Top Chef Las Vegas: Cooking For Le Unicorn (Or, What Gaul!)

Top Chef: Las Vegas
Episode: Cooking For Le Unicorn (Or, What Gaul!)
September 9, 2009

Previously on Top Chef: The chefs cooked for airmen. Mike went from being part of the top team (alongside challenge winner BrotherMichael) to the bottom three. There, Mike, Preeti and Laurine learned that it’s never a good idea to make a salad on this show. In the end, Team Rainbow took its first hit and Preeti was sent packing.

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Morning after footage.

Chef Hector makes Cuban Puerto Rican coffee for Chef Ash. This is to put (more) hair on the sexy chef’s chest. Feeling left out Chef DoucheyMike (who, for today, shall be less Douchey), says that he could use more hair on his chest. (Like I really wanted to know that.)

Chef Dizzy Robin ruminates on the fact that the first three chefs to head out the door have been women. This worries her … and sets up this week’s loser edit.

With that, the chefs head off to … not the Red Roof Inn Resort & Casino™. Instead, they’re delivered to another palace of one-armed bandits (even if they don’t have arms anymore). There, they are greeted by Tom and famed French chef Daniel Boulud.

Quickfire Challenge

They’re at the Gaul’s restaurant at said chinka-chinka palace. And, in homage to their guest judge, this week’s Quickfire will be French-themed and will require appropriate French Foreign Legion headgear.

Oh, and one more thing. It’s another “high stakes” Quickfire.

“Whee!” think the chefs.

But instead of winning a $15,000 poker chip to be lost at the tables within hours, this time the high stakes will be that the winner will get immunity in the Elimination Challenge … and the loser will go home.

“Gulp,” think the chefs.

And the challenge will be to create a dish using a typical French cuisine ingredient which hasn’t really caught on stateside. Namely, escargot, or as you SVINE call zem, “snails.”

Mike (who has a Greek/Cretin Cretian background) and Chef Mattin (our resident snail eater) grin big, knowing that they have this one in the bag, owing to their personal histories.
Chef Jennifer, meanwhile, explains to us that snails are not the easiest thing in the world to cook well. And she shows that she can curse just as well as the boys.

Tom makes his first grammatical mistake of the hour and they’re off!

Kitchen flurry!

Chef Sad Ashley is worried. Chef Kevin explains some technical flavor issues involved which, naturally, go completely over my head. And Hector reminds us that French cooking is about the furthest thing from what he normally does.

Suddenly, Chef Ron and Robin have this week’s kitchen mix-up when they disagree about whose snails were where and who took them and such. (Not that this is particularly important, but we have this loser edit storyline we have to work, ya know.)

Mike explains that food from Crete will often incorporate snails. Mattin also expresses his familiarity with it, saying that in addition to “snips” and “puppy dog tails,” snails are one of the main things he remembers about his childhood.

(Personal aside: Pardon the interruption. But I had to share. See, when I was a kid, my dad said I could refuse to eat anything as long as I actually tried it first. For some reason, I tried escargot and fell in love with them. For years afterwards, I would confuse waiters far and wide who couldn’t understand how the snails were for the kid in short pants and not for his dad. … Ironically, having some really horribly prepared ones atop the Eiffel Tower a few years back made me stop craving them altogether.)

Now, back to our show.

As they cook, Ashley tells us that it would be “awesome” if she could win this Quickfire. (And it would be grand if Rush Limbaugh fell into a volcano tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen either.)

Time!

The first three chefs, Ron, Jennifer and Chef Jesse (who this week is dressed as the train conductor from Conjunction Junction) present their dishes.

(Since each of the chefs made snails -- and I couldn’t tell you what’s in a Provençal over what’s in a McDLT -- I’ll skip the details of each snail dish.)

Daniel likes the yuzu in Jennifer’s dish. Ron’s evokes no comment. And Jesse’s “E.L.T.” (which I totally don’t get) merits an “interesting.”

Next come InvisiChef Laurine, Hector, Robin and Ash.

Laurine’s is “very nice.” Hector’s Caribbeanails gets no comment. Robin’s “play on bagels and lox” (??) earns a simple nod. Ash, I suppose, doesn’t matter, since we don’t even see what he made.

The next batch of snails come from Chef Eli, Kevin, Mattin and Ashley.

Mattin’s “I know snails” snails gets no comment. Ashley’s escargot soup gets another “interesting.” Kevin’s bacon jam-assisted dish elicits an intriguing “how’d you do that?”-type question from Daniel. And it’s Eli’s turn not to count here.

Lastly, dishes are served by Chef BrotherBryan, Chef BrotherMichael and Mike.

BrotherBryan’s foamy dish gets no comment. BrotherMichael’s gets another “interesting.” And Mike’s also earns an “interesting.”

The chefs are all gathered to hear the results. It’s agreed that, all in all, the dishes were “interesting.”

Thank you. Now go home.

But seriously … the three best dishes were from … Mike, Kevin and (oooh, favoritism! thinks Mike) Jennifer. And the winner is … Kevin! (Yea!) He wins immunity and a “special treat” to be announced later.

Now for the losers. The three least favorite (or least "interesting”) dishes were from … Robin The Unfocused, Ashley The Forlorn and Jesse The Perennial Loser.

But there’s a catch. Each of these three will get one more shot, a SYTYCD “Dance For Your Life” as it were. They will have 20 minutes to run back to the kitchen and prepare an amuse bouche. We’ll see if they know what “one-bite dish” means and the one with the worst one will go home.

Go!

Kitchen Gynoflurry!

Ashley spends her time cursing. Jesse makes one every night at her restaurant and is cool with this. And Robin has had them, but has never made one and is worried … and unfocused.

Time’s up!

Robin’s made an avocado soup with (today’s secret ingredient) yuzu. Jesse made a tuna tartare which looks suspiciously like it’s more than one bite. And Sad Ashley made a fois gras with pineapple.

We have to wait until everyone’s gathered out front again before Tom delivers the verdict. He says he and Daniel liked all three, but each one could have been just slightly better, each for very small, technical reasons. But in the end, there has to be one loser.

Appropriate to her headgear, Jesse is again riding the caboose.

“Jesse, please pack your knives and leave.”

(“Leave?” Not, “Go?” Hasn’t Tom been watching this show? Or does Padma have the patent on that particular turn of phrase?)

Elimination Challenge

Out comes the knife block. And, as the winner of the Quickfire, Kevin doesn’t draw.

As the chefs pull knives, they see that on each of them is the name of either a traditional French protein or a traditional French sauce. The challenge will be that, working in teams of two, the chefs will create a dish marrying their chosen protein to another’s chosen sauce.

(No, this is not another Las Vegas wedding-themed challenge. Besides, marriage is between one man and one woman. Marriage of sauce to protein is an abomination.)

Mattin is sure that, in this challenge, all eyes are on him. (This may or may not be owing to the fact that he played Frenchy in his high school production of Grease.)

Tom explains that for this challenge, the chefs will be preparing their dishes for a bunch of super-famous, world-renowned French chefs. In fact they’re so famous that one isn’t even allowed to use their names on the internet for fear of disclosing their top secret whereabouts. (Who am I kidding? I just don’t want to have to figure out how to spell these guys’ names.)

But the most famous of these super-chefs is the legendary Joël Robuchon. Tom tells us that Robuchon was named the Chef of the Century. This which makes me wonder. Since this century’s kind of new, was he the chef of the last century or are we expecting that no one in the next 91 years can rise to his greatness? Just curious.

Now, no one really knows if this Robuchon actually exists, as there are only grainy black-and-white photographs of this “man,” mostly taken by drunk ice fishermen and souvenir-hawking salesmen in the South of France. But if anyone can conjure him up, I’m sure Tom and Padma can.

Kevin, as the winner of the Quickfire, will not need to compete and will, instead, get to eat alongside these titans of cuisine. Naturally, he is bowled over. He worships Chef Robuchon, and tells us that he owns every cookbook, notebook, file-o-fax and toilet stall graffiti the man has ever written, in English, French and Klingon.
Immediately, the chefs begin to pair up into the most logical protein/sauce pairings.

Those work out to be:

• Laurine and Eli: Lobster avec sauce Américaine.

• Mike and BrotherBryan: Trout avec sauce Bearnaise.

• Jennifer and BrotherMIchael: Rabbit avec sauce chasseur (which I thought would be “sauce of socks” until I remembered that that would be sauce chausettes. That would be quite a nifty challenge, though.)

• Ash and Hector: Chateaubriand avec sauce au Poivre.

• Ashley and Mattin: Young chicken avec sauce Velouté.

• Robin and Ron: Frog legs avec sauce Meuniére.

They head off  to the Must Defeat Obamacare Market™ to shop. There, we see Mattin disabusing Ashley from using asparagus in her sauce, which she tells us is a fancy version of “gravy.” Ashley, now wearing her fancy tuxedo t-shirt from the Blake Lewis Collection™, tells us she’s letting FrenchyMattin take the lead on this, since he should know what he’s doing.

Oh, and we also get more “loser edit” shots of Robin being wild and unfocused, accompanied by the obligatory “comic relief” score. I believe the piece’s official name is “Le Hareng Rouge.”

As they shop, we see the overwhelming favorites, Teams BroChick and BroDouche engage in some sibling horseplay in the market, racing carts down the aisles, smacking each other and dangling loogies inches from each others faces. (I fully expect Tom to arrive and threaten to turn this show around right now.)

The chefs get back to the kitchen and start to work. Ash makes a joke about a “Puerto Rican and a gay guy” who have to cook a meal, which makes me wonder why I can’t cook since I’m both.

Ash and Hector get to work on their steak and sauce. Jennifer and BrotherMichael work like a well-buttered machine. And Mattin schools Ashley on the inherent superiority of all things French. (I suspect he’ll have her wearing a “I ♥ Jerry Lewis” t-shirt before the hour is up.)

Over on team BroDouche, BrotherBryan describes his novel approach to preparing his trout while Mike tells us that he wants to approach his Bearnaise sauce in a new fashion. As such, Mike works on a “deconstructed” Bearnaise sauce, taking his cues from Bryan, who has made this before.

When we hear the comedy theme come back up, we can tell it’s time for More Fun With Loopy Robin and Sour Ron! In a craftily edited segment we’re made to think that Robin manages to talk for three minutes solid without needing a breath. (You doubt? Look at it again and see if you can spot the edit points.)

And before you know it, it’s time to pack their food in Tupperware™ and head back to Casa Cuisine for some R&R.

Fakeout Scene!

It’s Mattin’s 29th birthday! And in typical French fashion, he celebrates it by gallivanting about in his tiny red underwear and getting his face pushed into his cake. After too much l’alcool, he climbs into the hot tub where he removes his moist sauce chausettes for your viewing pleasure.

Fakeout Scene over!

The next morning, the inky chefs try not to freak out over their upcoming brush with greatness. The chefs (minus Kevin, who won’t be competing) head off to the Loch Chef Monster’s kitchen to make the dish of their lives.

Risée cuisinière!

Eli tells us how he’s excited to finally get confirmation that the mythical Robuchon is actually a real person. “I pretty much was under the impression that he didn’t actually exist and that me might be a unicorn.”

That gives me an idea. Next week’s challenge: Cooking unicorn. Let’s see you pull that one off.

We check back in with this week’s comedy duo and see that Robin’s sauce is exceedingly vinegary. This makes Ron make a face. We can’t really tell, though, if it’s because of Robin, her sauce or his deep-seated resentment of the French, his being a Hatian and all.

“We don’t like them. They don’t like us.”

(You know, this rather explains his offhanded “Frenchy” put-down towards Mattin last week.)

With a half-hour to cook, Mike make a brave attempt at being actually likable (which almost works), Eli and Laurine worry about their lobster getting overcooked and Mattin gets a tad overconfident about his bacon-y sauce.

Elsewhere, Hector and Ash start to go into panic mode. It seems their meat isn’t as hot as it needs to be and time is running out. Fast.

Next, we see the mythical pantheon of palates arrive. Kevin swoons before their greatness and then it’s time for …

Let’s Dish The Dishes!

This week’s player is Chef Eli! He describes Robin and Ron’s dish as “sitting on top of a beautiful wilted salad of dead greens and overly caked frog legs.” He adds that it looks “awesome.”

Good play! Now, service!

Padma introduces Tom, Gail and the rest of Le Mount Rouchmoure of food and here we learn that Bigfoot Robuchon doesn’t speak English and will be assisted by le beau traducteur.

First up, Ron and Robin’s frog legs. How awful will they be? Considering the edit, they must be awful. But the judges don’t have much bad to say about it, saying that at least it shows some originality and creativity. Plus, they make allowances for how hard it is to cook frog legs.

Next is Mike and BrotherBryan’s trout with deconstructed Béarnaise. Everyone loves it. The sauce is impressive and the trout is exceptional. And Robuchon’s French makes Gail feel all tingly downstairs. (Or so it seems.)

Serving third are Eli and Laurine with their lobster dish. Generally, it’s liked. But it loses on the details, what with the lobster being slightly overcooked. Still,  it gets the backhanded compliment of being good “for someone with no classical French training.”

After that come Mattin and Ashley with their young chicken with “I’m the French guy here” sauce. Cue the Hubris Violoncello. Mattin presents his dish IN French which, oddly, gets praise from Robuchon who notes that Mattin speaks French very well. (Er, wouldn’t he be able to tell that the youngster is French, or does his dish belie that fact?)

The diners find the chicken bland and the sauce really bacon-y. Tom says that it’s so bacon-y that it disproves the adage that “everything is better with bacon.”

Ouch.

Next out are Jennifer and BrotherMichael with their rabbit. Here they note that rabbit is very hard to cook well, but this one is prepared perfectly. Tom notes that while the two chefs are young, this is “very mature” work. High praise indeed!

Back in the kitchen, though, the wheels are coming off for our last team, Hector and Ash. Hector finally gets to pull his meat out of the oven and, without having time to let it “rest,” he starts cutting it frantically while Ash sauces those he can in the brief time left.

The two march into the dining room of doom. “Where’s the sauce?” “The cooking is so bad … “ “It looks like it’s been hacked with an axe.”

Oh dear.

In the final analysis, the superchefs have high praise for the dishes and expect to see (some of) these chefs among the greats of the future with Gail adding that this is the first season where such greatness could be achieved this early in the season.

Awww, we love Gail. … And now I’m hungry.

Back in the Stewed Room, Kevin joins his colleagues and shows off his p-p-p-poker face. Asked which of the dishes were the diners’ most and least favorite dishes, he pleads total ignorance. (I now dub thee SlyBear.)

Judges’ Table

Padma appears and calls forth Mike and BrotherBryan, Jennifer and BrotherMichael. As if you didn’t see that coming.

Before the judges, the four are shining examples of camaraderie, professionalism and teamwork. They say what they each did and praise their teammates for what they did.

It’s heartwarming.

And it makes for shitty comedy.

At least BrotherMichael pulls out an “awesome” somewhere in there.

After the love-fest, Daniel declares that the winner is … BrotherBryan! (Yea!) There’s a tinge of disappointment on Jennifer and BrotherMichael’s faces, but they’re good sports about it.

As the winner, Bryan will earn not only immunity, but will also get to stage (look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls) for a week with Chef Robuchon. (Wow. Seriously. Wow.)

Now, for the losers. Calling up … Ash and Hector, Mattin and Ashley.

(Hold up! We were fed this whole Robin and Ron are toast bit for the last hour!)

Doomgong!

Under the heat lamp, Mattin and Ashley are slammed for their too-bacon-y, too gravy-ish sauce. And upon questioning, Mattin becomes peevish. He quickly tries to blame Ashley for the asparagus on the plate, but suddenly develops amnesia when it’s suggested that asparagus in the sauce would have helped and they ask if he shot down that idea.

He makes some pathetic comment about this being “his first shot,” as if it wasn’t everybody’s. And then the interrogation turns to Team GayRican.

Ash attempts to explain how his sauce was actually on the plate, but the unrested meat soaked it all up. Then it’s Hector’s turn to hang his be-capped head in shame over his poor cooking job on the meat.

He attempts to defend himself, saying that he shouldn’t have relied on the thermometer to gauge the meat’s readiness. But the judges actually feel it was more of matter of poor  planning, since there would have been plenty of time to prepare the beef.

The four head back to the Stewed Room and Ash reflects on that being “the most unpleasant thing in the world,” when the judges point out just exactly what is wrong with things and the chefs know it.

As the judges work to come to their decision, I sit and wonder just what I thought before this whole thing started. On these shows, the person who is finally working in his or her own specialty, be it dance, song or cooking, is always gets tossed into the bottom since they’re judged more harshly for not being extraordinary when operating in their wheelhouse. So I fully expected Mattin to get the short end of the baguette this week before the show even started.

But what do the judges say?

As they deliberate, Tom notes that Mattin threw Ashley “under the bus” on the asparagus and …

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! If you had "Episode Four" and "Tom" for “under the bus” come on down and claim your Top Chef Designer Snuggie!

The chefs come back in.

Aaaaand … “Hector, please pack your knives and go.”

Awwww. Your gentle blogger makes the sound of the sad coquí for our fallen fast-talking compatriot.

Co-quí. Co-quí.

Next time on Top Chef: Cooking, dude ranch style! That Top Chef Master with the cowboy hat! Sand and 100 degree weather! Sucking on a piece of chlorine and Tom spitting his food out!