Top Chef Power Rankings - Episode 5

Aaaaaaand, it gets ugly. Welcome to the second act of the season, where the more objectionable personalities have gotten tired and stressed enough that they're starting to act out, but we're not deep enough into the season that all of the yahoos have been eliminated. In short, reality show drama has taken over, and it'll probably remain a focus until we're down to the last five or six contestants. Despite what the teasers may have you believe, however, the chefs did, in fact, cook some food in between screaming and throwing chairs.

What a great quickfire! She still hasn't updated her blog, but I bet that was Lee Anne's brainchild. Antonia mentioned seeing blindfold challenges on Top Chef before, but I don't remember anything like this -- is my memory that poor? At any rate, here's a very tough challenge. As a number of the gotcha studies when it comes to tasting have illustrated, even people who do this for a living don't always taste as well as they think they do. My only annoyance was the fact that the prices of the ingredients were so prominently featured. Expensive does NOT equal better. And if I wasn't 90% certain that Lee Anne was wrangling the ingredients, I'd be suspicious that they were simply working off of price rather than actual taste (Update 4/12: Lee Anne's blog is up, she was wrangling, and she agrees -- some ingredients were left out of the tasting because the cheaper version was better). Even then, I think the suggestion that all ingredients exist on a continuum of low quality to high quality is kind of a narrow view. The characteristics that peg an ingredient as "low quality" sometimes have their benefits. Wonder Bread isn't a good crusty artisanal sourdough, that's for sure, but I'm not going to try to make a breakfast strata with the latter. But still, the ingredients we saw were, for the most part, ones where you're rarely going to have a compelling reason to choose a lower quality for reasons other than cost or availability.

As for the elimination, can we get an individual challenge, already? We've had ONE. Yeah, I know, it's a lot of chefs, but trying to delve into who's doing what is getting ridiculous. You'll note that after Spike and Manuel mutually refused to throw each other under the bus last week, Tom was in the kitchen finding out what each chef was working on before they knew they were on the chopping block. It's something he's going to have to continue for a while.

There's very little movement in the rankings this week, partially because as the season goes on we have more track history to refer to, and partially because there was even less information to go on than last week. But there are still some significant shifts, starting right at the top.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Stephanie Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 4 1 I agonized over this one. I'm sure there are many who will call this a no-brainer, but I'm digging deep and I absolutely don't believe this is an obvious move. Yes, she was on the winning team, yes her shrimp received praise, yes she took control at the store and pulled her team together so they could get the job done. But first off, reading around, many people seem to think the elimination dish was her idea. I've watched that segment of the show three times now, and I don't buy it. She got them focused and she floated the idea of shrimp, but it appears from the tape we see that Dale and Lisa were complete masters of their own contributions. So let's look at what Stephanie did create, which was the grilled shrimp and deviled aioli. I don't mean to take anything away from a good dish well-executed, but a creative stroke of genius this one wasn't. For the praise her shrimp seasoning got, it was sambal -- a bottled chile sauce -- and some garlic and ginger. The deviled aioli was spiked with more sambal and some soy. Again, small creative choices can make for big results. I've always preached it and I absolutely believe it. And also, this is a single dish team challenge. She's a cog, not the whole machine, and by all appearances she was a damn fine cog. But for the many out there who seem to feel she was robbed of a trip to Italy, let's not get carried away, here. The second reason I had a really hard time moving her up was that quickfire. Yes, it's a really tough challenge. But six out of fifteen? Really, Stephanie? And for those who weren't paying attention, yes -- she DID choose imitation crab over the real thing. I can see how a lot of those comparisons would be tricky to make, but that one is just astounding. And worrisome. Still, Stephanie just keeps on banging out dishes that make the judges happy, in the top of four out of five eliminations so far. She's either doing it herself or keeping those around her focused. Either way, despite my reservations, I've got to give her the top spot this week.

2 Richard Quickfires 2 3 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 1 What's to say? Richard didn't lose the top spot as much as he surrendered it. Even a modest showing would have kept him there, but man, did he dodge a bullet. My hunch? He was feeling strong -- rightfully so -- and just got a little cocky and careless with a challenge that, by his own admission, is not to his strengths. And it didn't help that he and the judges seem to have a fundamental difference of opinion on whether salmon is a good protein to sous vide (I've not had the pleasure, so I can't weigh in). He's still my favorite to win this thing, but between the block party and the benefit, I think Achilles has exposed his heel. He doesn't like cooking in situations where he can't control things very carefully. That won't be an issue in the finals. He just has to make sure he doesn't lose focus and screw up before then. My guess is he knows he got careless, and the wake up call inspires him to come back strong. We'll see what happens.

3 Dale Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 2 0 Dale stays strong, but history is still on Richard's side, so I'm not giving him that number two spot. Dale's contribution to the winning dish was the pickled chili salad. So if I may now address the people who feel Dale was robbed of a trip to Italy (Dale included, apparently), let's look at what he made. His salad was seasoned with rice wine vinegar, mirin, sugar and sesame oil. If you're not familiar with Asian ingredients, that may sound exotic and creative. The reality, however, is that it's a boilerplate flavor profile. And it's a very obvious pairing with Stephanie's shrimp. Points for a very interesting pepper assortment, including Christmas bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos and lipstick peppers, but this was not an inspired stroke of creative genius. Again, I'm not saying he wasn't worthy of the win, I'm just saying let's not get carried away here. This was not as obvious a choice as so many seem to believe. One thing that puzzled me was Dale's reluctance to do anything Asian. Was he afraid of being pigeonholed, or was he afraid of doing an Asian dish for a guest judge who knows a thing or two about Asian? I think the former. But there's a little part of me that wonders.

4 Mark Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 2 Did I mention that Mark's week two is starting to look more and more like a fluke? Next week looks like an individual challenge, so I'm giving him one more week in this spot. I'd have dropped him already if Antonia and Andrew didn't also have a bad week. Mark's contribution to the elimination dish was a parsnip puree with vanilla, which sounds rather nice in my head. He felt it worked great with the salmon. Tom clearly did not. I'm having a hard time putting those two together in my head, so we'll just call Mark's contribution uninspired and let him tread water a little while longer. Give him points for politely but firmly standing up to the judges, though.

5 Antonia Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 2 1 I would have liked to ding her a little more, but the only person below her who showed well enough to make a big move upward was Lisa, and I'm not ready to pull the trigger on that just yet. Kudos for nailing the quickfire. Antonia seems quite proud of her palate, and she demonstrates that her pride is justified. Or so you'd think, until you taste her carpaccio, apparently. I'm a little reluctant to read too much into an elimination where the chef has immunity. Of course they still want to make a good showing, but why open up the bag of tricks when there's no danger? In any case, she was looking like a model of conventional consistency early on, but that's starting to wane with two consecutive bad showings. I had wondered if maybe she was trying to coast on technique for a while, but I think that theory's blown. I'm starting to believe that we've pretty much seen her best. Assuming she shrugs off these past couple of weeks, and I think she will, that's going to put her on the bubble for a four person final, but I don't give her any hope of winning.

6 Lisa Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 3 0 And our other big mover, if one spot can be called a big move, is Lisa. As irritating as she is, she's suddenly making some noise. She's been paired with Stephanie for both of those weeks so the possibility exists that it's reflected glory, but my suspicion is that she's actually showing us something. Cruising the boards and blogs, I see people who think Stephanie was robbed and people who think Dale was robbed, and the one thing they have in common is they seem to feel Lisa had no business winning. I'm here to step in and defend Lisa. Dismissing her contribution as "cooking bacon" is just silly. First off, does smoked bacon, maple syrup, rice vinegar and shiro miso strike you as a conventional combination? To me, that sounds delicious -- not to mention an umami bomb. So you have an interesting and pleasing flavor profile, and then she applies a neat little technique -- layering and slicing the bacon crosswise to get ridged sticks -- to make it just a little special. This is the kind of thing upon which great fine dining dishes are built: doing little, unusual things to common ingredients that make them stand out in an unique manner. Now, look at the dish without her bacon. Shrimp with chiles, garlic and ginger, aioli with chiles and garlic, pickled chiles. What makes that dish special? The bacon. It touches on the classic pairing of shrimp and bacon, but the miso marries it with the Asian palette of the rest of the dish, and it still stands as a delicious and unusual component on its own. You can make a case for Stephanie or Dale, but I think the judges made the right pick. Even before big showings in weeks four and five, she had a couple of less notable hits in the early weeks. I want to give her one more week, but she could just as easily be sitting at number four right now. I haven't seen the kind of refinement from her that she'll need to go the distance, but I think she's worked her way into true contender status.

7 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 2 1 Hey, look! Faux caviar!   (Try it one more time, buddy, I dare you. I doub-- I triple dog dare you.)

8 Jennifer Quickfires 0 2 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 Another quiet week from Jennifer (though if the teasers are to be believed, that won't be for long), but some troubling signs brewing beneath the surface. Though it isn't called out in the recipe, it's made clear on the show that she was in charge of the duck -- the duck that wasn't rendered properly and wasn't scored. Ming said it, that's cooking 101. Maybe the scale of the operation threw her off, but it's troubling nonetheless. I thought about dinging her a spot or two for it until I remembered who's beneath her.

9 Spike Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 0 2 And so we come to the problem child. Despite being on the bottom, despite narrowly avoiding elimination, I was actually encouraged by what I saw from Spike this week (setting aside his attitude, of course). Even if he chose to express it in a less than optimal manner by lashing out at Antonia, he was absolutely right -- he should have agreed less and insisted more. Because while Antonia and Zoi were merrily chugging along, he was the one ringing the alarm bells. He suggested a soup. He expressed concern that the carpaccio wasn't impressive enough. Though it was a quick clip, he questioned Zoi about the level of seasoning in her mushrooms. Did the judges address any of those issues at the judges' table? Ahhh, that's right -- they addressed ALL of them. The difference between Spike and your number one chef this week is that Spike didn't take control and steer the ship when he could see his team was headed in a bad direction. There's hope for him yet.

10 Ryan Quickfires 0 3 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 2 I'd love to comment on Ryan this week, but I have no idea what the heck he did other than throw out the pomegranate juice when he shouldn't have. I still have no idea what to make of him. He intersperses quiet, moderate successes with spectacular failures, so I wonder if he isn't showing lower than he should be. But you have to show something to move up the ladder, and I'm still not seeing it. The quickfire established that he has a sense of taste, at least.

11 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 1 Nikki, too, I'm completely unable to judge this week due to a complete lack of information. For what it's worth, her team's dish doesn't look bad on paper, it just sounds like it was weakly executed, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering who prepared it. I'm with Tom in that I'm highly suspicious of little paired drinks (even though I've been guilty of preparing them in the past). "Precious" was absolutely the right word. And given that it was a prosecco-based cocktail, I'm guessing it was Nikki's brainchild. We have no way of knowing, however, so I can't dock her for it........... ah, who the hell am I kidding, she's now in the very basement. Consider her duly docked.

12 Zoi Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 1 3 This ouster shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody (except maybe Jennifer), and yet the entire stew room with the exception of Spike seemed awfully taken aback by Zoi's departure. Add to this Manuel's comments in his exit interview last week, and it really makes you wonder. Maybe she was just phenomenally charming in person and people were sad to see her go. Maybe she wowed people cooking dinner in the house. But she sure didn't show much on the show. And her extended exit interview? TERRIBLE. Let's examine some choice quotes, shall we? "I feel like I really wasn't understood in this game." "They just decided to say... you're not standing out in some way, but that's their mistake, not my mistake." Translation: It's not my fault I didn't show the judges anything, it's their fault for not seeing what I didn't show them. "My team broke down, and I was the one holding the team together, but that wasn't made clear." Translation: It's not my fault the carpaccio failed, it was my teammates'. I was really the one holding the team together behind the scenes. Pay no attention to those mushrooms. "Anybody that met me in this experience would know that I'm a good person." "I'm not trying to come up with a concept, plate it, taste it and execute it literally within a timed circumstance and have it be judged by a panel of people that don't even know anything about me. So it's completely out of context." Translation: If you only knew what I'm like as a person, you'd understand that the food I served you didn't actually suck. "It's all a matter of interpretation... that's all a matter of the judges basically deciding who they think is possibly more creative, or more entertaining, or whatever. And I'm not really interested in being a celebrity or being entertaining." "I wasn't really worried about leaving, so I wasn't really that concerned with being crazy and fantastic and drama kind of outlandish about my personality. For me, being professional and calm is the way to be a good chef, so that's just what I was doing, but apparently that's not what they wanted to see." Translation: The reason I lost wasn't because I pitched a tent on the chopping block starting with week three, and it wasn't because I was responsible for what they considered to be the most important component of the dish that finally got me kicked out. It's all because I'm not a good TV personality. "What they're looking for the Top Chef to be is probably not me, and I'm fine with that. I'm actually okay with it. It would have been nice to be Top Chef, it would have been nice to get further along in the game, but I'm not willing to sacrifice who I am in order to further myself in this particular game." "I'm not in it to be the winner of the show, necessarily, I'm in it to be the winner of my life." Translation: I don't need you assholes and your stupid competition anyway. You can't fire me, I quit. Classy exit there, Zoi.

Up next: no clues about the quickfire, but an individual elimination challenge! Finally! Probably! Maybe! And it looks like they're serving tailgate food to Bears fans. Being from Chicago, Stephanie knows this crowd and a lot of her dishes have meat and potatoes appeal. I think we see her in the top again. This does not play well to Richard's strengths, and he might have another bad week before bouncing back. If Dale wants to get away from Asian a bit, this is his chance. I bet he does well, especially because his pork skewers at the block party demonstrated that he understands downscale food still has to be interesting and good, and also that he isn't going to condescend to people just because they're at a football game. And tailgate food just seems right up Lisa's alley for some reason. So I'll peg Stephanie, Dale and Lisa for the top three and we'll give Dale the win, with Jennifer running as a dark horse on the quality of her sliders at the block party and the fact that she's pissed. On the bottom... gosh, who's left? This actually seems like a challenge that Nikki could be up to, so she might take another step towards being this season's Midgley, mysteriously surviving much longer than she should...... nah, she screws something up. We'll throw mistake-prone Ryan in there as well. And nothing says 20 degree kickoff like faux caviar, so what the hell, we'll throw Andrew into the bottom three as well, with Antonia as the dark horse, mostly because I have a hard time picturing what she'd make for a tailgate party and bold flavors don't seem to be her strong point. I say Nikki goes. I hope Nikki goes. (Please let Nikki go).

Discuss!

Comments

[Derek]

Another great summary, I don't think I've had a single disagreement with your rankings yet.

On the salmon issue, I have had sous vide salmon several times, and there's no question the texture is very different. Cooked low enough, the salmon just melts in your mouth, there's no resistance whatsoever. It's delicious, and I prefer salmon cooked this way, but if for some reason you want a bit of resistance when you bite into it, it's probably not for you. Think of a well cooked fillet done traditionally, then injected with water. Done well, SV salmon has a very pure salmon flavor (salmon quality is important, as any "off" flavors will be front and center using this method).

Richard was cooking the salmon quite low, a bit lower than the lowest I've gone personally (I've yet to dip below 48.8, I believe he was at 46.7 or somewhere in that range from the image of the circulator in the episode). I once did two halves of the same fillet at 50.0 and 48.8, and the difference was significant in both taste and texture. It's possible that had Richard bumped it up a few degrees, the judges might have found the texture more in line with their expectations (and in fact, the recipe on the Top Chef site suggests a higher temperature).

In any case, I think the show's editors exaggerated the criticism of the texture a bit just to keep viewers from assuming Richard is going to be the runaway winner of this thing. I think the judges understood it was just a difference in preference, and there will be no long term damage to Richard's chances here. I think the "Blais charm wearing off" was another editing trick. He's a guaranteed finalist.

[Jake]

If I recall correctly, there was a blindfold tasting challenge where chefs had to identify ingredients through taste and feel only. I think. But I could be remembering an impromptu junk food tasting contest in the cheftestants' living quarters.

We're hearing a lot of grousing about the judging this year, which I think is pretty lame, because, let's be honest, Daniel Boulud is right. Ming Tsai is right. The regular panel of judges is right. A lot of the complainers haven't even tasted the dishes in question, so to complain that the judges are wrong about what does and does not work is either hubris, or garden variety sour grapes (but not sour grapes with golden beet puree and a honey-truffle glaze, because that obviously wouldn't work).

[kelly]

I agree that Lisa's bacon was by far the component of the dish that was the standout - and I have been skeptical of her. As well I have been thinking that Nikki has needed to go since the turd mushrooms of the Zoo challenge. Personally, I know it is edited, but when watching her I have no idea how/why she is a contestant. There are always 1 or 2 contestants each cycle that I feel this way about (ie Marissa season 2, mikey season 2)

[Barb]

"she DID choose imitation crab over the real thing. I can see how a lot of those comparisons would be tricky to make, but that one is just astounding."

On this point, I have to wonder whether that particular pair wasn't a bit of a set-up. The fake crab was typical, fake-crab chunks, but the real crab looked to me like it was fine shreds, and all white. If that's the case, the real crab was from the knuckle, not the leg, and that meat doesn't have the characteristic texture, or nearly as much flavor as the leg meat. If she heard "crab" and thought "crab legs" the fake crab would have been closer to what she was expecting that the shreds would be. I wonder how many of the other chefs also made the same choice -- no-one got them all right, after all.

[Barb]

Following up on my own comment, in LeAnne's blog on the Bravo site for this episode she lists what the comparison pairs were, and the crab was in fact surimi vs. lump. It was also one of the two pairs that she comments the most competitors got wrong (the other was the lumpfish roe vs. American Sturgeon caviar.)

So there were a couple of not-quite-matches going in between the two crabs: Lump is from blue crab, surimi are supposed to taste like king or snow crab. Lump often used as an ingredient in crab cakes or salads, crab legs are most often served standing alone.

[Muhammad]

I'm so sorry to be new to your blog, I linked it from Tim Allen's Bravo Blog. I just am floored by how great a read it is!! Anyway, I distinctly remember season 1 having blindfolds for the taste test, remember how they had the snack challenge later that night? Classic. Anyway, fantastic work and the power rankings are totally great!!