Well, the winning team for me is...
Kelly and Andrea.
Wow.
Lynne and Arnold,
please pack your knives and go.
This season, one outstanding competitor
will take the title of Top Chef
and the grand prize,
a feature in Food & Wine magazine
and a showcase at the Food & Wine classic in Aspen,
$125,000 to help turn their culinary dreams
into reality,
furnished by Dial Nutriskin.
Top Chef, season 7, hail to the chef.
♪ Top Chef 7x05 ♪ Farm Policy Original air date on July 14, 2010
-- sync by elderman -- -- for www.addic7ed.Com --
it was kind of a somber mood in the house,
uh, this morning,
knowing that Lynne and Arnold are gone.
As you're on longer,
you build more relationships,
so it starts to affect you a little more
as different chefs leave.
It's always important to take the first step,
you know what I'm saying?
Take action, don't hesitate.
Make people Chase you.
You don't have to chase people.
Angelo and I are really close.
For me, it's very easy to go talk to him,
because I look up to him,
sort of like my role model.
Just focus on what you want.
It's your perspective that's gonna get you through okay?
Tamesha is really the only person
that I really feel comfortable hanging out with.
Uh, but I also feel attracted to her,
because I see a lot of myself in her,
so I kind of think there's this like
inner... Inner passion, I think,
but she holds it in,
and that's really something
that I'd really love to extract from her.
I see, um, Angelo and Tamesha
spending a lot of time together.
I think Angelo is sort of like trying to imitate
Tony Robbins really well.
But I think she needs to be careful
because sometimes the fact that he's helping out so much,
it might be his strategy.
It seems like it's gonna be a fun challenge.
Yeah.
I've been hangin' out with Tiffany a little bit,
and, uh, she's... She's really funny.
She's got just such a-a great laugh.
You know, she's always smiling.
She's very upbeat, you know.
You can tell this girl really cooks from the heart.
You know, like fried crocodile.
- Mm-hmm. I heard it's good. - Yeah.
Tastes like chicken is what everybody say.
Ed is really the only person that I trust.
We'll sit and talk about New York,
and I'll tell him about Texas,
and it's just... It's fun.
And he's silly,
and it's a different kind of atmosphere
from everybody else's.
Go Texas.
I'm takin' a shower.
All right, guys, let's go. Vamanos.
Is that some crabs?
Live Blue Crab running and screaming across the table.
Wow, that's priceless.
- Good morning, chefs. - Good morning.
Good morning.
Please welcome James Beard award winner
for outstanding chef in America,
and also chef and owner
of the inn at Little Washington,
Patrick O'Connell.
Welcome. Thank you.
Great to be here.
Good morning, chef.
Patrick O'Connell is a five-star,
five-diamond chef.
I was lucky enough to cook for him
at the Bocuse d'or,
so I'm pretty excited to cook for him again.
For your quickfire challenge today,
we've got crabs.
Well, I had crabs,
so it just brought back bad memories.
The Maryland Blue Crab
is one of the most popular local treasures.
Absolutely. I grew up in Maryland,
and ate them in bushel baskets
as a little boy.
They're alive and waiting for you.
Awesome.
Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
I see people running up there with their hands,
and they're like...
Come on, little guy. Come on!
I'm like, you might want to get a pair of tongs.
Bite you, brother.
Crabs, they will bite the hell out of you,
and it hurts.
It's chaotic. There's crabs everywhere.
People are breaking crabs, cracking crabs.
It's flying all over, left, right.
I got crab Everywhere.
My concept for the whole dish is basically
I'm taking a Thai flavor.
Add some old bay seasoning to the top of them,
and I bake them in the oven.
I'm feeling super confident.
Is there any more mangos back there?
Take one.
My whole concept is built on flavor.
It's just a beautiful Blue Crab broth
infused with lemongrass, ginger.
Ed is working next to me,
and he actually surprised me,
because he did something more asian,
and I did something less asian.
He is trying to beat me at my own game.
Not a lot of meat.
I used the ones in the can back there.
Ha ha!
This is crazy.
I use crab, but in Miami, we have stone crabs,
which are gigantic and much easier to get the meat out of.
There's not a lot of meat in Blue Crabs.
I have never, ever picked a crab in my life.
I was allergic to them at one point,
so I never ate 'em.
Now I'm just like, W.T.F.?
Tamesha, leave time. You got pick 'em.
And here, you just want to remove the back,
and then I pick the meat out.
Angelo is a mentor to me,
but I think his personality might throw people off,
to each his own, but for me, it works.
All right, thank you.
Whoo! Hot damn.
I'm thinking about creating beautiful tasting plate.
A little shot of soup,
a little open-face sandwich, a little refreshing salad,
and something that's very custardy.
Everyone else is gonna be freaking out
and stressing just getting one dish out.
Huh.
And I pretty much can get out three.
You know, I'm just a beast in the kitchen.
- You havin' fun yet? - You too.
I'm trying to figure it out as I go.
What comes to my mind immediately
is to do a crab chowder.
There's a lot of pressure, you know,
thinking about how far I've come to get here,
all the family that's back home--
my wife and my daughter.
I was on the bottom last night,
and I have no plan at all of being on the bottom today.
Hot.
I am going to make a sauterne, ginger, and juniper gelee.
The thing is alive.
Everyone's got pots and court-bouillons going,
poaching up crabs.
Tim's cleaning like 25 crabs
or something like that, you know.
He's a Maryland boy,
so it's like religion where he's from.
Hey, Tim, can you come clean these crabs
for me, please?
I grew up in Maryland,
so I picked crabs almost every Sunday.
Maryland crabs, which are some
of the best crabs in the country.
So I'm going clean,
not dressed all up with asian influence.
I'm feeling good.
♪ ♪
four, three,
two, one.
Utensils down, hands up!
Not my best work.
What are you talking about?
Let's structure the categories.
Negative.
Kenny and are very strong entities.
I have to step up and be the leader.
My presence is the Alpha male presence.
We're subject!
Hi, Tiffany.
Hello, chef, how are you?
I did a little bit of a hot and sour crab soup,
and I reduced the sauce down so it's pretty strong.
Got you a lot of crab on top for you.
You did.
- Hello. - Hello.
I made a nice marinated jumbo lump crab
with some fresh Thai basil.
Sort of Thai-inspired? Absolutely.
This is a Blue Crab broth.
It's, uh, infused with lemongrass,
ginger, and a mix of spices.
I did steamed beer crab
with a little avocado, passion fruit.
Just simple and clean.
Don't have to do a lot to our crabs here.
I wanted chef O'Connell and Padma
to really taste the Maryland crab.
That's the star.
Give it the microphone and let it sing.
I have a crab salad rolled into sweet bell peppers,
and then a little brandy basil dressing.
I made a crab chowder,
and I had some lemongrass, ginger, cardamom,
and coconut milk.
- Unusual and intriguing. - Thank you.
What I have here is crab salad.
The bottom is a sauterne, ginger, and juniper gelee.
Wow.
Is that a wow, yes, yummy, or a wow...?
It's pungent.
- Kevin. - Took a very American approach.
Blue Crab chowder.
The garnishes are potato, celery,
and then espelette oil to give a little bit of heat.
What I have here is a warm crab salad
with a citrus gastrique
that I infused with mexican red chiles.
I feel not great about my dish.
I know that the flavors are good,
but in the back of my mind,
I feel like I did too much.
Not your mother's crab salad.
Um, I actually prepared the crab three different ways.
I made a korean chili crab bisque,
and little bruschetta Thai basil,
and then I did this warm crab
with a little sesame and butter
with some mango cream chile aioli.
I'm looking at my plate, and I'm looking around the room,
and I'm like, "who's gonna be able to touch this dish?"
Which chefs had your least favorite dishes?
Andrea's dish with the weight of the potatoes
overwhelmed the delicacy of the crab.
It wasn't news to me, so I kind of took
my bottom three status and put it behind me
because I'm like, "just get me to the next challenge
so I can rectify this."
Amanda's dish with the fascinating gelee
was out of balance.
Kevin's dish illustrated confusion
and the crab got lost.
This is four challenges in a row
that I've been on the bottom.
It crushes me.
I'm starting to doubt myself
and doubt the reasons why I should even be here.
Who were the success stories here?
Ed's dish did a wonderful job
bringing out all the natural components
to the crab in the Thai-inspired dish.
I loved Kenny's trio of crab tastes.
I also especially liked Angelo's dish.
It was extremely delicate
and showed off the crab very nicely.
Will you please announce the winner
of this quickfire?
It is the dish that best showcased
the taste of the crab,
and that person is...
Ed.
Congratulations.
So I just won my first quickfire,
and I'm feeling that I'm coming
out of my Shell a little bit.
Um, I'm feeling good.
Hopefully, it'll continue to keep going for me.
You have earned yourself
immunity in the next elimination.
Good.
Ed wins the challenge,
and had some asian influence, of all things,
so I was wrong.
I should have put some soy sauce in there.
For this elimination challenge,
we'll be giving you an abundance of local ingredients,
this time, down on the farm.
You'll travel to Ayrshire Farms,
Virginia's first totally certified
organic and humane farm.
You'll be creating a meal for 40 local chefs and farmers.
And for the first time,
you'll all be working in one single team.
You'll be putting out a minimum of six dishes,
family-style.
I would rather it be an individual challenge.
We have a lot of egos in the house,
and we're all gonna be working as a team.
Each one of you is responsible
for something on that table.
And for this challenge,
you won't see your ingredients
or your cooking equipment until you get there tomorrow.
You will, however, have a mobile pantry
from the back of one of your Toyota Siennas.
We'll see you at the farm.
Thank you.
When we get home, we all get together
and try to come up with a game plan
of how we're gonna execute our menu.
There's six dishes being made, right?
You have proteins, produce, starch.
I think 'cause there's 12 of us...
Six dishes?
First thing is we should pull names, okay?
And then I think we should also pull a course.
Pull names for teams or--
because I'm not pulling names for a team.
I'll pull a name for a dish, for a category.
I don't care what the other teams are doin'.
Let's structure the categories.
There's no other way. That's my point.
Kenny and I are very strong entities.
And I'm in it to win it,
I have to step up and be the leader.
Why take the risk
when it's not specifically saying "and dessert"?
I really want my presence
to be the Alpha male presence.
No one's gonna beat me in that area,
because there's a level of leadership that's there.
Guys, we're losing the subject!
Let's try to figure out if--
lord have mercy.
Angelo and Kenny are getting heated,
because they want their way.
That's irrelevant.
No one is wanting to compromise
but we can also decide that it doesn't have to be teams of two.
We could do teams of four.
Personally, I don't care who's with me.
I think that gets very confusing.
Doesn't make any sense.
'Cause it's the same-- wait, wait!
It's the same thing. No, it's different.
We could all put out a nice fresh fruit platter
to kind of represent all of us as dessert.
- No, negative. Negative. - No!
You've heard the term "too many cooks in the kitchen."
Well, we have 12 chefs trying to decide
exactly how we're gonna pull off this meal.
There's gonna be, like, four cast-iron pans.
There's gonna be one person who has to work the grill...
They gotta give us all a chance
to cook something up.
We're all there to cook something.
I know, but it's not gonna work.
Somebody else has to compromise besides us.
I just have to have a vegetable.
You want to take the beets?
- That's irrelevant! - Guys!
I don't think we need to do a dessert.
Let's structure the courses,
whether there's a dessert or not,
and then we should just get into pairs and it's that simple.
I don't think so.
This is a train wreck,
because it's really difficult to work with all these people,
and there's not a flow going on.
You guys say that you're gonna do lamb,
and then you have your starch, your veg.
Then we have six separate starches on the table.
What are you talking about?
43 portions really is not--
it's not that much.
Check the egos at the door
and come together as a unit.
We're not gonna get anything accomplished.
It's like trying to bang your fist
through a concrete wall.
That's something that's not necessary.
No, I'm not saying that it is necessary,
but I think if we get there and find we could do one.
Angelo's gettin' a little worked up.
I disagree.
I'm not a pastry chef. I'm not gonna put myself--
he's kind of like, you know, getting all aggressive.
But Kenny, he's a great leader.
Um, he's calm, he's cool, he's collected,
but he's fierce.
How about this?
Who wants to work together with the same partner
they had yesterday?
- That's fine. - Yeah.
I'm up for workin' with somebody else.
I mean, no offense.
I'm just saying I'm game for anything.
Everyone was set on working with the same partners
as what they had for our last challenge.
I didn't really care to work with Alex again.
He's just annoying.
He's just--he gets under my skin a little bit,
but I have immunity, so let's go.
There you go.
Okay, so it is what it is.
So we all break, change our clothes,
break out into teams of two.
Everybody's arguing over whether they're gonna do protein,
whether they're gonna do starch, whether they're gonna do veg.
The team has ultimately one or two
dishes coming.
We won't know until we get there
how many platters we're gonna have, though.
But I feel pretty comfortable teaming up with Tiffany.
Familiar with Tiffany,
so we can work well together.
It's not really team, but it is.
Like, it's team in that it needs to flow together.
I'm not quite happy working with Tim.
In the last elimination challenge,
you know, it was a lot on me.
Honestly, the way I'm looking at it is
I really don't have a partner.
I just think especially since
you have immunity, we work 100% as a team.
You know what I'm saying, right?
Oh, yeah.
I'm not happy just because
I wanted to pick Tiffany,
so we were again stuck.
She was stuck with Tim, I was stuck with Alex.
But me and Tiffany, I think we'd work--
we, uh... We get along really great.
Compile. Keep going with the list.
I want your--
your ideas too.
I think last night and yesterday
was a really tough day.
Everybody was just yelling and screaming.
My grandparents raised me in Barbados.
They were Christian, and they were very strict.
I've always acted more mature than my age.
Everybody else is older than I am.
We are grown enough that we should
act like civilized human beings
and come to some kind of peace that way.
Ahh.
We pile into the vans. It's pretty tense.
We have no idea what our ingredients are.
We don't know what we're gonna be cooking on.
We don't know anything.
We arrive.
As we pull in, everything is green
and beautiful and lush.
It's very picturesque.
There's horses.
But I'm anxious to see what we have to work with.
What are you guys taking?
- What do you guys want? - What do you guys want?
I'd prefer the pork loin, but you have that in your hand.
Somebody else has to compromise besides us.
This is really crazy.
We're gonna have to work as a team,
and that becomes apparent really quickly.
We'll take the beef. We will take the beef.
And then we'll take the pork loin.
Okay.
It's a hard environment to cook in.
We see propane grills
with some, like, lava rocks in them,
and a couple of hot plates.
There's not much.
Nothin'. I got nothin'.
- Got salt, butter. - Tomatoes over here,
and there's tomatoes up there.
The Toyota mobile pantry was off the hook.
There's spices, some oils. You know, it's crazy,
'cause you had everybody grabbin' from it.
I just want to make sure no one steals my grill space.
We're also, you know, 12 people.
We all need space.
We'll share it with someone if we need to.
I got it. It's mine.
Uh, people are pretty fierce.
We're fighting it out.
Or are there more chopping boards somewhere?
Should I try the onion first, get a little flavor in there?
I'm paired up with Kevin.
Right now, he doesn't have the confidence
in what he's putting out, uh, for whatever reason,
because he's made some bad judgment calls.
So at this point,
I know that I just need to take over the situation.
Strawberry rhubarb jam? Yep.
A nice hot and sour eggplant.
Kind of have our game plan.
We have a lot of produce in front of us.
Kenny wants to make his hot and sour eggplant,
and I said I want to make cauliflower couscous.
Hopefully, it all comes together.
Anybody got extra chicken stock?
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
I mean, we're gonna have to take this off the bone, I think.
Andrea and I are working as a team,
and I'm gonna be responsible for making
the accompaniments to the meat.
There's just no herbs.
I feel like it's in a ball.
Individually, I am responsible for the pork loin
and the sauce that accompanies it.
It's the easiest thing to screw up
in this sort of situation.
The biggest challenge for me right now
is that it is freezing cold,
and my thin blood from Miami is not lovin' it,
and our concern is keeping the food hot.
We have portable burners, but they are small.
Are you using any of the leeks?
Yeah, I'm using the leeks.
My planning with Stephen goes really well.
I'm gonna do a vegetable minestrone.
It's somewhat pedestrian,
but I'm trying to really have a nice, robust, rustic flavor.
Does anybody know what time it is?
2 hours, 36 minutes!
My goal today is to take something as simple as a salad,
but show how many different components
you can fit into a salad.
I don't want to be a forgotten side dish.
I want to be the forefront-runner.
Tim, what you got workin' on?
What you got over there?
I got turnips, beets, and asparagus.
Tim's taking up a big chunk of the vegetables
that are available to us.
How do you feel about, uh, us giving you all the beets
and you giving us the turnips? Uh...
'Cause we don't have any vegetables left.
I just have to have a vegetable.
Kind of had my mind set on doing some turnips.
Can we switch? Can I do beets then and...?
I don't care.
We're worried not having enough food.
Kelly comes over and is like,
"Tim, you got all the beets."
I was like, I'm not happy with this.
I'm not happy with it at all.
You want to take the beets? Bring me the turnips.
This is all we have. Of course.
The turnips are gonna be in the style of what?
I'm gonna roast 'em down. What do you think?
Tim's having some problems trying to figure out
exactly what he wants to do,
and I'm really trying to just let him do it himself,
versus the challenge before where I'm kind of telling him
what it is we need to do.
So I'm happy with doing my own thing.
Mm. Mmm!
- It's good. - Wow.
Tamesha's working on her cherry compote.
It's really tart and luscious.
I mean, it's just super sexy.
And I'm working on my duck.
I butchered it perfectly, I marinated it,
and I rendered out the fat, I let it rest.
I cooked it more.
I basically made love to that duck to be honest with you.
- Who's is this? - That's Tim's.
All right, well, we gotta share.
No, we don't.
Ed and I are working on one composed dish.
We're stuffing a filet with a stewed ratatouille
and a scrap sauce.
This is right up my alley.
I like working outdoors. It's beautiful.
I mean, how could you pick a better kitchen
than God's great outdoors?
America's got some problems, y'all.
But we're here to solve 'em.
Ooh!
That was all the, uh, cauliflower we have?
Hold on. What, the wind blow it over?
I was just chopping,
and I guess you had it on the edge.
- You sure? You sure? - Yeah.
Angelo wants to scoop it up,
but, you know, I'm not gonna use it.
There's nothing we can do with it.
We're out in a cow pasture. I mean, there's all kind
of little creatures crawling around.
There's no way I'm using cauliflower off the ground.
So I run over to the Toyota mobile pantry.
There's some zucchini squash and then broccoli.
I've never done this before with broccoli,
so it's a big gamble,
but I need to take a risk.
It's time. We're really here to compete.
But that size, it's gonna take forever.
But it is pork.
No, I know, but I mean...
Given the constraints, it's .
- That's true. - It's very windy.
The pork loin is quite big,
and I'm really concerned
about not getting a good sear on the grill.
Is it gonna be hot enough?
Is it gonna take too long?
It ain't gonna happen.
There's way too much wind.
I don't think it'll get hot enough.
On these grills? You're pushing it.
Since I've been in the middle so much,
I'm always second-guessing
and trying to figure it out.
Ultimately, you need to stand up there
and feel good about it. You do it.
I decide to take the large loins
and cut them down into four pieces,
but I'm not sure that's, like, the best way to go.
20 minutes left, guys. 20 minutes.
20 minutes!
Oh, baby.
I don't think it's bitter.
I think it tastes like a turnip.
We're going back in the oven.
Initially, I was doing, um,
a turnip mouselline,
and I was a little hesitant.
I just thought it would be a little bitter.
I was also concerned with the temperature.
The beets good, but you're gonna overcook the potatoes
if you don't separate from the beets.
The beets gotta cook a lot longer.
I'll put 'em back in the oven.
Could have got cold, could have got a little gummy,
so I said, you know what,
we all looked at what I had done and had cut 'em
and said that looks good like that.
Look, we're in the country, right?
This is a country dish.
- There you go. - You're on the right path.
Let's just season it up and serve it like that.
All right, I'm feeling good about this.
Man, that mousseline I wasn't feeling.
This is...Progresso.
Progresso, eat your heart out, all right?
This is some soup.
I feel totally confident.
Like I did a really good job.
I think my soup tastes really delicious,
so think I'm good enough, strong enough,
fast enough.
I should win something eventually.
The grill at this point is just stacked with pots.
Want to make sure the pork gets cooked in time
and the weather elements
are not cooperating at this point.
I have a bit of time
while my beets are roasting,
so I decide to make a strawberry rhubarb crisp
just so that our meal
has a little sweet finish to it.
It's always a risk.
I know the history on Top Chef
that sometimes sort of doing the extra dish
is the exact thing that sends you home.
I was like, "that's a lot going on for a salad."
And he's like,
"oh, you know, I'm not worried, I'm not worried.
You know, it's good. You know, I'm ready to go."
♪ ♪
three minutes!
♪ ♪
anybody seen brown sugar?
♪ ♪
1 minute, 30 seconds.
Hello.
Yes. Cheers.
Nothing is cooked uniform. That's a problem.
The rusticity of everything is shocking.
Really, and that-- it says a lot.
It's a bit of a missmash.
Oh, look at this. Oh, look at this.
Oh, he really gonna look like Isaac Hayes now.
Isaac Hayes, for real! Damn!
Damn, girl.
How did you get that in your suitcase, man?
That's the whole suitcase right there.
Kenny's, you know, that's my man.
Isaac Hayes, and just looking at him like, okay.
Chinchilla on there.
Kenny, I refer to him as big daddy.
Black magic, black lightning,
black Angus.
Come here, sunshine, let me see you.
- Oh ho ho ho! - Whoo!
He's a beast. Yes, he is.
He's--he's smooth.
I think he's just sort of like suave,
and, you know, he's got the moves.
I'm just too sexy.
I want to win the challenge,
because I want to be able to show,
you know, the world that, you know, wow,
"no, Kenny didn't cook the main entree,"
but to be able to come up with something
that took over from, like, Angelo's duck
or Andrea's pork
or Ed's beef.
It would be a huge accomplishment.
Thank you. How are you today?
Cold.
We are serving family style.
It's like a Thanksgiving dinner.
You know, the whole beef, starch, veg, sauce,
blah blah blah.
How did you like cooking in this environment?
It's a little bigger than the kitchens we're used to.
Just a little bit.
But the scenery is beautiful.
Beautiful!
Thank you all very much for this wonderful meal.
Thank you.
When I see what everybody else has done,
I walk away.
I'm feeling confident
that I did some solid, good food on this day.
So everything we're eating came from here?
That's right.
Patrick, what did you think of Amanda's soup?
The rusticity of everything is shocking.
I'm-I'm find with the rusticity of it,
I don't like the carrots to be so hard.
But nothing is cooked uniform.
You can't have leeks that are small
and onions that are small and celery
and then a big chunk of carrot that doesn't cook.
Exactly, which is hard to get in the mouth also.
Stephen's salad left me cold.
Wet and heavy and overseasoned.
And the bowl is not a good choice for it.
This is one thing that makes me nuts.
Just bruised up lettuces.
You're not paying attention to your lettuces,
and that ruins a salad for me.
Yeah.
Kevin and Kenny's couscous and curry is lovely.
Very, very hot.
I have no problem.
I expect my curries to be hot and my beer to be co.
I like the combination,
because the couscous has a cooling effect.
Exactly.
What about the turnips and asparagus
that Timothy put on this plate?
They didn't register with me.
I don't think they registered with any of us.
- That's a problem. - Mm-hmm.
The overall impression is it didn't make one.
It's a bit of a mish-mash.
- Tiffany's collard greens. - They're undercooked.
Greens, where she comes from,
greens need to be cooked.
These would classify in the deep South
as undercooked. Undercooked.
Yeah. You're right, yeah.
All right, let's g-o.
The pork loin was delicious.
I really enjoyed it.
I thought it was cooked perfectly, and--
yeah, and I liked the-- the beets and apples with it.
They were cooked also perfectly.
No, they did a nice job with that.
What about Angelo and Tamesha's duck?
I like the duck.
I think they did a nice job with the duck and the cherries.
The asparagus, it doesn't have a whole lot of flavor.
I like the seasonings on the duck.
Cinnamon, ginger, and cherries
is a beautiful combination.
You put au jus on after I put the duck down, right?
Yes.
Eric, what did you think of the beef
that ed and Alex put forth?
The quality of the meat is exceptional.
I'm not a fan of-- of stuffing
the...The meat with ratatouille in the middle.
It doesn't bring anything to the--to the meat.
We learned that stuffing technique
from the french by sticking the truffle in the center.
Truffle is different than ratatouille.
We didn't have any truffles here today, I'm sure.
See, I want to take my hat off,
but I think my hair's gonna be all messed up.
What do you think?
I think overall, they did a nice job.
Some better than others, and some fell flat.
Kelly also put together, I think,
a great dessert.
And she didn't have to do this.
This was kind of extra credit,
and I thought it was really good.
- Yes, just right. - Yeah.
And the whipped cream, uh, is interesting to me.
With basil and lemon zest. I thought it was really nice.
Everyone seems satisfied. Mm-hmm.
You're shaking your head yes.
Absolutely.
Well, the proof is in the pudding.
Look, I ate everything.
Come on, guys, let's get out of here.
Let's get warmed up.
Let's go back to judges' table
and hear what they have to say.
It's out of my hands now.
They're gonna analyze every aspect and taste.
Well, the flavors all mesh well together.
Yeah.
If I could change anything,
I'd like my pork to be cooked a little less.
Good evening.
We'd like to see Kevin,
Kenny, Andrea, and Kelly.
Thank you.
♪ ♪
so congratulations.
You had the best dishes this afternoon.
Kevin, tell us about your couscous.
Uh, well, it originally started out
as cauliflower couscous, but, um,
I don't know if Kenny knocked it over
or if wind knocked it over,
but I looked over, it was all on the floor.
Maybe it was fortuitous.
When you chose vegetables, were you happy with that,
or did you feel that you'd rather had a protein,
something to...?
I was definitely happy that, um, we got vegetables.
I thought that would be more of a challenge.
I think it worked out well.
Your couscous was also done perfectly.
Thank you. Thank you.
Tell us about your curry.
Um, immediately when I saw the eggplant,
I wanted to kind of come out
with something that had a big burst of flavor.
Uh, it was kind of cool outside,
so I figured some, you know, some Spice
would kind of keep you warm.
It had a nice spike in it.
That's high praise,
'cause usually she's kind of tough on curries.
Yeah.
Tell us about the pork loin, Andrea.
I was little nervous about the temperature.
Initially, they were big pieces.
I cut them down into four.
For the sauce, I wanted it to get a little sweetness,
so I did add a little bit of sugar.
I actually liked the sauce.
I thought it was one of the--
I think it really made the dish.
I loved the dish as an overall,
and I thought, um, the beets and apples
complemented the meat.
The sauce brought a tiny bit of acidity,
which was perfect also for the beets as well.
It was a nice surprise.
A sort of elegant, rustic
kind of farm appearance.
Thank you.
I also appreciate that you did a dessert.
Andrea and I both thought if one of us had time,
we did want to give something sweet at the end.
The four of you actually worked together
to make a beautiful meal for us.
- Thank you. - Thank you very much.
But as you know, there can only be one winner.
Patrick?
Well, the very first thing I tasted
was a dish that was striking in its clarity.
It was also beautifully balanced
with the accompanying dish,
and it was...
Kenny's sweet and sour curried eggplant.
Oh, .
The beast came up with a win on that one.
Everything was very good. It just really stood out.
Thank you very much.
Now I need you guys to send back
some of your colleagues, please.
Hey.
Give it up for big daddy.
Um, the judges want to see Tim,
Amanda,
and Stephen.
The bottom?
I would never came to my mind.
Like this-- they can't be serious.
Sorry, guys.
♪ ♪
today we had a lovely meal
in a really beautiful setting,
and because of that fact,
the mistakes on that table were glaringly apparent.
Timothy, let's start with you.
How do you think it went for you today?
It could have went better.
Initially, I was gonna do a mouselline,
and then once we started cutting and roasting them,
I made a decision that we should leave them whole
and just mix them and go with that as the starch.
So you didn't do the mouselline?
No, we didn't do the mouselline.
So basically it was the turnips
and the potatoes and the asparagus.
Right.
They were cut so... So tiny,
and you couldn't really taste the turnip.
Okay.
And the seasoning too was...
Was kind of bland as well in the dish.
Okay.
You didn't mention asparagus
when you were talking about the dish,
but I know it was there.
How did it just get onto the plate?
All white to me just wouldn't
have been appealing with turnips there,
so I added a little asparagus for color.
You're telling me at the last second
you also threw asparagus in there
'cause you didn't like the color?
I mean, you didn't like the dish.
You were trying to figure out how to fix it,
and I don't think you did.
Okay.
Stephen.
There are two approaches to serving a salad.
In a bowl is the worst possible way.
A plate allows you to sort of continue to toss it
and enjoy it as you eat it.
And to dump a gloppy dressing on,
it's rather like a concrete truck
pouring on top of silk,
and it did not work.
I actually went as far as to do two different dressings,
wanted to try and incorporate some texture,
which I used raw apples and cucumbers.
It's interesting. You say you wanted to add crunch
by using apple,
but then you gave us a big slice of apple,
so if you were using apple in the place of croutons,
I would have thought a nice dice
scattered throughout the whole thing
would have given it that effect.
Amanda.
What is a minestrone to you?
In a minestrone that I've made,
it has beans, pancetta, parmesan rind, vegetables.
In a minestrone, you don't think it has pasta too?
I've actually only made it with just, um, chili beans
and not with pasta.
When we cook, why do we cut things uniformly?
So they all cook the same way.
Why did you not cut things uniformly?
Yeah.
You know, it just-- it felt...
I don't know, it felt amateurish.
It was grandmotherly,
as though grandma might have done it with her ax.
Didn't quite have the polish
that you would expect from a chef.
We'll see you back here in a while.
Are we stewing some more?
- Yes. - Indeed.
Want to tell us about 'em?
They said it was amateurish,
and I was like, "ouch."
We'll see.
Well, all three chefs made some mistakes.
You know, Stephen's dish,
the problem I had wasn't so much
that there was a lot of stuff there.
It was the way he chose to present it.
It was all jumbled up.
You couldn't figure out what, you know, anything was.
You had this big hunk of an apple.
You can have 20 ingredients in there,
as long as there doesn't appear to be 20 ingredients in there.
I think he had 3 1/2 hours.
He was trying to put all the techniques that he knows,
everything that he can do into that salad,
and that was the mistake that he made.
Overthought and overdressed.
Over--exactly.
And I was trying to be like,
"it is what it is,
"but I'm gonna make it something it isn't.
"And here you go. I'm gonna throw that in.
And now I'm gonna throw-- look at that! I got that."
Let's move on to Tim's turnips.
I think once he made a decision to puree them
and he started out with a small vegetable,
that's what you're stuck with,
and I don't think he thought about that.
Oddly enough, a puree would have been, uh,
very ideal in relation to all the other foods
we were eating.
To me, it was invisible.
That work that he did for three hours
was not representing anything in the plates.
Amanda did seem a little perplexed
to be in front of us again.
Her dish was kind of on the bottom
because of the carrots.
I don't think she thought about how they would cook.
I had the problem also
with the name of the soup. The minestrone.
Yes.
It was absolutely not a minestrone.
I was so concerned about developing,
like, a depth of flavor in the soup
that I wasn't paying attention when I was cutting.
Dummy.
Well, I think we have our answer.
Yes.
♪ ♪
there's a cause and effect to everything we do when we cook.
When we make one choice,
it affects the outcome of the dish,
and I think in all three cases,
that's where the dishes kind of failed.
Amanda, you have to know that
when you cut one part of the vegetables
larger than the rest, it's gonna cook differently.
Stephen, I don't think you had the confidence
to just give us a nice, perfectly dressed salad.
You went overboard,
and the salad came out overdressed and weighted down.
Timothy...
You moved in one direction to make a puree,
and then in midstream, you made a decision
that I think completely messed with your dish.
You didn't give us the nice roasted flavors
that we were expecting from a roast vegetable dish.
We had a great day. We had a great meal.
Unfortunately, someone still has to go home.
♪ ♪
Tim?
Please pack your knives and go.
Thank you.
I am disappointed that, you know,
I lost the challenge today with turnips and potatoes.
Wish I could have gone out
on overcooking a piece of lamb or something like that.
Thanks. Appreciate it.
Good luck to you, Tim.
All right.
Make sure you season your food, guys.
But however, I'm blessed. I feel good.
I'm going on vacation.
No!
I get to live another day and cook another day,
so I'm not gonna be hard on myself.
Saying good-bye was tough,
but it's not one of those good-byes that's forever.
Keep the love train rolling.
And I'm looking forward to picking up the phone
and growing old with these folks.
Y'all have fun. Enjoy the competition.
Don't take it too seriously, and have fun.
Salt and pepper. Peace.
Later, chef.
That's just how the dice rolled.
You can't always roll 7 or 11 first time around, but...
It's all good.
Next on Top Chef...
Everybody's worried. We're gonna be judged
by our peers today.
- How is it? - It's good.
- Can you taste this one? - It's not right.
Angelo's helping Tamesha and Stephen.
Just give it five minutes.
He definitely has some sort of game plan up here.
Just wait. It's gonna be worth it. Trust me.
Perhaps this is part of his tactic.
Amanda gives me a piece of the chicken to try.
I think there's a little cartilage,
but I'm not gonna say anything.
It is a game.
I just thought it was kind of a train wreck.
The beef needed more seasoning.
It kind of was one note.
The chefs are being harsh on the dishes.
I'm like, "oh, my gosh." I mean, seriously?
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