Top Chef NYC

They were paired up. Watch again how Marcel and Elia are oddly compared against one another. Then how Sam and Ilan are spoken of as a kind of semifinal showdown. If Elia's was the worst, why was she compared to the best? Shouldn't she and Sam have been spoken of in the same sentence?

Again - fishy, fishy. My understanding is Sam's ouster provoked some serious arguments, which in turn led to his inclusion at the Aspen Food Festival shortly thereafter. He's also been a guest judge on the show. Any other person who didn't make the final get that honor?

 

Ariane deserved the boot, in the sense that she was going to get it anyway.

If you ask Lea to make anything bigger than your fingernail, she struggles.

Hosea's an ass. Give me a kitchen with Stefan before that guy.

Jamie's the easiest to root for, but I don't mind Jeff and Fabio, either.

 

'It is not a cheesesteak.'

Love that guy.

 

"Tom Colicchio: Hero"

http://internetfoodassociation.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/tom-colicchio-hero/

 

Good job Colicchio.

And as far as tonight's episode went: I really feel that Carla should've been sent packing. If Stefan can handle a not so cold freezer, then she should've been able to do something managable.

But I can see why Radhika went, she didn't control jack in her restaurant.

 

The chef/owner pretty much always is held accountable for restaurant wars and rightfully so. If she had cooked something and kicked ass with her dish, then Carla would have gone home, but Radhika didn't do well with her job and the restaurant had some issues. That's on her.

 

It's still a bummer that she got booted because she was a bad hostess and not because of something she cooked.

 

Points to bad decision-making. She chose to be front of hte house, and she sucked at it. Meant she wasn't in the kitchen making sure the food was right. And she still spent most of the night in the kitchen, meaning she failed at both parts.

Plus, she had the worst team. Bad drafting.

 

So the elimination challenge determines the chef/owners and they winners are...Leah and Radihka?!?? You have five competent chefs on this show and I have a hard time believing the guest judge wasn't told, "Hey, you need to pick two of these other three as your winners." I don't think they wanted a situation like when Tre went home a couple seasons back.

As for the outcome: if you're the chef/owner, how can you allow yourself to be left with FOH duties? It's her restaurant and she didn't cook anything.

 

Paraphrasing Chef Tom: It's called "Top Chef", Not "Top Hostess/Matre'D." But I did understand that Radhika's handling of the front of the house put her in jeopardy of leaving. She took the responsibility of the entire restaurant on, and, in the end, it cost her.

 

From the way the judges talked, the FOH was the reason they lost, even with the bad desserts. The judges might have said that to justify sending Radhika home, but it seemed like the customers agreed with that assessment. In restaurant wars if you are the chef/owner you better be flawless and have someone else screw up if you want to stay. Radhika was far from flawless and cost her team the win ... there really shouldn't have been much of a debate. In fact, if Carla hadn't completely sucked it up, it would have been a pretty easy decision.

 

Well, Carla did completely suck it up. I'm just saying she should have been sent home because she made 2 desserts and they were both terrible. Radhka cooked nothing. I understand she was team leader, and granted she did a likewise terrible job, but to win a quick-fire and then get booted in the same episode is fishy. I'm not saying Radhka was gonna finish in the top 3, but I would have liked her ouster to be based on her cooking ability and not her hostess ability. Target falls on Carla next week.