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Platt Stands Up for the Latest ‘Top Chef’ Non-Winner
On this week’s Top Chef, the contestants were asked to create ice-cream toppings, a laughably easy challenge won by Dale, who acquired immunity. Padma then told the contestants that they were going to go out clubbing that night, a lie that was revealed when the rivals were driven to catering trucks and told they would be cooking for South Beach revelers. They were divided into two teams, with Tre, Hung, Brian, and Sarah M. functioning as a well-oiled machine, and Howie, Sara, CJ, and Casey at sixes and nines with each other. In the end, Sara, was given the boot. We logged on with Adam Platt immediately to discuss the meaning of it all.
Posted 08/09/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Adam Platt Finds the Moral in Last Night’s ‘Top Chef’
On last night's episode of Top Chef, after an inane "culinary bee" resulted in Casey being granted immunity, the chefs were made to pair off and create frozen pasta dinners. They were then judged by a panel that included guest Rocco DiSpirito (who you may know as spokesman for Bertolli frozen dinners). The horribly misaligned Hung-Joey and Howie-Sara teams resulted, predictably, in disaster, with Joey getting the boot and weeping for the camera. (We'll have a Q&A with him later today.) Shocked, we immediately ran to the computer to compare notes via IM with the decidedly unsentimental Adam Platt.
Posted 08/02/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Adam Platt Leads the ‘Top Chef’ Backlash
This week’s Top Chef provided viewers with a nasty surprise: Instead of another dramatic contest, featuring a promised run-in with Rocco DiSpirito, we were treated to an inexplicable let's-look-back special, featuring contestants from previous shows and the current crop of rejects sitting on couches, all laughing uproariously at their own antics as captured in outtakes. Was it shameless, more cheesy, or more boring? Grub Street and Adam Platt were flabbergasted by the banality of it all.
Posted 07/26/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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‘Top Chef’ Biases Finally Out on the Table
This week’s Top Chef provided another opportunity for the contestants to humiliate themselves, a chance they took full advantage of. In the Quickfire Challenge, pastry chef Dale got another chance to use his special skills and again ended up losing, to Joey, who claimed to be totally ignorant of the pastry field. And in the Elimination Challenge, in which the chefs were asked to create a Latin meal for Miami soap-opera stars, Hung managed to screw up arroz con pollo. In the end, though, only one chef could be exterminated, and it was the hapless but likable Lia, whose dish was shamefully bland. We compared notes with Adam Platt via IM immediately afterward.
Posted 07/19/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Sternbergh Thinks There Are Too Many Locals on ‘Top Chef’
Last night’s episode of Top Chef was a bloodbath: After a Quickfire Challenge in which the chefs were asked to create a cocktail pairing for the prominently placed Bombay Sapphire Gin, most of the show was devoted to an elimination challenge in which they split up into teams of three and made courses for a special tasting menu. The tuna course was a flop, putting both Howie and Joey back on the brink, but the pineapple-themed dessert course created by Dale, Camille, and Sara was even worse and had Camille headed straight back to Brooklyn. Adam Sternbergh, New York's culture critic at-large, gleefully IMed with us afterward.
Posted 07/12/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Adam Platt Thought Micah From ‘Top Chef’ Was a Train Wreck
In this week’s Top Chef, the contestants were first asked to create a shellfish dish, with the winner getting immunity from elimination in the episode's second round. Brian and Howie’s simple creations were the best of an unimpressive bunch, and guest judge Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill gave Howie the nod. Later, all the chefs were asked to reinterpret American standards like meat loaf in low-cholesterol versions, and the results were even more dismal. Micah, the South African mom, was singled out as having the very worst dish and was given her walking papers at show’s end. She was barely done sniffling her good-byes when we were on Instant Messenger with our buddy, the acerbic Adam Platt, comparing notes.
Posted 06/28/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Adam Platt Is Willing to Bet Against Howie on ‘Top Chef’
Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t resist getting wrapped up in the ubiquitous Top Chef hype. Immediately after every episode this season, we’re rushing to the computer for a breathless instant-message chat with one of our compatriots. This week’s episode was especially entertaining. After a spot challenge which left only early favorite Hung immune to ejection, the already-stressed chefs were charged with cooking “gourmet barbecue,” a seemingly simple challenge that flummoxed nearly everybody, including the ultraconfident Tre, a native Texan who announced that he “could do this in his sleep.” At the end, it was the mohawked Sandee, an obvious weak link, who got the boot. Afterward, we got online right away with New York’s curmudgeonly restaurant critic, Adam Platt.
Posted 06/21/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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Josh DeChellis Gives the ‘Top Chef’ Contestants High Marks
We here at Grub Street have gotten pretty wrapped up in Top Chef, a fact that became apparent at the end of last season, when we indulged in a couple of late-night chats on the show, first with Red Cat and Mermaid Inn owner Jimmy Bradley, and then with New York’s own Adam Sternbergh. This season, we’re planning on kibitzing about the show every week with a variety of fellow viewers, all of whom will help us to dissect that episode’s round of flashy dishes and behind-the-scenes treachery. Last night’s guest: former Sumile and Jovia chef Josh DeChellis.
Posted 06/14/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House
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