Top Chef Masters Recap
Top Chef Masters Episode 1: Jerry Traunfeld made a duck leg that sent the judges swooning. But was it enough to keep him in the running?
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 08, 2010 at 04:08PM
Traunfeld and Sortun, not discussing the famous people that eat at their restaurants.
Top Chef Masters: it’s like Top Chef without the suspense and high stakes. Still, this season there are three Seattle chefs in the race. And they are all three majorly lovable characters too.
As such, Nosh Pit will watch faithfully and report dutifully.
Poppy’s Jerry Traunfeld, (playing for a gay rights organization, all the chefs compete for a charity of their choice), was the first to represent us on last night’s season premiere. He appeared alongside Ana Sortun of Cambridge’s Oleana, Govind Armstrong of 8 oz Burger Bar in Los Angeles, Jimmy Bradley of NYC’s The Red Cat, Susan Feniger of Street (also in LA), and Tony Mantuano of Spiaggia in Chicago.
Hey, Speaking of Spiaggia, did you know that it was president Obama’s favorite restaurant? Mantuano has a way of working that fact into conversation. He also told us to think of him (Mantuano, not Obama) as the Ferrari of Italian foods—a glitchy metaphor to be sure, but let’s move on.
For the Quickfire, the chefs were each offered a saucepan with an apron inside—the color of your apron determined what team you were on. Our man Jerry partnered with Sortun, who seems nice and didn’t once mention any famous patrons of her restaurant, though I happen to know that celebrities eat at Oleana. Everyone knows that, so no need to keep bringing it up, you know?
Anyway, the chefs were then taken to Chinatown where they got all excited that they were going to pick ingredients for some sort of Asian meal. I guess they’ve never seen Top Chef before, because on Top Chef there is always a twist. It’s the one constant in the otherwise topsy-turvy universe of Bravo competitive reality shows. Still our toques seemed genuinely flabbergasted when they were delivered to a gas station, given $30, and told to start shopping.
The Bravery, some sort of rock ensemble, was charged with judging their resultant dishes. What qualified this The Bravery to judge? They eat a lot of road food. Or something. I don’t know. Traunfeld and Sortun made them an amazing-looking crispy rice cake with “clamesco” sauce created from clamato juice. (Sidenote: who is buying clam-flavored tomato juice at the convenience store other than star chefs who are forced to shop there for a reality TV show?) The Bravery, those ungrateful punks, picked Feniger and Mantuano’s bread pudding—a sweet dessert that was inexplicably served first—for the win.
Onto the main course (get it?): in the elimination challenge, the chefs were told that they would remain with their teams, and that they were to make a two-part dinner for 30 couples on their first date. (Where’d you find these “couples,” Bravo? Hmm? Suspicious.)
Anyway, our team did duck two ways—Traunfeld made a crispy duck leg, while Sortun made a little duck soup. The judges universally loved JT’s duck leg—they swooned over it, read it Shakespearean sonnets, bought it baubles and keepsakes and professed their desire to mate with it for life despite residual commitment issues.
But alas, though they found it tasted amazing and had subtle hints of cinnamon that sent them swooning, the judges declared Sortun’s soup to be homely and difficult to eat. In the end, they found the two dishes—one elegant and haute, the other humble and homey—to be a poor match. James Oseland, editor in chief of Saveur magazine, compared the dishes to a couple showing up to a date in incompatible outfits. “She was wearing pajamas and he was wearing a tuxedo,” he said.
In the end, Feniger and Matuano won big again for their bizarre pairing of spicy shrimp and scallops with a pasta filled with taleggio and truffles. I know, I know. I didn’t eat it. But this pairing makes zero sense to me. And the judges said Feniger’s shrimp was overcooked. In other words, WTF?
In other words, Traunfeld was robbed.
Add a Comment »
Tags:
Reality TV,
Celebrity Chefs,
Top Chef Masters Recap
0 Comments
