Top Chef: Beet It.

Please pack your velour
Bathrobe and go, Black Magic.
Kenny. No more. Heh.

(silent smile).

It’s always so nice, somehow, when they throw in the first actual shockingtwist! of the season, isn’t it, ospreys? It makes it feel like things are still shiny and new, that surprises and excitement are still possible, even after all this time.

Kenny’s smug, self satisfied ass getting bounced is like having a really good glass of wine after mediocre sex. After good sex, maybe you want the stereotypical cigarette for a shared, satiated drag. After active, athletic, marathon style good sex, you want a Gatorade so you can replenish yourself, because if you haven’t sweat all your electrolytes out, I’m sorry but you’re doing it wrong.

But after mediocre sex, all you can do is say “well. That happened,” and pour yourself a glass of wine. And so you sit up in bed, holding the covers around your chest and wondering how long you’re going to have to stay and be cuddled by this asshole before you can start making excuses about how you have to get up really early. And you take a sip of wine, and if it’s good wine, it reminds you that there are still beautiful things in the world, things that don’t need excuses or explanations or pathetic attempts at dirty talk. Things that are just good, and balanced, and perfectly satisfying without trying to be anything other than what they are.

That’s what Kenny’s “shocking!” ouster is for me: a smooth sip of perfect , slightly spicy Temperanillo after the mediocre lay that this season’s turned out to be.

And I know that there are going to be comparisons to Tre in season 3, but this is nowhere near as shocking, or as sad, frankly. Tre was a nice, humble guy who was ousted for errors in leadership. Kenny is self aggrandizing douchebag who was incapable of taking criticism at all, and was ousted for making two bad dishes, not poor leadership.

And I know that last night probably gave the Amanda haters (“ohmigod, why is she still heeeeeeeere?” Um, because there’s always at least one and often three or more people who fuck up worse. That’s how the game works, idiots) conniption fits. Amanda made one badly executed protein dish, yes. Kenny made Two. Bad. Dishes. And they weren’t complex dishes (or shouldn’t have been). They were a salad and a cheese course – or some dippy interpretation of a cheese course. Since when is a cheese course ONE massive slab of breaded goat cheese? I LOVE goat cheese, love it like it was my newborn baby, but if you gave me that as a cheese course, I’d laugh in your face. And then I’d punch you.

You fuck up a salad, have an insane concept of what constitutes a cheese course, and then fuck that up too? Yeah, home with you. Go cry into your velour bathrobe.

Alright. Enough jibber jabber. Let’s do this thing up right.

Morning! Top Chef DC Townhouse! Amada laments that her little buddy Stephen went home, but says that still being here gives her faith in herself. Kenny doesn’t know why he keeps ending up in the middle, and vows to “unleash the beast” on the next challenge. Hasn’t he been unleashing the beast on the previous challenges? And if not, why not? We’re halfway through the show, folks – if you had a beast, why would you keep him on a leash this long?

Hinckley Hilton! Quickfire! When they arrive, red and blue aprons and blindfolds are lined up, so, as Amanda guesses, they’re doing another version of the Tag Team cook off – previously done in Season 6 of Top Chef and Season 2 of Top Chef Masters.

They’ll have 40 minutes total to cook, or 10 minutes each. With this challenge, there’s no more immunity but the winning team will get to split $10,000.

They draw knives for teams, but Amanda’s knife is blank. Kevin picks one that says “first choice” and Ed picks second. So they sort out teams playground style – Kevin takes Kenny; Ed takes Tiffany. Kevin chooses Kelly; Ed takes Angelo. Kevin picks Amanda, and Ed is stuck with Alex. He is displeased, as are the other members of his team.

The teams decide on an order to work in. Kenny and Tiffany start the challenge, and Kenny tells us that his kitchen staff back home calls him “the prep’n weapon.” This makes me more convinced than ever that Kenny is just one of those assholes who gives himself a lot of nicknames. Tiffany heats sautee pans and filets a fish. Kenny makes a mustard cream sauce and prepares fresh water prawns.

Second leg. Amanda reads the cues Kenny’s given her, puts pasta in the water and throws some mushrooms into a pan. Kenny smiles that she’s correctly interpreted his signals. Alex salts the fish, which perplexes Tiffany since there’s so much time left.

Third leg. Ed starts working with the fish that Alex has salted. Kevin continues his team’s work seamlessly.

Final leg. Angelo feels like the Tasmanian devil has been through his station, and resalts the fish that Alex has salted. Kelly sears the prawns. Time! The blue team applauds each other.

To taste the dishes.. .Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wanders in wearing a chic aubergine colored pants suit. She tells them that she’s been a foodie for a long time, and that their motto when she leads meetings as Speaker is “first we eat.”


Kevin introduces his team’s Sauteed Shrimp, Angel Hair Pasta, Mustard Sauce and Crispy Basil. Pelosi says it reminds her of San Francisco. Ed introduces the red team’s Roasted Red Snapper, Wilted Greens, and Maitake Mushrooms. Madame Speaker says it’s a little salty, but delicious.

And the winner is. . .the Blue team! Yay! Amanda says that now that she has the taste for winning, she wants more. Pelosi congratulates them all, and leaves the Hinckley Hilton to go back across town and do way more important things.

Tiffany frets some more about how Alex fucked up their team, which, yeah, I guess, but it seems like it was a collaborative fuck up – it took two people to salt the fish twice. Commercial.

Wait, we’re moving back to ten next week? Why? Why??? Ack!! Bravo hath murdered sleep, and therefore Jordan shall sleep no more!

Back! Elimination Challenge! And of course, it’s time for Restaurant Wars. Kenny wants to win to show Angelo he’s organized and disciplined. Making everything about a personal grudge match with one other dude is unhealthy.

Padma tells them they’ll be taking over the Redwood restaurant at Bethesda Row. Each team must make a 3 course menu with 2 options per course, and everyone must be responsible for a dish. And their guest judge is. . .Frank Bruni, former restaurant critic for the New York Times. The chefs all poo themselves a little with fear and awe.


Padma calls in two special guests – Bill and John Terlato of Terlato wines from Napa. They’ll be providing the wines for the restaurants, and a prize for the winner. Ok. . .I know it’s a sponsorship deal and all, but there are some wineries in Virginia doing A. Mazing. Work. And I wish they’d partnered with one of them, both because it makes more logical sense in terms of the DC theme of the show and because it’s just flat out a more sustainable way to do things.


They take off in their product placement vehicles for the standard half to Whole Foods, half to Restaurant Depot shopping trip. Everyone on the Red Team kind of plots to cut Alex out of the kitchen – Ed refers to him as Skeletor, which is semi-hilarious. They plan to plant him in the front of the house to minimize his impact on the team. While I understand that they want to cut him out of the cooking prep, I don’t necessarily think the dude you call “Skeletor” is the one you want acting as the face of your establishment.

At Restaurant Depot, Tiffany and Alex are just randomly putting things on the cart because they didn’t have “time” to make a list. Actually, the last scene showed us that they did have time, but Tiffany’s refusal to speak civilly to Alex is what actually prohibited list making. Amanda and Kenny look on skeptically, pleased they don’t have to deal with that nonsense.

Food flurry! We start hearing the preliminary menu plans. Kelly will be Front of House for the Blue team, so she’s trying to make dishes she can execute in advance.

Angelo is displeased with Alex’s lamb butchering, and takes over himself. Kenny says the two hours have gone well for the Blue team, but the Red team is crashing and burning. Tiffany is nervous because her team is running around while the other team seems organized.

Redwood Restaurant. Angelo’s team’s restaurant is named EVOO, or Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Who are you, Rachael Ray? They have 4 hours to prep, and both teams are crammed into the same kitchen.

Tiffany realizes Alex didn’t clean or cut her fish correctly because it’s covered in scales and bones. Ok. . .either he’s one of the most inept chefs in the history of Top Chef, or he’s intentionally trying to screw his teammates over.

3 hours. The Blue team calls their restaurant 2121 because that’s the address of the Top Chef house. Angelo thinks the Blue Team may be in danger of getting too confident. Amanda is trying to figure out the personality of the wood burning grill.

Kenny yammers some more about how he and Angelo being executive chef means it’s finally coming to a head between “the Best and the Beast.” Ok. . .since Kenny incessantly refers to himself as “The Beast,” is this his way of acknowledging that Angelo is The Best? Telling, I guess, but only if you’re not as sick of their manufactured cock wielding rivalry as I am. Anyway. Yawn. Commercial.

Back! Alex goes out into the front of the house. Kelly meets with the servers and tells us that she’s never done Front of House before . “My husband usually does this” she tells the servers. Alex acts like a big dick and tells people how to wipe stuff off. The blue team does a tasting with their staff to get them excited about the food. Alex just describes it to his waiters, and then he berates the quality of their wine keys. He is like a life course in how not to be a boss, and one of the servers keeps giving him the angriest side eye I’ve ever seen.

Twelve minutes. Kelly is wearing some kind of insane Flashdance outfit as her Front of House apparel. What a feeeeeling.

And they’re open! Guests start arriving. A red team server forgets three crudos for a table. Angelo yells at some of the servers, and the judges enter and wait to be seated. . .by a waiter, because Alex is still at the other table apologizing for the crudo issue.

I just want to pause here to mention that Gail is wearing some fairly painted on jeans, and her legs are bitchin’. Well done, Simmons.

Alex finally joins the judges and stammers his way through the explanation of the menu. Padma orders 2 of everything.

Their first course is Angelo’s Confit of Tomato Soup, Squash and Olive Crouton and Tiffany’s Crudo of Black Bass and Yellowtail Snapper with Meyer Lemon and Caper Relish. Gail thinks the crudo is oversalted. I wonder how much of this is due to the inherent saltines of capers – I think they’re really easy to misjudge. Frank Bruni says the soup makes him want to taste more of Angelo’s cooking.

The judges sit around waiting for the second course, which Tiffany blames on Alex pushing tickets incorrectly. There’s some tsuris with Tom making a phone call and Padma telling him to hang up when she sees plates coming. . .and then they’re not their plates. So who is Tom calling? The production team to tell them they’re going to have to shift the shooting schedule? Someone in the kitchen to see what the hold up is? His wife, to check on their baby?

Anyway, when the seconds finally arrive, they get Tiffany’s Striped Bass, Stewed spinach, Chorizo and Clams, and Ed’s Slow Baked Turbot, Eggplant Caviar, and Black Olive Jus. Frank Bruni likes Ed’s Turbot. Gail finds Tiffany’s a little overcooked, but with nice flavors.

For the third course, they get Alex’s Pan Seared Lamb Chop, English Pea Puree, Smoked Bacon and Parmesan Foam. He initially introduces it as a pork chop. On the heels of last week’s shanks/cheeks debacle, it seems more and more like Alex doesn’t have any fucking idea what he’s doing. I also feel like, since we know Angelo and Ed executed the dish (and conceptualized it, according to Kenny), they put the pea puree on the plate as a “fuck you” to Alex over pureegate – like if the judges loved it but said something like “this is the same pea puree you made for the Palm challenge,” they could’ve screamed “J’ACCUSE! Ed made BOTH of those pea purees!”

Really, I just like imagining scenarios where yelling “J’ACCUSE!” is a possibility.

Anyway, their other meat course is Angelo and Ed’s Seared Rib Eye Steak, Crushed Walnut Potatoes, and Balsamic Fig Reduction. Frank Bruni thinks the lamb is beautifully cooked. They don’t get much of a Mediterranean feel from the steak.

Frank Bruni overstates the obvious: that the service has been “hit or miss.” That’s putting it kindly, if you ask me. And the judges walk out without Alex getting in to say goodbye. Commercial.

Back! Amanda is having trouble with the beef, because it’s the first time she’s cooked Grass Fed Beef. She’s concerned because it’s her only dish, and she hopes she can fix it.

Oh, that was the fakeback. Hm, that was far less lighthearted than the whole toilet thing last week.


Really back. We’re over at 2121, where Flashdance Kelly greets the judges warmly, and explains their concept of “Progressive American Cuisine.” She can have it all, now, she’s dancin’ for her life. It is here that I notice from her Bravo tag that her restaurant is called “Restaurant Kelly Liken.” My already pissy opinion of her gets even pissier. Who the hell do you think you are? Are you Jean-Georges Vongerichten? Are you Wolfgang Puck? Are you Tom motherfucking Collichio (and sons)? No? Then come up with a name for your restaurant, because your name in and of itself ain’t enough to move plates.

Kenny is trying to set his ego aside and do what’s best for the team. The blue teams first course is Kelly’s Chilled Sweet Corn Soup with Maryland Blue Crab Salad and Kenny’s Beet Salad with Warm Chorizo-Citrus Vinaigrette.

Tom doesn’t think Kelly’s soup doesn’t have a lot of corn flavor, and that it’s thin. Frank Bruni thinks there’s a lot going on in Kenny’s salad, and Tom thinks he should’ve followed the Coco Chanel rule about accessories, and taken several things off.

I am so glad that they’re trashing a beet salad. Beets are such a fucking trend right now, and since I don’t eat them because of their unfortunate tendency to KILL ME DEAD, I will not miss them when they stop taking up space on every menu in America and get replaced by a vegetable that I can eat.

Think carrots, Chefs of America. Carrots are good.

2121’s second course is Amanda’s Oak Grilled Strip Steak, Roasted Sunchoke and Maitake Mushrooms, and Kevin’s Pan Roasted Halibut, Fennel Marmalade and Tomato Fennel Reduction. Tom thinks the steak is cut too thin, but he thinks the sauce is good and has a nice sheen. Frank Bruni thinks Kevin’s halibut is so pretty he should paint.

For the final course, there is Kenny’s Crispy Aged Goat Cheese and Strawberry Rhubarb Relish and Kelly’s Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart and Blackberry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream. Gail loves the salt in the tart and the crust on it, but Bruni says the ice cream has no flavor. He says the goat cheese is “a horror show.” One of the diners calls it “ a cheese stick on strawberries.”

The judges run through the strengths and weaknesses of the food and service at both restaurants. Frank Bruni thinks that both failed in not meeting the theme of their restaurants. They head off to judges table.

Stew room! Padma calls back Ed, Tiffany, Angelo, and Alex. The blue team is flummoxed – Kevin says his mind will be fucking blown if they're on the bottom.

Well, Kevin, prepare yourself, because Padma congratulates EVOO as the winners.

Frank Bruni calls Alex out on his craptastic service. Gail compliments Angelo’s soup. Bruni compliments Tiffany’s Bass, and calls Ed’s turbot “an absolutely perfectly cooked piece of fish.” Tom tells them he enjoyed the lamb.

And the winner is. . .Ed’s turbot! Aw, Cliffie’s going to be so happy. Ed gets a trip to the Terlato vineyards, and a giant bottle of Terlato wine.

They return to the stew room and announce Ed’s win. Team 2121 heads back to the judges’ table, where Padma tells them that they’re the losing team.

Kenny tells them that he’s shocked because of all the other team’s problems with communication and organization, and Gail points out that as diners, they don’t know how communication is going, they just know about the food and the service.

Bruni compliments Kelly on her Front of House work, telling her she had a “clumsy charisma.” Padma asks if she always makes her soup so thin, and she says yes; that she prefers her soups on the thinner side. Ew. Add to list of reasons I don’t like her: a) kind of a bitch; b) smokes like a chimney; c) terrible, terrible haircut; d) names restaurant after herself; e) likes thin soup.

Tom asks about Kenny’s beet salad, and Gail says it’s an example of her wanting him to reel it in. Bruni calls it “a beet salad done through the guise of hamburger helper.” Ouch. And also what the fuck does that mean? Just that it’s generic? That it’s easily done? That it tastes like it comes from a kit with a psychotic hand puppet coaching you on?

Bruni compliments Kevin’s halibut, but tells Amanda that her beef was overcooked and not juicy. Bruni liked the ambition behind the cheese course, but faults the execution.

Kenny then takes the opportunity to throw Alex under the bus, saying that at least everyone on their team cooked their dishes, when “there was a representative on their team that didn’t cook a dish.” Kevin then adds to it saying that Alex didn’t even conceive his dish, and they both say Alex needs to go home. Kevin says he’d say it to him or to anyone – Alex needs to go home.

And thus Kevin and Kenny ascend to a place of shady bitchassedness previously held only by Sam “I’m not that guy” (but he totally is) Talbot – trying to deflect the possibility of getting bounced for their team’s failure by making someone on the other team out to be worse/ a cheater/ a non-participant.

You can see how Tom feels about that. Tom says: Bish, Plz.



The Blue team heads back to the stew room and Kevin yells at Alex about how he didn’t do a fucking thing. Kenny says the same thing in a slightly softer voice and more articulately, but the jist of it is: everyone hates Alex. Commercial.

Back. Tom talks about the weakness of Kelly’s soup. Bruni says Amanda didn’t get her one dish right. Kevin didn’t do a lot of work, but what he did was delicious. Kenny served two “really poor” dishes according to Tom, but Gail says he did a good job of leadership and organization. They dismiss the whole Alex issue saying that even if there were questions about what Alex did or didn’t do, the team understood that if they won, everyone was safe for the night.

They call 2121 back. Tom runs down the points in favor and against each of them yet again. And Padma tells. . .Kenny to pack his knives and go.

He says he’s kind of in awe right now, and that it’s hard to lose to someone who didn’t really cook. He thinks there should’ve been more dialogue about Alex. He says “the Beast is gone; it’s anybody’s game.” Oh, shut up, you big douche. You couldn’t make a fucking salad and you don’t know what a cheese course is. You’re not a beast. You’re more like a fat, overtamed pug dog – all deep chesty bark and absolutely no bite.

Next time: CIA! What’s your spy name! I feel just a little bit lost! Leon Panetta! Wylie Dufresne! For once, I know something you don’t.