Top Chef All-Stars Episode 2: A Bite at the Museum

Fidel Gastro recaps the sugar highs and bacon lows of the second episode of Top Chef All-Stars.

Elia’s departure casts a pall on the also-rans, making all of them that much more nervous about their staying power, even though she was the clear loser, and with no apparent prospect of her shaving her head again, she was just kind of
boring and skittish.  Who wants to watch that?  With barely enough time to digest the first elimination, the cheftestants are thrown right back into it, immediately being called back to the insert-string-of-sponsors-here kitchen, where Padma towers over pop icon (?) Joe Jonas.  His reception is mixed, but mostly positive other than Dale T. thinking he was a pastry chef.  I suppose he sort of has that Johnny Iuzzini thing going on.  The Quickfire is of the wildly unpopular “cook for kids” variety, this particular one being to create a midnight snack for a bunch of rich brats who get to spend the night at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  Not knowing how sophisticated Joe Jonas’ palate is coupled with the fact that kids don’t know shit about shit creates some difficulty for the cheftestants.  Most of them solve the problem by throwing apples and sugar at it, while the rest think bacon is the key to
victory.  Then there’s Angelo, who titles his midnight snack “Cheese Crisps 2010: The New Evolution.”  There’s no question that this guy’s a talented cook, but perhaps he should sew his mouth shut and stay in the kitchen.

After becoming borderline diabetic, (pop icon/pastry chef) Joe Jonas puts Texas Tiffany, Fat Mike, and Ass-pirino at the bottom.  Tiff’s coconut rice pudding with grapefruit sauce was messy, Fat Mike’s chocolate coconut corn bar & coconut horchata chaser didn’t bring the chocolate, and li’l Assy’s snickerdoodle with white chocolate, coconut ganache, apricot & mint was lacking the mint.  At the top, Spike and the other Tiffani, whose dishes tie for first, putting Joey J in the familiar territory of letting throngs of screaming kids make decisions for him.  The top two cheftestants also wind up in somewhat familiar territory, having to pick teams.  Poor Fabio gets picked last, which is a boon for him because now he can fly “under the rudder.”  His broken English might be better than Ripert’s.

Tiffani’s team gets to preparing her rice crispy treat snowball with malted milk & graham crackers, Spike’s team prepares his homemade potato & carrot chips with marscapone & marshmallow dip, and the cast is whisked away to the land of dinosaur bones and screaming children, the majority of whom prefer Tiffani’s snowball, giving her immunity and her team an advantage for the Elimination Challenge, which is to cook breakfast using exclusively meats & meat byproducts or fruits & vegetables.  Thinking carnivore and omnivore are synonyms, Tiffani’s team chooses meats.  When they get to the kitchen, it’s a different story, so they have to make some adjustments.  Spike’s gang of fruits & veggies seems to have it a bit easier, but this is definitely another creative challenge.

As sleep deprivation sets in, Jamie gives herself a boo-boo that requires stitches, and she leaves the challenge.  The rest of the cheftestants do an eyeroll in unison, essentially calling her a word that rhymes with “stussy.” Not that I’m a big fan of human blood in my dishes, but you could tell she was stoked to leave the kitchen for a few more winks in the comfort of an ER bed.

More cooking ensues, then some words of wisdom from worst-person-ever Marcel (“Don’t f*ck with a man’s mise-en-place), then a buffet service for the rich brats and their parents. The dishes were not all that impressive save for Fabio
& Steve’s gnocchi, but overall, Team Brontosaurus had the better plates, and Blais, Marcel, and Angelo’s banana parfait with seasonal fruit & tandoori maple took the win.

At judges’ table, Team T-Rex, dumbfounded over their loss, complained that the challenge was unclear.  I’m not sure what part of “use only meat and meat byproducts” is unclear, but that’s water under the bridge at this point, and now
the cheftestants are left to defend their dishes, which hometown hero Jen does with the passion of a suffragette.  But what have 7 seasons of Top Chef taught us if nothing else?  Do NOT, under any circumstance, utter the following
statement: “I stand by my dish.”  Furthermore, do not do it so vehemently, even if Colicchio claims not to be bothered by the sass.  Perhaps the backtalk will be a recurring theme of this season’s judges’ table, but I think Jen could have
turned down the burner a bit.  If Casey’s “wet bacon” assessment of Jen’s braised bacon and hard boiled eggs was any indication of its poor execution, then maybe her departure can’t be entirely attributed to her mouthing off.  In
any case, it’s a huge bummer that she made such an early exit, although it was pretty evident that she’d already begun to crack.