Top Chef Season 2, Episode 7: Role Reversals

I almost forgot that there was a new Top Chef episode last week, and since I was away from home I didn't get to watch it until tonight. Therefore this is a very brief recap.

The theme of this episode seems to be role reversals: much maligned Marcel wins the Quickfire challenge and gets immunity. Then the women end up as top three and the boys who are usually on top - Sam, Cliff and Frank - end up as the bottom three in the Elimination challenge.

The challenges themselves were good, especially the Raw Food theme of the Quickfire. I am only peripherally aware of the whole Raw Food movement, but there's no doubt that a lot of people believe in it, some to an almost fanatical level, and it looks like it may be a food fad or trend that will be with us for some time anyway. Of course none of the chefs did anything that outrageous - fresh fruit and vegetables are made for eating raw anyway. The Breakfast On The Beach challenge was a bit gimmicky - excuse to get some bodacious surfer babes on the screen? - but fun.

I thought Frank's Quickfire dish of scallop carpaccio looked the most interesting - but yet, he was the one eliminated. I guess it's because they thought that Sam and Cliff were definite frontrunners to win the whole thing. I thought that Sam showed some sour grapes (at the risk of offending all the Sam fans).

So on to the next round. It's getting more and more interesting, and I can't believe Michael is still there! I wonder what his odds for actually winning are...

Submitted by maki on 2006-12-12 19:42.
Filed under:  top chef tv

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Comments

Sovelia

12 December, 2006 - 22:23

Maki, first of all let me tell you that I enjoy reading your blog immensly :) I just wanted to drop by fast and say thanks, also I wanted to ask you if you heard about the American cooking show "Iron Chef"? You might like it. Even though the whole American Gladiator theme they use for this show is a "tad" overdone, the cooking is very interesting because it's actually some of the best American chefs competing against each other. Anyway, thought this might interest you :)

Greetings from France!

maki

13 December, 2006 - 03:04

Sovelia, I'm glad you like reading the site! Yes I know about Iron Chef, and enjoy it a lot - the original Japanese one a bit more than the American one, though the American one is almost as good. I like that they put Alton Brown in the "professor" role (on the original Japanese one they had some sort of real food/nutrition professor.) I especially like it when Jeffrey Steingarten is a judge.

Allez Cuisine! :)

David

15 December, 2006 - 05:01

If you've watched the original Iron Chef, you'll never watch the American knock-off. We've watched it since it was played on FujiTV, with subtitles in English, and was sandwiched between two half-episodes of Furuhata Ninzaburo. Fabulous.

Anyway - I just needed to say that the raw foods movement seems to consist of nothing but fanatics, at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anybody I've run into who's into it at all seems to have gone off the deep end - with no in-between. Maybe people are more balanced in the rest of the world?

maki

15 December, 2006 - 09:40

The original Iron Chef is superior to the Food Network version for sure. But I'm not that disappointed by the America version. There was a very short lived American version called Iron Chef U.S.A., with William Shatner (Willian Shatner...??! WTF) as the host. It was horrendous - they styled the whole thing sort of like a wrestling event or something with a cheering crowd and people generally running around like they were asylum dwellers, and the announcers dressed in yellow sports jackets. Compared to that the Food Network version at least has kept some of the spirit of the original, with serious food commentary. I sort of tend to regard the fact that at least a few food related people that I respect like Alton Brown and Jeffrey Steingarten have associated themselves with it as a very good sign. But as David says the original Fuji TV version is superior, even in the dubbed version.

red

7 November, 2009 - 12:42

I really want to try making Frank's Quickfire dish of scallop carpaccio but I can't find it anywhere on the web! Do you know how to make it? Or where I can find it? The official site only seems to cover episodes 4,5,6!???