f13.net

Started this past Wednesday. Has some good personalities back for this so should be pretty entertaining. Plus Anthony Bourdain as a regular judge!

Just grabbed the first episode. Can't pick between whether I want Richard, Tre, Angelo or Dale to win. Probably Tre. That season was bullshit.

This "season" seems like it's going to be a lot more interesting than the last regular season. At least I'm interested in most of the personalities here and they can all cook a lot better than just about everyone involved with last season.

I still want to make Casey my love slave.   :heart:

That outcome was  :awesome_for_real:


EDIT: Caution: If you plan on watching The Wire and don't want major plot points spoiled, don't read Bourdain's blog post about this episode. It is a really great blog post but as weird as it sounds he draws all sorts of parallels with characters from The Wire to the first two eps of Top Chef All Stars that gives away some pivotal spoilers.

I don't really get how someone who did literally nothing could be kept. I could have done what Jamie did.

Bourdain ripped Bravo pretty good in there.  "Here's 18 of the best chefs in the US on a show that airs late, let's make a tween episode!"

Having the kids vote on which food they liked best and them obviously choosing the one that was 7 different candies mashed together seemed a bit absurd.

For Blais fans: Just saw a promo for his new show Blais Off on the Science Channel. Starts next Friday night.

Bourdain's blog is so sweet:

This got boring fast once it got down to the final four.

I wish they'd just drop all the bullshit once it's the "final challenges". I particularly think it's shit when the last few contestants have to contend with equipment that doesn't work (the kitchen that caught on fire, the dubious grills on the island) or with bad ingredients (what's up giving Antonia rancid fish, since she didn't get a chance to shop for it herself?)  I don't think Morimoto was inevitably a handicap--if Dale or Angelo had still been in this group (entirely plausible) they would have been dying for a chance to make his meal.

I am surprised by Isabella's strong showing, though. One thing that amazes me every single season of this show is that all of the competitors don't do a bit of research on the place they're going to for the finale. Look at how well that served Isabella so far.

My only problem this season has been them dragging out the finale. We've had what, 3 damn shows since they went to the "finale?" I like it when they have 3 people competing for the final, not 2.

Everyone expects Blaise to win.  The judges do, the other contestants do, the audience does.  He's the best chef there.  Sadly, I have this sick feeling in my gut that he'll be denied again for the sake of drama. 

I think he totally deserves to beat Mike after that dick stole his dish.

Thankfully, the finale went the way I had hoped.  Good for him.

Now if only someone would cancel that egomaniac Marcel's Syfy show, all would be right with the tv chef world for at least a week.  My older son watched one espisode of that and having never seen Top Chef 10 minutes in was like "that guy's a tool. How'd he get his own show?"

I thought Mike should have won. After all, one thing they always stress is consistency from plate to plate, yet Blaize's dessert wasn't. It was crappy for one group of judges, better for others. That's the very definition of inconsistency, kind of like their judging standards.

Or you could look at it as a talented chef making changes on the fly to improve something that wasn't quite working. I think they actually edited this to make it look closer than it was.

It wouldn't be the first time the editing has been dodgy. Sure, you can look at it that way, but again - lack of consistency from the first plate of the evening to the last.

I think lack of consistency can be thrown out the window when you fix a flaw in your dish to make it better.  Why would a chef send out a flawed dish, if he could fix it easily.  All he did was fix the ice cream.

Tom said in his blog that it was 2-2 in "rounds" of dishes but that Richard's wins were by a much bigger margin, so the result makes sense in that context.

We caught 30 seconds of this yesterday. Absolutely unwatchable.