TOP CHEF RECAP: Episode 10 – Restaurant Wars, Part 1

Let the restaurant wars begin!

There are eight cheftestants left. Crack open some ginger ale! ‘The episode starts out with Wolfgang Puck, (who, by the way, owns about 70 restaurants around the world if I heard him right). Here’s here to fire up a quickfire. Padma delivers the task: a ginger dish in 15 minutes or less. Canada Dry is the sponsor.After a brief montage of soundbytes with the contestants saying they love ginger and grew up sucking a ginger pacifier, (slight exaggeration) the chefs are done.

Padma Eats

Padma and Wolfgang go around tasting the dishes. Some of these dishes are seriously hard to look good while eating. Padma of course still looks gorgeous even whilst stuffing her face.

Kristen Stefan Top Chef

Kristen (a fave here at POP) gets clever, infusing some liquid with ginger by shoving it into a CO2 drink mixer and gettin’ busy with it. Genius! Puck commends her creativity, Stefan tries not to look like he doesn’t loathe the moment. Wanna see what that looks like? Here ya go! A precious moment, but she’s not the victor this time.

Ultimately, his favorites were Brooke’s ginger caramel squid, Stefan’s Ahi tuna with lemongrass and ginger vinaigrette and Lizzie’s watermelon and ginger soup. Brooke wins and is free from elimination, as Lizzie tries to look happy for her. Wanna see what that looks like? Can do!

Brooke Wins
Brooke Happy. Lizzie pretend happy.
Restaurateur Danny Meyer is brought out to announce the Restaurant Wars elimination challenge  – part one. This year, ever chef needs to invent their own restaurant concept and a single dish to represent it. The two winners will be up against each other (with the support of the other remaining contestants) next week.
The three favorites end up being:
 Our favorite lumberjack Josh, who honors his deceased father with “Bistro George.” He serves seared rib eye with cauliflower puree and mushroom red wine sauce.
Another favorite – Kristen’s concept – upscale French. She serves an onsen egg with camembert sauce.
Sheldon. Filipino. He calls his place “Herbano” after his grandfather. He makes a sour tamarind soup with pork belly, shrimp and fish.
The bottom three are Micah, Josie and Lizzie.
I think Josie is good television, but would be a horrible roommate. Thankfully she is not my roommate, so back to the TV. Her concept is “Home 305” – the 305 being a reference to Miami’s ‘area code. But it should be the number of minutes too many that the judges had to wait for their food.
It Looked like THIS: Could she be on the chopping block?

She makes Puerco asado (roast pork) and black bean chorizo croquette. They are unimpressed. She joins Lizzie’s farmhouse kitchen concept and Micah, who decided to go with a raw seafood theme, which apparently was no better than sushi, say the judges, and if sushi works already, why bother trying something else.
First though, they have to determine who’s going to be facing off during the next phase of restaurant wars. Not surprisingly, Kristen is among them. Sheldon rounds out the two, while Lumberjack Josh must cross his arms and kick himself (or the judges) for somehow missing the mark. Now they’ll pick the remaining team members to help them out. (But BEFORE they know who gets voted off – so that means eventually someone will be down a team member.)

top chef, season 10, seattle, micah fields, bravoIn the end Micah gets the notice to pack his knives, and since Sheldon had chosen him to be on his team, he’s down a helper.

Micah now has to face off in Last Chance kitchen to save himself!
Next week promises to be juicy!
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