The Diplodocus

Dear Antonia,

In Fall 2003, at a fancy hotel restaurant in Toronto, I had a rich, earthy, delicious bowl of butternut squash soup garnished with a thin slice of black truffle and a housemade potato chip.  The soup was a $12 (granted, that’s $12 Canadian, circa 2003) first course and hit the spot during a chilly Ontario November.  The restaurant was far from remarkable overall, but was rated fairly well.  What I’m trying to say is this: you don’t think squash soup is upscale enough?  Really? 

Dear Spike,

Man up.  And please, ditch the hats.

Hung deserved to win 100%.  All you text-messagers out there who jumped on the Casey bandwagon really need to go back and re-watch this season.  Breaches of etiquette aside (the crawfish, the truffle oil) Mr. Huynh was the strongest competitor in a tough field.  He didn’t participate in the “we’re all so great!” gladhanding chef love circles, he competed.  In a relatively drama-free season, watching him work was the highlight.  

And though the live elements were annoying — why was Padma Lakshmi yelling all the time? — the Season 3 finale was much more interesting than Season 2’s. 

Does anyone think last night’s Top Chef finale was satisfying in any way?  For an elimination-based reality show to have the most boring and poorly directed effort of an entire season come during the finale was highly disappointing.   It felt like there were no dynamic elements there with the possible exception of the lost kampachi, and even that was resolved with a whimper.

Perhaps it was the nature of the challenge itself.  There were no rules, an unlimited budget, five course, do what you want to task.  It made for fundamentally uninteresting television.  Having not seen the first season, I can’t compare the two finals, but the only x-factor was the sous chefs being drawn from past contestants.   Surely they could have come up with an interesting element for the final — an ingredient, or a theme, a list of wines to pair the meal with, something.  Anything to give us on our couches an objective standard against which we could judge the contestants.  And for a show that had Eric Ripert in on the last pre-Hawaii episode, couldn’t they have at least had Wylie Dufresne or *gasp* someone new as an actual judge at the final table?

Beyond the boringness of the challenge itself, there was the result.  Which was crappy.  So crappy that I really don’t want to go into it here except to say: I completely disagree with all the judgments that took place in Hawaii and hope Ilan blows all his money on more watches and an actual website that’s not Myspace.  

If you run into me and bring up Top Chef, I’ll probably praise the fact that my Wednesday nights are now fully free from television. 

Sam was robbed.  More strongly: A Sam/Elia final would have been much, much more interesting than the Ilan/Marcel snipefest we’ll probably see next week.  Its a shame — and it seemed obvious that at the very least Padma was not happy with the decision.  At least you’re $10K richer, Sam.  Its too bad you didn’t get a shot at the big prize.

Don’t get me started on the underhanded late hit Ilan instigated.  Really, what was the point?  You realize you’re on TV right?

Its late and this blog entry stinks.

Edited to add: This isn’t saying I excuse Elia.  She shouldn’t have let herself get egged on by Ilan and join him in complaining.  Here again Sam showed his leadership chops by getting them both to shut up. 

Also, given the lateness I forgot all about the specific accusations that were brought up.  Sure we weren’t privy to all the video, but all season there was nothing suggesting Marcel cheated, ever, at least not in the Otto or Betty kind of way.  He may have been a jerk, but being a jerk and cheating are very different things.  And after that petty display, next week I’m certainly not cheering for Ilan.