Top Chef New York: Focus Group (Or, Two For The Road)

Top Chef: New York
Episode: Focus Group (Or, Two For The Road)
January 7, 2009

Previously on Top Chef: Everyone made believe it was Christmas. Everyone had to make something inspired by the Eleven Days Of Christmas. Everyone made believe that food could magically appear in a kitchen after all seemed lost. Hosea won the challenge for his let's-see-if-we-can-kill-off-the-competition-with-smoke-inhalation pork. And, after everyone made believe someone would be sent home, Chef Tom smacked the cheftestants around and told them they were all safe for a week. In the spirit of make-believe Christmas.

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It's the morning after the non-elimination and the chefs are eager to share their feelings on their reprieve. Chef Eugene (Next Stop: Top Sushi), one of the bottom two last time, is pissed that anyone would question his mad skills. Perpetual bottom-dweller Chef Melissa (Next Stop: Top Cheez Whiz) is too busy perfecting her drowned rat look to be pissed.

Chef Hosea (Next Stop: Top Smoke Bomb) just thinks his win was "awesome." And totally-not-jealous Chef Stefan (Next Stop: Top Ego) responds by muttering something in (what I can only assume is) Klingon.

Quickfire Challenge

Padma greets the too-many cooks in the Sponsorship Kitchen and introduces them to their guest judge, some fancy French pastry chef who is here promoting his own upcoming Bravo show. Yes, folks, it's the you-should-have-seen-it-coming, "I am not a pastry chef" challenge!

The twist? Well, seeing as there's this whole movement towards food being healthier, the chefs will have to make a "guilt-free"  dessert that is tasty and low in calories (which, of course, by implication must be healthier, right?).

Plus, the fact that there's a table piled high with all the sugar in the kitchen should give you an idea of what's up. Yes, to honor this week's corporate overlord, Dr Diet's Can O' Chemicals™, the chefs will have to create a dessert without using any sugar.

But fear not, kiddies, they can use all of the refreshing CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, ASPARTAME, PHOSPHORIC ACID, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVATIVE), CAFFEINE. PHENYLKETONURICS AND PHENYLALANINE they like! Why, it's practically an organic cooking challenge!

The chefs get to jogging and Chef Ariane (Next Stop: Top Shill) starts off the plug-fest by mentioning she's going to use some yummy Dr Diet's Carbonated Toxic Waste™ in her dish.

Chef Jeff (Next Stop: Top Dildo Dilido Coif) says something about having an edge because people in Miami Beach (where he works) are shallow, narcissistic and obsessed with being thin, or has he puts it "are concerned with their physique."

Chef Jamie (Next Stop: Top Edible Bivalve Mollusk) is mad she can't cop Richard Blaise's banana scallop dessert idea and decides to just get through this challenge and will wait to use scallops next time.

Chef Carla (Next Stop: Top Telepath) doesn't want to be known as a baker, a caterer or a rational human being; she's bananas. (Strike that. She's making bananas.)

While Hosea makes little fig turds, Stefan says something disparaging about them in (what I guess is) Esperanto.

Ariane makes her second reference to Dr Diet's Aluminum-Wrapped Aspartame™ and explains that she's making something with pears. The sweetness will come from the pears and the cans of Dr Diet's Recyclable Lymphoma-Bait™. (Is she getting a bonus check for every sponsor reference?)

Chef Radhika (Next Stop: Top Curry Not Curry! Curry!) tells us she, too, is not a pastry chef, but can pull together a mean bread pudding.

After Carla notices that everyone is using the freezer (and, thus, opening it a lot), she realizes her bananas aren't freezing and has to move on to Plan B. She's not happy with this.

Time runs out and it's time to judge.

Chef Fabio (Next Stop: Top Granma) has made a tart. The judge says the tart's cream wasn't cooked enough. Fabio thinks he's just saying this because of centuries of Franco-Italian conflict dating back to the Italian Wars of 1494.

The judge seems to like Jeff's do-it-yourself nuts, yogurt and baklava dish. Eugene's dessert "burger and fries" concept gets praise. Melissa's dessert "burrito" concept doesn't.

Stefan the Finn, who is also from California, jokes that he's actually from France in order to appear less of a douche. He also winks. (Nope. Still a douche.) Still, the judge seems intrigued by his dessert.

Ariane presents her "crep" (pronounced like "crap") and somehow manages to not throw in a fourth reference to Dr Diet's Six-Pack Of Food Additives™. It doesn't matter, though, in that the judge points out that she's over-whipped her cream to the point where it's now butter.

After a lot of "interesting(s)," zee judge rules. The bottoms are Carla for her bland bananas, Ariane for her crappy crepe, and Jamie for her un-scallop-y non-Napoleon.

The tops are Radhika's not-Indian bread pudding, Jeff's nuts and the something-er-other from Chef Leah (Next Stop: Episode Eight, airing on Bravo, Wed., Jan. 14 at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST).

And the winner is ... Radhika, who will once again be able to serve spit in a bowl during the elimination challenge with impunity.

Elimination Challenge

For this challenge, the cheftestants will be judged by Padma and Tom along with Gail-Simmons-Is On-Her-Honeymoon-So-Chillax,-Folks Replacement Judge, Toby Young. Young will be providing a much needed perspective on the panel, that of a bald-headed critic ... with a British accent.

Look, if Bravo wants to play with the big boys, they need to have a snotty British judge. It's sort of a requirement for these things. Hell, if they had a snotty British judge on Project Runway, they probably wouldn't be in the mess they're in now, no?

Padma surprises the chefs by not giving them their challenge today, but rather sends them all back upstairs to their suite for some much-needed post-fake-Christmas relaxation.

Quickly, the gang kicks back and begin the necessary process of imbibing some delicious Dr Diet's Aspartic Acid & Phenylalanine™ and speculating on what kind of a Simon Cowell/Piers Morgan/Nigel Lythgoe/Len Goodman this Toby Young fella is. (Conclusion: The shaved-head kind.)

Eugene then gets the honor of getting to hold up some shitty mobile phone up to the camera for ten minutes while he learns of his daughter's bathroom habits so we all know what shitty mobile phone company is paying for this show.

The next morning Chef Tom "surprises" the chefs by popping into the suite first thing in the morning. Magically, a knife block has appeared on the coffee table and he proceed to again shame them for their dreadful performance last time.

This time, the chefs will get to cook whatever they want, so they can showcase who they really are for the panel. And speaking of the panel, they will be cooking for, not only the judges they know about, but a "focus group" of "food experts."

And, since they want Toby to meet the chefs "food first," the dishes will be judged by blind people blind, that is without knowledge of which chef cooked which dish. Oh, and since no one was eliminated last time, this time two chefs will be sent packing.

Now, seeing as the kitchen where they will be working is so small (wink, wink), the chefs will have to shop for and cook their individual dishes in two successive groups, hence the magical knife block. And, as winner of the Quickfire, Radhika will get to pick which group she'd like to join.

Knives are drawn and the groups work out like this:

Group A: Fabio, Hosea, Jamie, Melissa and Eugene

Group B: Stefan, Jeff, Leah, Ariane and Carla.

And since she can't stand Stefan, Radhika opts to join the Stefan-less Group A.

Group A heads to the Piggly Wiggly for their shopping trip while Group B gets to cool its heels in their Brooklyn digs for a spell.

At the grocery store, Melissa reveals that when called upon to make a dish that tells us who she is, she'll respond with a hearty, "I'm a fish taco!"

Eugene, meanwhile, tells everyone that he's going to prepare a red snapper, dykon style. Confused, Jamie thinks that should be her area of expertise.

They then head to the Astor Center to prepare their meals. Everyone is all smiles, seeing as nasty ole Stefan isn't around and the cooking goes along unremarkably.

Hosea's makin' bacon. Radhika thinks they'll swoon over her "nya nya nya, I have immunity" bisque. And Fabio's excited to be showing his true self by making pasta, comandeering a gondola and executing a mob hit.

Next, Group B gets to hit the Kwick Check for their supplies. There, Carla seeks inspiration by asking her spirit guides to speak to her, preferably through the bottles of extra virgin olive oil.

The bottles tell her to make a vegetarian dish and to add scallops to it, to make sure it's not vegetarian at all. (Olive oil bottles are known for being notoriously inconsistent with their advice.)

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, we see that Lil Jamie is fulfilling her legal obligation to make scallops for every challenge. She says it's to redeem herself over her scallop disaster last time, but it's pretty clear that she's gonna keep flogging that horse until she finally wins with the damn things.

Eugene updates us on his Xena, Warrior Princess-inspired fried fish and insists that no other chef would consider pairing his discordant flavors because they wouldn't "have the balls" to try such a crappy idea.

As time draws short, Fabio's "jar" drops when he extracts his lamb from its sous vide bag and discovers it is not cooked properly. His lamb may not be cooked, but he's pretty sure that his goose is.

Time expires and the chefs set about coaching the servers on how to present their dishes. The judges arrive and then (surprise!) the "focus group" pops in from the service elevator. It's Group B, slovenly and "fresh" from running around NYC in the summer post-Christmas heat.

Naturally, they freak over having to critique their competitors' food and the fact that the other team will be returning the favor.

As the servers present the dishes, the members of Group A come out to learn this joyous news. They, too, are flummoxed. Hosea, to his credit, realizes that, strategically speaking, in order to stay out of the bottom, Group B will have to be really harsh with their reviews of Group A's food.

And to add insult to injury, they learn upon re-entering the kitchen that they will be getting the "joy" of witnessing this vivisection on closed-circuit TV.

The butchery begins with Stefan zeroing in on Radhika's bisque and insisting it's the most vile thing ever. Taking this cue, Judge Toby consults his Simon Cowell manual and quips that Radhika's soup is akin to Saddam Hussein's missing anthrax.

Carla comments that the vegetables in Hosea's dish were better than the bacon-wrapped halibut he presented. Knowing it's his turn, Judge Toby turns to the Piers Morgan Appendix B of his manual and chirps some analogy about the dish being like a bad movie with great British supporting players wherein the leads were upstaged by the secondary characters. (Yeah, the Piers Morgan chapters have always been the lamest parts of that book. But what can ya do?)

Jamie's There's-No-Way-They-Could-Ever-Tell-It's-Me Scallops, however, are a pretty clear hit. She finds this "awesome."

When they get to Fabio's lamb and pasta, right away they note the rareness of the meat, though they are seriously impressed with the pasta. In the kitchen, Fabio is at least somewhat relieved.

Then they get to Eugene's crispy red snapper with tomato, basil and Melissa Etheridge fettuccine. Words can't really adequately describe how sad it looks to see the whole dead fish curled up around a bed of pasta and runny sauce. Oddly, Jeff says that the fish looks "awesome." But when the critics dig in, they report it tastes as good as (I feel) it looks.

Stefan is aghast that the radishes were served hot. And, with precision timing, Judge Toby flips to the Len Goodman entry in his judging manual and issues the there-noted simile, "It's like the bland leading the bland."

Lastly, they review Melissa's "I'm a fish taco!" offering. Everyone finds it bland. Ariane comments on the dish's fishy smell and ... Toby?

Hastily flipping pages under the table, he barely is able to read the entry under "Lythgoe, Nigel" before the camera find him. "Cat food!" he exudes, just in the nick of time.

The first group now adequately destroyed emotionally, it's now time to turn the tables with Group B getting to cook.

After stating the obvious (that they're lucky to know who the focus group members will be before cooking), they get to work. Jeff tells us he's making some collection of small plates, tapas style, and Stefan plays with some tiny breasts.

Today, Stefan The Finn From California Who Is (Wink, Wink) From France now tells us he's from the Czech Republic. And, being a true son of Prague, he's making cabbage and dumplings so that (and I hope I got this right) dead people from Germany and Austria will turn around in their graves.

Wunderbar!

Cooking finished, it's time for Group B's water boarding. And when they return from the table, they too express shock to see that they will be seeing the tasting on TV as it happens and then (eventually) realize that they were being spied on when they took apart their competition.

The first one to take a hit is Carla, whose non-vegetarian, vegetarian dish is hammered for being awash in garlic. Radhika examines the dishes, determines that the duck and cabbage is Stefan's offering and says that the accompanying dumplings were "a little dense." Fabio jumps to his Team Eurotrash partner's defense and says that, taken as a whole, the items all go together perfectly. ... And the judges seem to agree.

Jeff's collection of hors d'oeuvres gets heat from Eugene and Chef Tom, but is adored by Judge Toby. The bald Brit returns to the Piers Morgan repertoire of lame analogies and compares the dish's avocado sorbet to a wacky Scientologist's cameo in a movie everyone seemed to have loved, but which I have studiously avoided.

Ariane's skate wing with pineapple and cauliflower goes over well. And there's another split decision on Leah's fried fish, with Jamie calling it "greasy" and Judge Toby calling it a "pan-European" take on fish and chips. (Leah responds from the back with a look of, "Yeah, that's a thought.")

Once the chefs leave, the judges agree that the second group was much stronger than the first and hope that tasting each other's food this way will make the surviving chefs more aware of what it's like to judge these dishes.

After a quick check on which of Judge Toby's British Boilerplate sayings was found to be the most catty, it's time for ...

Judges' Table

Padma arrives in the Stewed Room and calls forth the chefs who made the scallops with fennel (Jamie), the duck with cabbage (Stefan) and the skate wing (Ariane).

In the judging room, Judge Toby offers a twist on the Simon Cowell, "It sounded like something you'd hear in a bad nightclub in Ibiza" by turning pompous travel references into praise for Stefan's dish. Calling it "unmistakably German," he says it tasted like something he's eaten several times stranded in a wood cabin in the Alps.

They all heap praise on Jamie's and Ariane's dishes and issue their ruling. The winner of the challenge is ... Jamie.

And, with that, we're robbed of seeing Lil Tatttooey getting passed over for Mama Ariane again. Pshaw.

Then it's time to call in the bottoms, Eugene, Carla and Melissa.

And in a development no one could have possibly seen coming weeks ago ... the judges finally kick Melissa and Eugene to the curb.

Let us all raise a glass of Dr. Diet's Fizzy C₁₈H₂₃O₉N₃S Drink™  in celebration!

Next time on Top Chef: Chef Hung arrives to give the kitchen some much needed dickishness. And the long-awaited Jamie/Stefan "douchebag" moment. Yea.