Top Chef Season 6
 

WOW, I 'm into this show...

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef

Brothers, Hotheads, great cooks, Vegas....

I'm happy.

Discuss.

An interesting twist... having brothers on the same show.... that should get fireworks going at some point... :)

I had a tough time making the connection between some of the vices and the actual dishes....

The Vices challenge was rather weak, the chef from Haiti had no clue was the challenge was about.

What about the quickfire at the start, the one chef Preeti couldn't open a clam and killed her teams chances from the start. On that team, why wouldnt somebody step up and shuck the clams?

I like Top Chef, lets see how the season unfolds.

That quickfire was brilliant. I doubt the people on preeti's team will last, if they can't work on a team.

As far as the challenge goes it was a great start, not too complex and not too simple. Most of the early challenges last season were soooo bad and made me wonder about the shows staying power. As long as the producers don't take the vegas too far it should be good.

Wolfgang Puck was also brilliant, one of the best guest judges.

Learn to open a clam...
 

I really enjoyed the show. I'm fairly amused that someone who would try out for the show (be accepted for the show) wouldn't have at least some idea of how to open a clam. Also, no-one on the team could accurately describe how to do so? Ugh.

I thought the challenge was good, but they should have made more of sticking to the "vice" and the connection to the food.

Lots of Burbon drinkers there...I'd fit in. Surprised no one created Magic Mushrooms...:p

This show tries to introduce certain challenges for the contestants.
One episode they cooked for the Chicago Police Academy.
Another they got children involved.

I would like to see TC involve a school for the blind or to be PC visually impaired.
I had a friend who has passed but and was blind since his teens.

We talked about his condition and how he had to rely on his other senses to help him compensate for his lack of vision. I remember one year when he and I were directors at a youth summer camp. Early one day a forest ranger had come to our camp and told the staff of a mountain lion that had been spotted near our vicinity.

That evening 3 of us went for a walk in the woods, as my friend was holding on to me, he mentioned that my heart rate was up by feeling my wrist. It was true. I was freaked out about the mt lion walking around in the dark but he knew.

I would love TC to make an episode involving the blind to see how they could involve them and get they're take on what they were tasting.

How about having the brains in the two minute meeting to say, "I've never opened a clam before." It's not like she drew a knife and had to do it.

Speaking of racks, Padma seemed to be serving up a healthy portion.

Mike Isabella appears to be an arrogant jerk, though it looks as though he may get knocked down a peg next week.

As always editing plays a huge role how the contestants are perceived. Mike Isabella is sure shaping up to be one of the "villains" of this season.

I'm amazed at the talent and work experience of the contestants this season. Right now I'm rooting for my hometown contestant Mattin and Jennifer C (having been the sous chef at Ripert's Le Bernadin means she's got serious chops). Michael Voltaggio also seems interesting. His sous chef in LA is/was Marcel from season 2.

I'm also looking forward to the episode they teased at the end where the challenge seems to take place at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Robuchon himself is there along with Boulud and Keller.

I have to agree that Mike Isabella is a clown, an arrogant clown. Really Mike? Really? Are you really going to go there about the 'no offense but a woman should not win' or something like that in the quickfire.

I do not like his tone and his arrogance..... at all.

Bizarre episode last night. All the whining about how it wasn't right to make them cook for a bridal couple because "everyone can't get married". I would think that anyone in the food industry is going to be cooking for all kinds of married and to-be-married couples in their career, since a large percentage of the population falls into that category. Grow up.

But, I'm glad Eve is gone, she seemed like a hack. Now if we could get rid of the one with the really annoying lip piercing...... Which reminds me. Are chefs, as a group, more prone to body art than the general population, or is this just the profile Top Chef is looking for.

Ha! How right was Jenn C: "concentrate on 1 dish!" Too bad the whiny gay woman didn't listen to her. You'd think these chefs would've caught all the previous episodes and try to not repeat the past errors. :rolleyes:

The women said it themselves, the men as a whole this season are stronger. The only female chef I'm rooting for is Jenn C - she already displayed her training in precision and clean cooking a la Le Bernadin. For the guys the V. brothers. I'll get a chance to dine at Volt in MD next month, but I think Bryan would still be away filming though.

This season's chefs are much luckier: they've already given away $15K in two episodes! What did they give the last few seasons...2 r/t tickets, some pots and pans - whoopeedoo.

I predicted within the first few minutes of the first episode, or hoped, that the first person to go would be the chef with the huge earrings WITHIN the ears - I could not look at her at all and I guess the judges probably felt the same and found an excuse to cut her off early. :p

Agree. ^ ^ What is she going to do in her restaurant, provide each diner with a questionaire upon arrival so she knows every diner's political and religious beliefs, so that she doesn't have to serve those who she disagrees with?

BTW, I like Gail Simmons as a judge. She seems to be fair and consistent with her feedback.

More of the same last night, though didn't I hear him say something like some people get over him very quickly?

Seems like it on these reality shows, anyway. I have a friend who is short, stocky, dark and well inked. He is a pasty chef. He came to visit us in Hawaii. We went to Waimea Canyon and he took off his shirt, climbed up on a rock and posed like a Maori warrior. He told us he is auditioning for a reality show in LA this month. :)

I agree. Eve had a really annoying "accent" so I was glad to see her go. On the other hand, her vacant bovine stare at the judge's table always made me giggle. And I try not to judge people on their body art but some piercings are just gross. I can't figure out why yet, but those lip piercings that chick has are really ugly (by contrast I've seen some people with nasal piercings that actually are pretty - something about the positioning?)

I don't know that I've ever enjoyed an episode of the show any more than the last one...budding stars (mostly in their own eyes) called upon to cook for a sample of the sort of folks who actually pay for dinner themselves.

I'm not sure what the challenge proved, although the viewer emerges with the impression that men cook better for women, than do women for men - commercially, at least. The men's team did seem to adapt to regimentation and coordination a little better, although perhaps the viewer impression that sexual orientation was less an issue among the men had to do with editing.

The comments by the announced lesbian were offensive and as blatantly sexist as those of a chauvinist wife-beating male. Not only would she be likely to go broke running a restaurant, she would grow broke gracelessly.

Tattoos are fine, as long as not overly visible in a chef's jacket, but lip piercings or black nail polish - or almost any nail polish - tend to diminish one's visible credibility as a chef.

Did any of the judges comment on the brisket? A great dish of low repute among those for whom food is cuisine, not lunch or dinner, the one fleeting image was pretty unattractive, revealing a lack of careful trimming prior to cooking or before serving. I regularly eat in roadside joints which serve barbecued brisket on butcher paper with naught but onions, pickles, light bread and a bowl drippings sauce - no utensils - yet trim brisket artfully as a matter of course.

I expect we'll have some anger, bitterness and a loud confrontation or two in the weeks ahead. I'd wish that the two brothers would stick around for a while. Competing with each other, they've formulated a set of "rules" for the game. For them, playing harder replaces spite and anger (at least at this point). I suspect that a number of the other contestants have far less ability to comprehend that they are competing for the camera and the judges, not for their own self-gratification.

I think those of you complaining about the lesbian are missing the point and you are ignoring the comments she made later about being happy for two people who found each other. I certainly didn't get a sense that she would object to cooking for or catering such an event. My understanding was that what she was complaining about was that the SHOW was highlighting it when not everybody has the same rights. That said, she made a bigger deal of it than necessary.

I didn't interpret her beef in that way. She did cook for them. And she most likely would cook for them if it was her restaurant as well.

The beef, it seemed to me, was with Bravo who *chose* these challenges. This isn't someone walking into the restaurant looking for service. This is Bravo sitting around a boardroom table trying to come up with challenges. And if Bravo is supposedly liberal, then it is a little surprising that they would have an essentialist challenge like this.

I think her response was a little bit overblown, however (although, in truth, this probably had to do with the editing of the show).

Wow. Same exact thought posted almost simultaneously. Scary. ;)

I thought the comments were just out of place and a little strange. Me personally, I could care less if a chef is straight, gay, transgender, etc. I just want to know that they can cook, especially in the context of the show. If the show was Top Gay Chef then maybe her comments would be relevant. It seems that Bravo needed to fill a minute or two and found her comments to be enough "controversy" to fill them.

Are you gay?

No, but I don't care if someone is gay or straight to interact with them. They're a person and that's it.

I am saying from a straight person's point of view, I do not see where the comments come into play for the show's eventual outcome. They have no bearing on whether she can cook or not and are not relevant to her winning the challenge.

Sure, it's her prerogative to bring it up and that's fine, I just didn't see the point. Was she thinking about refusing to cook for them?

I don't think she was refusing to cook for them. She was expressing her disappointment in a tv network that is supposedly pretty liberal to have an essentialist/traditional marriage task. Of all the challenges Bravo could cook up (pun not intended), this is the one they choose? If I was gay and excluded from a social institution such as marriage, I would probably be a little miffed as well. I would expect such an insensitivity on Fox, but Bravo?

Again, I think the emotions expressed were more about disappointment in the creators of the program than an attitude about not wanting to participate.

And next week they're cooking for a bunch of servicemen. Will we hear someone complain about how they're a pacifist and why is Bravo making them cook for these people?? Like I said, get a life.

I don't really see the same as similar in kind, but your point is taken.

Again, I'm not really trying to defend the comments so much as try to explain what I think the genesis of them is. I believe she was misconstrued.

I wonder what the reaction would have been had self-announced active hetero made a similar comment about cooking for a reception after a gay or lesbian wedding (in a state where same sex marriages are legal)?

After all, when will the inevitable occur on "Top Chef", a request for the chefs to bake a bit of Bud in the Brownies? I guess they'll have to fly to Schipol to film that episdode.

Surely there would be a difference in reaction.

And shouldn't there be? Isn't there a bit of a difference between a minority member speaking out against the tyranny of the majority versus a majority member speaking out of against the minority?

Wrong on all counts. I am not missing the point at all. Some of the posts following yours aptly reflect my point of view on this.

What a shock! ;)

Shocking that we're right and you're wrong? Nah, that's obvious. :p

"Tyranny of the majority?" Are you kidding me? :rolleyes:

I know this is turning into an OMNI/PR thread so I'll stop now. :D

Yes, you're right. Thanks for setting me straight. :rolleyes:

How is it not tyranny of majority when you're a minority member locked out of social and political institutions?

It ain't personal, it's FT. ;)

I just saw this show today..... so who won... the Oriental Guy, the Girl or the doode with the punk-like hair..???

Speaking of essentialist...........

so the Asian Doode won....?????

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can someone confirm...? I think the show airs in the US before down here....

What Asian dude? Who here is from Asia: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-6/bios

:confused:

If you think an Asian "doode" won, it might air several years here before there. What city are they in? In the current season showing in the U.S., they are in Las Vegas.

Preeti?

* Kevin = fat, bearded Conan O'Brien?
* Is this Top Chef or Top Tattoo?
* The average age for chefs this season seems a lot higher than past seasons, right?
* I didn't like how the Judges were trying to get the chefs (when working as a "team") to incriminate each other. :td:
* Next week's episode looks intense

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yeah.... The show here is behind... No mantion of Vegas...