We’re back for the second week of Top Chef DC and as I watch the opening montage, I’m thinking, I didn’t even notice some of these people last time. Like Andrea from Talula in Miami Beach — hey, I used to eat there too!
It is a White House themed episode with a “bi-partisan” sandwich and the contestants draw knives to see who they are partnered with. Angelo makes a smart-ass comment about how he owns a sandwich shop in NY and if he loses the challenge he might have to close the shop. Kenny meanwhile blathers that he doesn’t care that the top pair gets immunity. Yeah you’re a little short-sighted dude.
Anyway, they all get paired up and then they find out the kicker: they will be wearing special aprons that make them look like Siamese twins and each of them can only use one arm. The best part about watching this is the pairs who don’t trust each other and are worried that their partner is going to hack their hand off with a knife. I can’t say that the sandwiches all had me jumping up to say OMG give me that! But Andrea and Kevin’s Philly Cuban and Kenny and Ed’s Korean chili rubbed ahi tuna with cucumber and mango slaw sound good to me. Some of the other ones like Amanda and Tamesha’s grilled sandwich with prosciutto and cheese, just are not very original. The judge picks Stephen and Jacqueline and Tiffany and Lynne for the bottom. And, predictably, Kenny and Ed come in second to Tracy and Angelo’s Flounder marinated in fish sauce with spiced siracha mayo sandwich. Yes, it’s Angelo again. To his credit though apparently it was ok working with him. Tracy seems to have no complaints and he totally calls her his twin sister. It’s obnoxious but better than I expected.
Then we move onto the Elimination Challenge: cooking up school lunches on the super tiny budget of $2.68 cents per child minus a bit for overhead. They are in teams of 4 and the bottom teams will be eligible to get kicked off. In addition to getting immunity, Angelo and Tracy get to pick who is with them and they pick Kenny and Ed.
And they’re off! The funniest interactions are on the team with Kelly — because the rest of her team thinks that she’s too bossy and controlling. I think Tiffany and Arnold hate her. They lecture her for saying “I” too much. I think she’s just being smart to take credit for what she’s doing — something to have learned from previous seasons. Amanda says she doesn’t want to take one for the team and make dessert. So instead she wants to make chicken braised in sherry. Are you kidding me? They’re showing Jacqueline a lot, and I wonder if that means she’s out, although the touching story about her childhood (taking care of her sister so her sister wouldn’t go to foster care). Kenny talks to the side camera about their meal not being nutritious enough, but he doesn’t really do anything. Meanwhile on the other teams, everything seems to be moving along smoothly.
And the kids rush in! The food comes out. One of the best sounding meals is from Andrea, Alex, Tim and Kevin: coleslaw with yogurt, grilled apple cider chicken, mac and cheese with a whole wheat crust, and melon kabob with yogurt foam. The other best sounding meal is the pork carnitas (later I caught that Kelly actually made her own taco shells with oat as well), black bean cake with crispy sweet potatoes, roasted corn salad, and caramelized sweet potatoes with sherbet from Kelly and team. And there are Amanda’s sherry braised chicken breasts… Doomed. Totally awesome misspeak by Stephen who says his vegetable rice has about 165 grams of fat… I mean calories. I wonder how long he was rehearsing that in his head before he got it wrong. I do love they show the kid who says he didn’t like their meal because it only had “rice… And all that nasty stuff.”
Enough of the blow-by-blow — off to judges table. They call two teams first… And ta-da, they are the losing teams. Amanda, Stephen, Tamesha and Jacqueline get called in. They are bashed predictably for the sherry braised chicken, and Jacqueline’s starchy non-chocolate banana pudding.
Angelo, Kevin, Tracy and Ed end up in the bottom, and Kevin gets the brunt of it for not being stronger and standing up for his views on the meal’s nutritional value. I do think they’re a little hard on them for not giving them the tomato as a vegetable, because come on, what kid is going to think it’s a fruit? And then the teams start going at each other which is catty and hilarious. And then Angelo is basically accused of throwing the match specifically to get Kenny a 50% chance of going home. When Tom asks him “would you have done the celery and peanut butter thing if you didn’t have immunity” he said “I can’t answer that right now” which to me is kind of an admission that he didn’t do as much as he could have. I thought he would have more personal pride than that bunt I guess not. All the same, I don’t see Kenny or Ed going home because their individual dishes were pretty good (apart from the pepper in the sweet potato).
And Kelly’s team comes out on top! And Kelly takes the win! Yay! Well deserved for a good tasty main course that kids would totally go for. The rest of the team gets kudos too, but she walks away victorious. W00t!
In the end, after we break and come back, it’s Jacqueline who bites the bullet. Thank god. I know it’s supposed to go week by week but after last week’s liver yuck and this week’s pudding disaster I am glad she’s gone. Bye bye!
