Top Chef All Stars - Page 26

+1 loved the quick fire.

I was completely disappointed to see Angelo go, but after the whole spiel about an inedible dish being so much worse than a bad dish in previous episodes, you could tell right away that no doubt it would be him to go. Of all the challengers, Dale and Antonia have really shone in my eyes. Although I don't doubt his cooking skills, all of Dale's wins have largely come from the ability to create a dish that fits almost PERFECTLY context to the challenge, which is quite impressive. The use of the fish liver in the Le Bernardin quickfire, the fish tacos on the beach, the runny egg at WD50, the Bodega concept at dinner wars, and now the grilled cheese. I also like Antonia, as she manages to cook simple dishes, very well to the point that it impresses the judges given her competitors.

i believe he also worked with ferran adria at el bulli

He was there for one week in 2003. As short as it was, there is no question it had a remarkable impact on his approach to food and cooking.

WTF was up with Angelo's outfit? Did he really have on cargo shorts and dark over the calf dress socks?

As for Blaise, his hair just is hard to look at. I wish he would not wear it like that.

Very impressed with Dale. He's got better control of himself (not perfect) and it is showing in his performance. He got very ghetto at Tom one time and I'm surprised he was asked back. Good to see he's grown up a bit.

Blais is very talented, but Top Liquid Nitrogen has become more annoying than Top Foam, Top Gnocchi, and Top Scallop.

Yes, needs to lay off the gimmick. As someone noted above Alan has done so well due to fitting his food to the challenge. People with a fixation always try to fit the challenge to their fication and that leads to their downfall.

Who's Alan?

Er, Dale.

did anyone think of grillin' fool when tiffany almost got booted off for dried seasonings?

There's a time and place for dried seasonings. You can't make a good jambalya without them... I can't really figure out where Bourdain was coming from on that. Creole spice has things like dried thyme, onion powder, paprika - there's more to it than just cayenne - and you can't really replace dried thyme and onion powder with fresh onions and fresh thyme.

so no?

+1. and i'm sure tony knows that. much like colicchio's comments on risotto, i'm sure this was one of those places where a fuller explanation was made dumb by editing. it seemed to me that the real problem they were talking about was an overuse of dried herbs ... you do get a bitter flavor if they are too present. fresh herbs can be front and center; dried herbs (with rare exceptions) should stay in the background. just two different ingredients.

Yeah, bitterness is an issue - and Tony Chachere's , while I like it, is not really the best. It's also very salty.

on a more serious note, did anyone notice the sweater-jacket tom had on? very sharp, i thought. deets?