Top Chef - 4/23/08

Because of the aforementioned power outage, I missed the beginning, so I'll jump right in on the quickfire! Looks like dessert. Now I want dessert.

The ones on bottom are Antonia, Spike, and Mark. Dale, Lisa, and Richard came out on top. Richard won the Quickfire, and his recipe is going into the Top Chef Cookbook.

All of the aspiring chefs then get to go out to see Second City and see an improv comedy show. Am I the only one who smells a challenge here? As soon as the Improv group asks for an ingredient after getting color and emotion, the chefs realize that this is their Challenge.

The courses are going to be:

Yellow Love Vanilla (Spike and Andrew)
Depressed Purple Bacon (Mark and Nikki)
Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage (Antonia and Lisa)
Green Perplexed Tofu (Dale and Richard)
Orange Turned On Asparagus (Steph and Jennifer)

Could have been worse. I can see some possibilities there.

They decided to draw numbers for courses. No knife pull. They decided on their own who to work with.

Immediately, Lisa makes me angry when she decided to use chorizo instead of Polish sausage, because Polish sausage is so lowbrow. Let's ignore the challenge entirely, shall we?

Spike gets to make his squash soup! He is so happy! Vanilla Squash soup? That's odd.

Richard scored some free beef fat and he is planning on using it for marinating the tofu. Dale runs back into the equipment room to see big empty shelves where their machinery is supposed to be. It's improv, baby!!

Dale is using store bought curry sauce. I bet the judges won't like that.

More improv, the chefs have to pack up all their cooking stuff and go to their apartment kitchen to finish up. The comics are coming there. Gladware to the rescue!!

It's a cramped finish in the much smaller kitchen. Spike gets to do a lot of loving with his soup. He is obsessed with that soup.

The Squash Soup with Vanilla Creme Fraiche is first - it goes over wonderfully.

Next is the Orange Turned On Asparagus. They had some fun with the plating, and they had some fun with the presentation. Unfortunately, the actual taste was not as successful.

The Green Perplexed Tofu comes out with GIANT blocks of tofu. The dish went over very very well.

The Drunk Magenta Polish Sausage was next, and the judges were very upset that they didn't use the Polish sausage, and the fact that Antonia and Lisa had shots for themselves and didn't share? Not ok.

Mark and Nikki's Purple Depressed Bacon went over very well, too. Mark's purple sunglasses were amusing.

Padme called in Dale, Spike, Andrew and Richard in for the top. Spike must be so happy for his soup. I kind of want to try the Beef flavored Tofu, so I am happy that Dale and Richard won. They got $2500 worth of Calphalon. Not my favorite cookware, but a good brand (I work part time at a high end kitchen store, I love love love Kitchenaid 5-Ply Stainless, or Viking, if you are using stainless. End of digression).

Antonia, Lisa, Stephanie, and Jennifer were sent back in the bottom. Antonia and Lisa were unapologetic about the lack of polish sausage. Stephanie and Jennifer were too focused on the imagery of their dish instead of the taste.

Jennifer was sent packing, home to Zoi.

Lisa - get off your high horse. The challenge said Polish sausage, use polish sausage!