Top Chef Chicago Recap, Week 9
By L. Stolpman in Food on May 8, 2008 6:39PM
Welcome, foodies. Let's revisit last night's episode!
We find Andrew and Spike curled up in bed, mourning the loss of The Hobbit. Do not despair, Merry and Pippin. He has returned to the Shire. More morning shots and we see Lisa has somehow picked up on the fact that she is a walking advertisement for hairnets. She ties her hair back in a bandana. Thenkew, Lisa, thenkew.
Quickfire Challenge. No guest judge today. Tom is there. Padma says there will be no more immunity. The chefs split into two teams (Forks: Nikki, Spike, Dale, and Lisa. Spoons: Stephanie, Richard, Antonia, and Andrew.). Challenge: The relay race! Fun! We instantly think back to Chef Hung burning through chickens at the speed of sound. This time, the Chefs will supreme five oranges, peel two artichokes, fillet a monkfish and make mayonnaise.
Lisa and Antonia go head to head with the oranges with Lisa handily beating Antonia. Andrew makes up for the time by finishing his artichokes faster than Spike, even with Spike's earlier start. Richard and Dale fillet the ugly monkfish in pretty much the same time and so it is down to Stephanie and Nikki. Stephanie's arm moves like a machine as she whisks a drizzle of oil into her egg yolks while Nikki is clearly getting tired. Stephanie brings it home and the Spoons win it!
Dale then surprises everyone by going all Jennifer Whiskey-Dad and punching a locker, denting it. It appears as if he does this in front of Padma and Collichio. What the hell? Does anyone else find this just completely ridiculous? Antonia sums it up nicely by saying, "[Dale] punched a locker and…then had to have his diaper changed."
Elimination Challenge. Padma brings in a bride and groom and announces that each team will be cooking for their wedding. As winners, the Spoons get to choose whose menu they will cook – they choose the bride and the Forks get the groom. The bride wants everything fried. Well, not really. She mentions pizza, which is odd. She wants meat and potatoes style food and a layered wedding cake. The team gels nicely, deciding their menu.
The groom wants an Italian menu which seems right up Nikki's menu. Instead of grabbing this moment as an opportunity to shine, she looks reluctant and even petulant about saddling this onerous burden of being a chef. Groom would like German chocolate cake. Mmmmm. This team already hates each other. Poor groom.
The bride's appetizers are a pizza with prosciutto, a pulled pork sandwich, and short ribs and blue cheese in phyllo. The buffet includes a crispy chicken, brisket, filet mignon, creamed spinach and potato gratin. Stephanie tackles a five layer dark chocolate and lemon cake.
The groom's appetizers include assorted flatbreads and bruschetta. For the buffet: tortellini, mixed vegetables and cheeses, filet mignon, Chilean sea bass, and an orecchiette with ragu. The cake is a chocolate hazelnut, made by Lisa.
The chefs run off to find ingredients and then begin a very long night to prepare for tomorrow's event. Dale runs around and has his hand in every dish. He voice-overs that he is doing everything and the rest of the team sucks it. You know, it's a good thing (or shame) that Lisa and Dale hate each other or they might combine to form the most awesome team of hatred in the world. We see clips of the groom's team asking Nikki for advice and her dodging any and all decision making. The bride's team is practically singing about sunshine, lollipops and rainbows compared to them.
Wedding is on and the chefs serve the guests with glassy eyed stares of the undead. No one has had any sleep. The food seems to go over well, with some minor comments about how difficult or messy some of the apps are. Lisa's groom's cake appears somewhat clumsy looking but Stephanie's cake pretty much looks like a real wedding cake, complete with fresh flower petals. Let's cut to the chase and visit the judges' table.
Judges' Table: The judges call in the Bride's team. The judges begin by saying they weren't big fans of the creamed spinach and Richard owns up to putting star anise in the cream sauce. Padma finally lets them know that they are the winning team. Stephanie gets a shout out for the cake, Antonia for her pizza and Richard for his brisket. They declare Richard as winner and he graciously hands it off to Stephanie. Upon hearing that the prize is a gift certificate, they decide to share it. With each other. Not with Antonia and Andrew. heh.
The groom's team hauls their butts in front of the judges and seriously, Lisa has the half-lidded look of a just-hit bong but has combined it with some angry eyebrows. It's a bad look. Dale looks frustrated, sleepy, and mean. Nikki dodges all responsibility created by the simple fact that she and the menu are both Italian. It comes out that Dale doesn't think Spike did enough and Spike calls him out as a cry-baby bitch, with which we agree. Lisa gets some praise for her cake, despite it looking relatively like a square blob. In the end, the judges just can't take Nikki's complete wussing and Padma asks her to pack her knives and head home.
Up next week: Wooo, do we have an evil boy in the kitchen? Complains of sabotage! We love it.