The Humble Gourmand

This week, I can only say two things: fish and Twitter.

I’ll address the Twitter first. This past Wednesday, my friends and I reinstated our tradition of watching TC together, but we moved the location to Good Stuff Eatery (the burger joint owned by Season 4’s Chef Spike.) At GSE, Spike settles down with a computer (and a posse of like 15 people) and twitters his thoughts for Bravo. While I’ll refrain from plugging his Tweets (sorry if my language is a little off — I am old school; I blog with proper grammar) I will give you one hilarious insight from the night. Right before the episode began, Spike both Twittered and yelled this over to our table — “I bet I know what Jamie is going to cook tonight — SCALLOPS!”

Snide remarks from former contestants aside, it really does seem like the shellfish and other seafood are out to play this season. It’s making me think that the NY Whole Foods is only stocking seafood. Death to the meat section! Viva el frutti del mar! In a normal season, I would find it notable that both the top three and the bottom three included fish dishes, but in this season, I almost expect that.

What I did find interesting was the challenge itself. I don’t think I am alone in saying that I have not been wowed by these cheftestants. Furthermore, I really hadn’t gotten to know who they were. I can sort of gather from the name of their restaurants what sort of cuisine they do, but really, I’m at a loss. I welcomed the blind tasting challenge specifically because of this. But here are a few things I learned about the cheftestants:

Jamie: one-scallop pony. She said she did scallops again so she can redeem herself (which she definitely did). Now that she won Top Scallops, do something else!

Eugene: Very creative, not very thoughtful. As Tom said “daikon tastes like daikon,” and I don’t think there was a successful way to incorporate it as a “noodle” in that dish. Incorporating it as some sort of Asian-inspired slaw would have been interesting (NB: it tops a burger at GSE), but not as the main feature of a dish. His creativity definitely got ahead of him in this challenge. Also, I thought the whole snapper on the plate looked sort of gross. That is more of a personal note, mostly because I don’t like seeing the face of my food.

Jeff: Either he thinks the judges are getting a little “loveable” or he doesn’t understand the concept of “family style.” His tapas trio looked good, and I was definitely a fan of the use of salmon, but it was tapas, not a family-style meal.

Stefan: another one-trick pony. Stefan doing duck, wow, that is as shocking as me making another shameless plug for GSE, or better yet, Jamie making scallops. That cabbage did look good, though. The chefs were saying how it tasted good, which isn’t easy with cooked cabbage.

Carla: not confident. When she was shopping in WF she started talking about how she was second-guessing herself over not doing a protein in the dish (the originally concept was a vegetarian dish). The judges were talking about how the pea and mint risotto was not that bad. I think if she had focused more of her energy into the risotto, it could have been a lot better. It was that poorly executed scallop that killed the dish. A dish isn’t bad just because it doesn’t have a protein. Repeat after me, Carla: It is OK to eat vegetarian every so often. Got it? Good.

Melissa: BORING! At the beginning of the season, I thought that I should be rooting for my namesake. Then I forgot about her — not difficult to do considering most her dishes went from boring to just bad. She was just not that notable and her fish tacos showed that. Fish tacos are something you can find at a fast-food Mexican joint, not in the restaurant of a top chef. Not only does it scream dull to me, it lets me know that in a pinch, when asked to be creative, Melissa just cannot deliver. The worst offense, though? The tacos weren’t good. Boring food can be forgiven. Bad food cannot.

In the end, Melissa and Eugene were eliminated, one for being uninspired and the other for being too creative for his own good. Melissa, I bid you farewell, but I won’t remember you next week. I barely noticed you were there all along. Eugene, good luck dear friend. I bet you could have some unbelievably interesting dishes at your restaurant. Just make sure to hone you skills before you get too crazy.

1. Karennen

   February 21 8:22 a.m. 1

   Guy You have got to see this. Obama playing on XBox. Funniest video ever. http://bit.ly/bllhx1

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