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Top Chef<\/h2>\n Hook, Line, & Dinner<\/p>\n
\n Season 23<\/span>\n Editor\u2019s Rating*<\/span>*<\/span>*<\/span><\/span>\n <\/p>\n\n<\/nav>\n<\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n\n Photo: Paul Cheney\/Bravo<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhere are my Sieger detractors at? This is your time to shine! For what I\u2019d say is the fourth time this competition, Sieger delivered a somewhat lackluster, but properly cooked dish, and ended up squeaking through to next week because another person failed more definitively. This time around, that person was one of our favorites and someone who I thought was getting a clear finalist edit. Sieger, my guy, how much longer are you going to keep getting away with this?<\/p>\n
(I\u2019ve rewatched last week\u2019s episode, and am even more convinced that Rhoda also<\/em> got away with it. She made a good dish this week, and I respect any woman who is like, \u201cParents, please get off my back about grandkids,\u201d but I\u2019m going to need a while to get over \u201csoft meringue\u201d and the fact that Oscar went home instead.)<\/p>\nWe\u2019re finally at the mise-en-place race! Based on the promo, I thought the chefs would be boating around to get fish to use in the race (breaking down a protein is usually part of this), but I was getting ahead of the reality of the episode. Instead, the chefs do the mise-en-place race on the docks at Legendary Green Pond Landing in Anderson, South Carolina. Kristen, Tom, and Gail are waiting for them at Lake Hartwell, and the judges explain the rules. Two randomly selected teams will compete in five rounds, and the first team to win three rounds will get the opportunity to cook a dish, using the mise-en-place ingredients, for $10,000. The other team has to sit on the sidelines. Laurence, as the winner of last week\u2019s episode, doesn\u2019t have to compete on either team and instead gets an immediate entry into the Quickfire cook. Must be nice!<\/p>\n
The chefs pull knives and organize into teams: Jonathan, Sherry, and Anthony are one team, and Sieger, Rhoda, and Duyen are the other. And there\u2019s another element of the race this year: Teams can send the same chef in for multiple rounds, so if one member of the team is strongest at a couple of things, the team can rely on them to do more than one round. Kristen, Tom, and Gail spin this as a new bit of strategy, but\u2026 it\u2019s just how the math works out. There are five rounds and three chefs per team. I liked in previous seasons when the mise-en-place race was more egalitarian and, frankly, frenetic, and everybody had to really choose and own the round they felt good about. Anyway, all the rounds focus on Carolina ingredients, and honestly, they seem pretty easy? The first round is seeding and hulling one pint of Scuppernong grapes, North Carolina\u2019s state fruit; Jonathan copies Sieger\u2019s method of deep-frying the grapes, shocking them in ice water, and then peeling them, and he beats Sieger. (Duyen needling Jonathan with \u201cWant me to phone a friend? I can call Brandon?\u201d made me gasp. Damn, Dwayne is mean<\/em>!) Unfortunately for the Blue Team, that\u2019s the only round they win. The Red Team then beats them on peeling and deveining 12 shrimp so there are, per Tom\u2019s request, \u201cno poopies please\u201d (Duyen over Sherry), cracking and picking 1 oz. of pecans (Jonathan impressively cracks the shells by hand, but he should have called for a check earlier; Sieger takes it); and shucking and kerneling five ears of corn (Rhoda over Anthony). The Red Team, plus Laurence, then competes against each other to make a dish with these ingredients in only 20 minutes. It\u2019s a very short amount of time! Here\u2019s what they make:<\/p>\n\n
\nRhoda: Warm corn, pecan, and shrimp salad with Scuppernong and tamarind vinaigrette.<\/span><\/li>\nLaurence: Corn, pecan, and shrimp chow mein with Scuppernong pickles.<\/span><\/li>\nDuyen: Butter-poached shrimp with pecan romesco and charred corn.<\/span><\/li>\nSieger: Ajo blanco (white gazpacho) with shrimp, corn, Scuppernongs, and toasted pecans.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\nOnce again, Sieger\u2019s dish looks like spa food, and it\u2019s both warm (which ajo blanco shouldn\u2019t be) and too garlicky (the judges can\u2019t taste the Carolina ingredients). Also on the bottom is Laurence, whose chow mein was too sweet. Rhoda and Duyen are praised for their layers of flavor and cohesion, and Rhoda ekes out the win and her first cash prize of the competition. (Does that help her get her groove back? It does; more on that later.) Once the Quickfire is done, we suddenly enter into the world of Michael Mann\u2019s Miami Vice<\/em> (complimentary) as seven boats zoom toward the dock. This is the conceit that was teased in the episode preview: The chefs will each be paired with an expert angler, and they\u2019re going fishing.<\/p>\nThe chefs\u2019 challenge is straightforward: catch some fish from Lake Hartwell, which is full of various freshwater fish like bass, catfish, crappie, and walleye, and then make their best fish dish. They\u2019re also competing for advantages tied to the smallest fish caught, the largest fish caught, and the most fish caught. They have an hour to fish, and they all speed away (including Kristen, Gail, and Tom, whose boat seems to circle between where the contestants are to encourage them). I\u2019m not sure how Sieger\u2019s fishing went, because we don\u2019t really see much footage of him. Instead, we mostly see Duyen crushing it, in line with her self-described \u201cvery, very competitive\u201d personality, and heckling the nearby Laurence. Anthony, Jonathan, Sieger, and Sherry also catch fish, but Rhoda and Laurence return empty-handed. (I want to know who made the signs that Gail and Kristen used to cheer on the chefs, like the one that said: \u201cHook It and Cook It.\u201d Do we think Gail really got in there with some markers and posterboard?) Duyen wins for the smallest and most fish caught, and gets an extra $55 to shop with at Whole Foods, while Jonathan wins for the largest fish caught, and gets an extra 30 minutes of cooking time. And Rhoda and Laurence each get three spotted bass from their anglers, so they actually have fish to cook with for the Elimination challenge.<\/p>\n
After a trip to Whole Foods, where Sieger asks Sherry what his Real Housewives of Greenville <\/em>tagline would be (whether or not Sieger\u2019s question was a producer-fed line, Sherry\u2019s suggested \u201cDirtier than a dirty martini\u201d was pretty funny) and \u201cMama Dwayne\u201d uses some of her extra budget to buy ingredients for Rhoda and Sherry, the chefs have 90 minutes to cook at Abyss. Everyone runs into issues cleaning their fish: There are a ton of pinbones, and we see lots of agonized tweezing. It\u2019s tough to clean, portion, and properly cook the fish in only 90 minutes, especially when all of these chefs are being so ambitious. Laurence is recreating the Cantonese steamed fish dish he cooked for his now-wife on their first date while they were international students in China. Sherry is mimicking the green curry that was the first Thai dish she ate after moving to the U.S. Jonathan, bless him, is making a fried-fish taco with a fresh tortilla. A taco! A single taco! The nerve of this guy. I\u2019m sorry, but I love him. And Duyen \u2026 Duyen gets overconfident and puts her fish into her canh chua (Vietnamese sweet and sour soup) very late because she doesn\u2019t think the fish needs that long to cook, and then the fish\u2019s skin doesn\u2019t easily come off when she tugs on it. That\u2019s a bad sign. Here are the dishes served to the judges, including actress Danielle Brooks and chef James London, both from South Carolina:<\/p>\n\n
\nDuyen: Canh chua soup with pineapple, tomatoes, and bok choy.<\/span><\/li>\nRhoda: Pan-seared bass, fennel puree, artichoke barigoule (artichokes braised in white wine), and meuni\u00e8re sauce with mussels and clams.<\/span><\/li>\nSieger: Baked spotted bass with braised lentils, pepper sofrito, dates, and cardamom vinaigrette.<\/span><\/li>\nLaurence: Cantonese steamed fish with ginger, scallions, fried leeks, rice, and bok choy.<\/span><\/li>\nAnthony: Spotted bass with poblano egusi sauce (egusi seeds are dried melon seeds, and a West African ingredient used to thicken stews and sauces) and yassa.<\/span><\/li>\nSherry: Spotted bass with green curry and papaya salad, daikon, shiitake mushrooms, and cilantro.<\/span><\/li>\nJonathan: Beer-battered fish taco with avocado mousse, cabbage slaw, chipotle remoulade, and fresh-made tortilla.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\nA lot of the dishes are great: Rhoda\u2019s dish is praised as technically perfect and beautifully classic. (Meaning: super French.) Laurence\u2019s \u201cbussin\u2019\u201d dish makes Danielle dance. Tom praises Anthony\u2019s dish as focused and \u201cvery, very good.\u201d And Jonathan\u2019s fried-fish taco might seem simple at first, but it\u2019s a huge hit. Jonathan used his extra 30 minutes to test exactly how long to deep fry his fish, and the dish is praised for its confidence and layers of flavor. I would like 15 of them delivered to me, please. In the middle is Sherry, whose fish was cooked well, but she\u2019s pinged for there being too much curry sauce and too many vegetables in her dish. (A criticism I don\u2019t understand at all \u2014 she made a curry! An inherently liquid-y and vegetable-y dish!) There are also two clear failures. The still-attached skin on Duyen\u2019s fish was a sign that it didn\u2019t poach correctly in her soup \u2014 no one\u2019s fish is done all the way through, and Tom can\u2019t even cut into his. The judges all love the flavor of her broth, but this is a fish challenge, and the fish isn\u2019t good. Similarly unimpressive, if not technically incorrect, is Sieger\u2019s dish. He cooked his fish under the salamander, and his filets don\u2019t have much flavor; in contrast, his lentils have too much. The dish is both sweet and astringent, and the judges think the dish needed a sauce to bring everything together.<\/p>\n
At Judges\u2019 Table, Sherry is in neither the high nor the low group, and you can tell she\u2019s frustrated; earlier in the episode, she complained about not understanding what the judges want from her that she\u2019s not giving. Rhoda, Anthony, Jonathan, and Laurence are all in the top, and all receive very nice compliments, but then Laurence\u2019s dish is described as \u201ca big slap in the face of flavor,\u201d and yeah, game over. He wins his second Elimination challenge in a row (and fourth of 10 overall). Then Duyen and Sieger are called forward. After presenting his dish, Sieger had complained that the judges think everything he cooks \u201cis too sweet\u201d (I don\u2019t really remember this being a recurring criticism, but sure), and sure enough, the judges ask about his lentils. He says he wanted to mimic the sweetness of the fish, which the judges sort of shrug at. And then, when the judges ask why he didn\u2019t think of a component to bridge the gap between the fish and the lentils, Sieger says, \u201cI thought the spoon would do that.\u201d Folks, I gasped. \u201cI thought the spoon would do that\u201d? Simultaneously bars, and the most snide a contestant has been to the judges in a while. Gail calls him \u201csassy\u201d in a very unimpressed voice, and I wish we had seen more of the judges\u2019 reactions. Was Tom seething on the inside? I am assuming so!<\/p>\n
Given that questioning, I thought it would be Sieger going home. He\u2019s been mid for a while, and his fish \u2014 while cooked \u2014 didn\u2019t have much flavor. Kristen says it \u201cgot completely lost\u201d on the plate. But Duyen\u2019s mistake is too insurmountable. While the judges loved her broth, which they describe as harmonious, her fish \u201cwasn\u2019t close,\u201d Tom says. Its level of rawness sends her home, and Duyen looks a little bit devastated, a little bit furious when Kristen announces her name. Her \u201cmm-hmm\u201d over and over as she walks out is a real tell, and I feel for her. Two weeks in a row where it felt like the wrong person went home (three, if you think executive chef Sieger, with his two eh dishes and spotty server training, should have gone home over Brandon, with the one failed dessert, for Restaurant Wars). Who\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
\u2022 The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: Laurence, Sherry, and Jonathan\u2019s Elimination dishes. Again, I beg: back up the truck of fried-fish tacos directly into my kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Continuing the \u201cSherry might be over it\u201d theme, in the preview for next week\u2019s episode, it seems like one of Sherry\u2019s dishes is critiqued, and she\u2019s not happy about it. Her \u201cI know it\u2019s fucking good\u201d is pretty declarative.<\/p>\n
\u2022 I didn\u2019t always love Duyen\u2019s bullying, but I will miss her brusque humor; the moment in this episode when she thinks the chefs are going to get machetes, and is really excited about it, was great.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kristen saying of Tom\u2019s laidback fishing pose on the boat during the Quickfire, \u201cDad\u2019s going fishing.\u201d This is why she\u2019s a reality mastermind.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Anthony and his little sister being into Dragonball Z<\/em> is peak nerdy millennial representation, and I adore it. I also liked Anthony and Jonathan\u2019s vibe in the kitchen this episode, with Anthony telling Jonathan that he shouldn\u2019t be worried just because Sherry named her fish \u201cJohn\u201d before killing it for the Elimination challenge. It seemed like they bonded a bit during last week\u2019s dinner-party challenge, and that\u2019s cute.<\/p>\n\n\n
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