Previously, on Top Chef...
29 chefs from across the country arrived in Texas...
It's Emeril. Bam!
Announcer: To compete for a coveted Top Chef coat.
Can I move while you're checking?
Pack up your knives, and you can go.
Okay, fair enough.
Announcer: After a grueling series of challenges...
- You have to go home. - Okay.
13 chefs failed to make the cut.
Welcome to the Top Chef house.
- Whoo-hoo!
But once the smoke settled, a new generation of chefs
claimed their place in the Top Chef house.
Yes!
Thank you so much.
My name's Paul.
I'm the executive chef of Uchiko restaurant
in Austin, Texas.
I couldn't feel happier. I passed the first trial.
Come get your jacket.
My name is Richie.
I am the sous chef at Moto restaurant in Chicago.
I've worked long and hard to get one of those jackets
and show what I can do.
My name is Lindsay Autry.
I'm the executive chef
of the Omphoy Ocean Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Congratulations.
Getting the coat is like 3,000 pounds
being lifted off my shoulders.
16 chefs remain,
all hoping to win...
A feature in Food & Wine magazine,
a showcase at the annual Food & Wine classic in Aspen,
$125,000, furnished by Healthy Choice,
to bring their culinary dreams to life,
and the title of Top Chef.
♪ Top Chef: Texas 9x03 ♪ Quinceanera Original Air Date on November 16, 2011
== sync by elderman ==
- You ready? - Almost.
I look at it every day.
If I can believe it, I'm gonna achieve it,
so I keep telling myself that.
I'm used to having my wife beside me
and, like, embrace the little small goals that I got.
You know, like it's her idea.
My name is Keith Rhodes.
I'm the owner and executive chef
of Catch restaurant in Wilmington, North Carolina.
When I was young, I went to prison,
but I think that cookin' saved my life.
And this year I was nominated for the James Beard award.
Just wanna compete against some other guys
who think they're the top chefs in their area too.
- Morning. - Good morning.
How are you doing?
My name is Chris Jones. I live in Chicago.
Now I'm getting to know everybody,
and where they've come from, and I'm just like, holy [bleep].
I'm going against the best of the best.
I work with Richie at Moto in Chicago,
and he's my competitor,
but we bounce things off each other all the time.
So I'm very lucky.
He's like a brother at arms with me.
Ready to see what's gonna happen.
Let's do it!
As I walk into the Top Chef kitchen,
I see these little boxes, and this huge aquarium
with snakes.
I'm beginning to get a little nervous,
because I don't like snakes.
Congratulations.
Chefs: Thank you.
The 16 of you have proven that you're worthy to compete
for the title of Top Chef.
I was the last chef to make it
into the competition.
So winning the very first quickfire
would prove to the other chefs
that I'm a fierce competitor.
Winning Top Chef requires nerves of steel.
And that's exactly what we'll be testing in this quickfire.
If you haven't guessed it,
for your first quickfire,
you'll be cooking up some rattlesnake.
Oh, boy.
I have this major fear of snakes.
Slithering, and the coiling, and eww...
I'd like you to meet your guest judge.
He's the chef and owner of La Gloria restaurant,
right here in San Antonio.
Please meet Johnny Hernandez.
Hi, chefs. Welcome to Texas.
Chefs: Hi, chef.
- Johnny Hernandez is really well-known
for cooking wild game meats.
He's an amazing chef.
Rattlesnakes are something
very traditional in Texas cuisine.
It's something that we use in our company.
We do about 700, 800 pounds annually.
It's a meat that's very delicate.
It can take spices,
but it's gonna have to have a gentle touch.
It will challenge you, so lots of luck.
Chefs, you'll have one hour to cook.
And your ingredient...
Is in the box in front of you.
Whoa.
Oh, [bleep]. This sucks.
Immunity and $5,000 are on the line,
so make it count.
When time is up, I better see
some mother[bleep] snakes on some mother[bleep] plates.
[Laughter]
Your time starts now.
- Whoo! - Whoa...
- It's not alive. - Thank God.
The snake is skinned, and it's dead.
[Bleep].
Whoo!
Right behind you.
Ugh...
Wow.
I'm kinda freaking out a little bit.
There's not a lotta meat on this [bleep].
At my restaurant, Moto, in Chicago,
I've never worked with snake before.
The first thing that goes in my mind
is I wanna break the snake down.
Oh, wow, you got nice little fillets off that guy, huh?
Yeah, you gotta cut it into sections, Richie.
Get it small so you can work with it.
That makes sense.
Me and Richie are both from Chicago.
His style is, like, fun and whimsy,
and total opposite of what I cook.
With my Italian background,
I like to keep things very simple.
It's okay to go simple.
And often that can really be the best-tasting dish.
It's gonna taste effin' delicious.
10 minutes down!
Shoulda practiced my rattlesnake skills.
I don't like snake,
I don't like the look of it, it doesn't like the look of me.
We're not friends.
[Laughs]
I'm making a rattlesnake fritter.
Yummy.
At my restaurant I cook a lotta weird stuff,
like goat liver and barracuda,
but rattlesnake is new to me,
and I'm freaking out about it.
Corner!
I had a pretty unique childhood,
growing up halfway between California and Mexico.
- Órale! - I grew up on a farm.
Slaughtering animals was real common,
so I'm not afraid of snakes.
That's why I like baking, freshman bitches.
The dish that I'm making
is influenced from southeast Asia street food,
so it's barbecued snake with an Asian slaw.
Being from Texas, my pride is on the line
with this first quickfire challenge.
16 minutes!
Oh, [bleep], there's only 16 minutes left?
Wow, that went quick.
I am a little unsure
if I cooked the rattlesnake properly.
It has a little bit of a chew,
but from a Korean background,
some things are supposed to have a chew to it.
So I go with it.
Jerk seasoning with pineapple,
roasted corn, and some other [bleep].
I want Richie to go very far in this competition.
If we go number one, number two, so be it, Jedi.
All right, dude. Good luck, buddy.
It's go time, baby.
[Laughs] [Bleep].
Needs more flavor.
Hands up, utensils down.
I don't like rattlesnake too much.
- Hi. - How are you?
Sarah, what'd you make for us?
I never worked with snake before,
so I just wanted to quickly flash-fry it
and then finish it with a little brown butter,
shallot, and caper.
- Anything else that you put on before you flash-fried it?
I did a little minced lemon zest on the rattlesnake.
- Thank you so much. - Thank you so much.
I made a rattlesnake nigiri out of it,
and I put a Thai basil jalapeno aioli with it,
so I hope you enjoy it.
Today I made rattlesnake nicoise
with olive oil pudding and some olive panko.
- Nice texture. - Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
- I did a cumin-breaded rattlesnake
with a little bit of bacon, lime,
and then just a touch of spicy barbecue sauce to finish it.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- Hi, Paul. - Hello.
What did you do?
So I went ahead and barbecued the rattlesnake,
I paired it with some peaches,
garnished it with a little bit of fried peanuts,
and some southeast Asian spices.
You got some really strong flavors coming through.
If I think snake, I think beer.
So I made a little beer-battered tempura
with the rattlesnake marinated in lime juice.
Just a little warm succotash salad,
and zucchini almond gazpacho.
- Thank you so much. - Thank you.
[Sighs]
I've got a sweet corn rattlesnake griddle cake
topped with ancho mascarpone
and a beer-battered rattlesnake crudite.
What is this dipping sauce?
Tequila poblano queso fondue.
- Do you mind if I double-dip?
Hi, Nyesha. What did you do with the snake?
I braised it, a bit of Tequila and citrus,
jalapeno couscous with rehydrated golden raisins.
- Thanks, Nyesha. - Absolutely.
I did a little bit of, like, an adobo seasoning,
grilled it, and then I made
a pasilla balsamic barbecue sauce.
- Thank you. - Thanks.
Hi, Richie. How is the snake?
It's grilled and also has jerk seasoning on it
with roasted corn, pineapple,
jalapeno in it for a little bit of spice.
- Thanks, Richie. - You're welcome.
Okay, Johnny, how do you think our chefs did
with the rattlesnake?
The goal of the challenge was to showcase rattlesnake.
Rattlesnake is a very delicate texture and flavor,
so it's difficult to balance flavor and not go overboard.
Who were your least favorites today?
Well, Paul, when you looked at the dish,
certainly saw the use of color and technique.
Played a little, maybe, to your personal style,
but I feel that the rattlesnake was totally lost in the dish.
I'd have to say Richie.
In that dish, to me, all I could taste
is really that citrus punch.
The rattlesnake was obsolete.
Okay.
- Nyesha, it was a little one-dimensional in the flavor,
but what really did it for you was the overcooked rattlesnake.
All right, now for some good news.
Beverly, I felt that the elegance of that dish
presented really nicely.
And I think you cook to your style,
and the doneness of the snake was excellent.
Dakota, your beer-battered rattlesnake
was one of our favorite.
Fried rattlesnake is certainly a good nod to Texas.
Thank you.
Sarah, I also liked your dish.
You executed and cooked the rattlesnake with perfection.
You know, the little lemon zest that you put on it
really showcased the rattlesnake.
Thank you, chef.
One of you will win $5,000
and immunity in the elimination challenge.
Johnny, please tell us the winner
of the rattlesnake quickfire.
For me, one chef really stood out.
And that chef is...
Johnny, please tell us the winner
of the rattlesnake quickfire.
To showcase rattlesnake, one chef really stood out,
and that chef is...
Dakota.
Oh! [Applause]
[Cheers]
Dakota, you win immunity
in the elimination challenge and $5,000,
furnished by Healthy Choice.
To be singled out in the first quickfire is huge.
I just want everybody to know
that maybe I'm someone you better watch out for.
Everyone, please draw knives.
- Green. - Pink.
Please gather into team pink and team green.
- Pink. - Green, green.
Green.
Tomorrow, you'll be creating
a meal for a very important event.
We'll pick a winning team and a losing team.
Someone from the losing team will be going home.
I'd like to introduce you to your client...
Blanca Flores.
Hello. Hi.
- This little girl-- I don't know who she is.
Maybe she's a Mexican rock star.
Tomorrow is Blanca's quinceanera.
Órale.
The quinceanera is a big Mexican party,
just like a sweet sixteen.
Only the women have the quinceanera.
Guys are just taught to kill a goat.
[Laughs] We don't get a party.
All my friends and family are gonna show up,
so they're really expecting it to be, like,
really big and great.
In San Antonio, you see our Mexican culture
in the way that we celebrate.
And this celebration will be something
that the family will remember forever.
The judges and over 100 guests
are expecting elegant Mexican cuisine.
And of course, no quinceanera is complete
without a fabulous cake.
Blanca, I'm gonna leave you here with the gang
so that you can tell them
exactly what your likes and dislikes are.
Your 30-minute menu plan starts now.
Everybody, let's go.
Hi. Chefs: Hi.
Congratulations.
Okay, we have many questions for you.
Does your family generally eat spicier,
a little bit more towards the mild side?
Um, mild because I can't really eat spicy food.
Not so spicy, but they like the flavor of chili, though.
Right? Yes.
- Do you guys like ceviche? - Yeah.
You like boys?
[Laughs] Yeah.
Can we talk about your cake really quick?
- Yeah. - Do you like tres leches?
- Yeah. - Is that your favorite?
Yeah.
I personally have pastry chef experience.
That's what I thought I wanted to do.
And then I quickly realized how bored I was.
But it makes you really well-rounded.
Any other animals we haven't mentioned yet that you like?
Favorito is goat.
[Bangs fist] Rock on.
[Laughs]
- Probably my best dish that I cook all-around is goat.
I was taught by my grandfather
how to slaughter and cook a goat
and do it the right way.
It's something that's really tied to my heart.
- Okay, thank you. - Thank you.
Okay, we have to really hurry with this list.
Hi, Blanca. Are you excited?
Yes. Very.
What are your favorite Mexican foods?
Cochinita pibil.
- What is it? - Cochinita pibil.
I lived in Mexico from 2004 until 2007.
I went with Michelle Bernstein
to open her first place down there.
Cochinita pibil is the first dish
that I really fell in love with.
It's pork that's roasted in banana leaves.
You have any traditional family dishes
that you really enjoy?
My grandma makes cabbage leaves,
but inside of it it has picadillo consomate.
It's a hot soup.
It's good. Okay, great.
- Really excited for you. - Thank you.
Thank you, Blanca.
Okay.
I think we should decide who's gonna do what right now,
and then you go with your ideas, make it cohesive.
Right now, we have skirt steak, right?
So you have the pork shoulder. Pork shoulder.
I think we should do enchiladas.
All we have to do is put sauce on, heat 'em in the oven.
Let's go shoppin'. Let's get this done.
Our team splits into two groups,
one going to whole foods, one going to culebra,
which is a Mexican meat market.
I'd like six jars of kimchi.
Get the brand with the Korean lady on the front.
All right, I'll see what we got.
Powdered sugar.
[Speaking Spanish]
We're all gonna have to be responsible for one thing.
We did not have a clear plan
by the time time was up in the kitchen.
How much is the shrimp there? It's 8.99 a pound here.
The cheapest is 9.99 here on shrimp,
so you probably wanna get it there.
Just make sure it's really nice.
The shrimp are gonna be cooked.
What's that?
I'm gonna get the cooked shrimp.
Whatever, get it.
- We purchase pre-cooked shrimp, given the price,
and making sure we get something
that won't be too time-consuming.
We have [bleep] bunch of shrimp.
Do you know if you have more of this in the back?
There's no rule saying I cannot follow a recipe on a box.
We'll do one layer strawberry, one layer pineapple,
one layer strawberry.
I've done a few cakes in the past,
but little, teeny cakes, not cakes for 155 people.
Okay...
I'm sorry, we need to get someone here, please.
This is very, very important.
This is the most important dish here.
I'm sorry, I know everybody here has stuff to do.
I need a butcher.
I'm sorry.
I need, um, these short ribs.
And you can just start doing it,
'cause I'm gonna need a lot.
Four minutes! Four minutes!
- They're gonna be nicely-made, like, tortillas,
but they're not gonna be homemade.
I'll tell you that right now.
Okay, hey, what kind of mushrooms?
- Five-hundo.
- Beautiful. - Thank you so much.
We're given three hours to prep today.
The kitchen just is like an explosion
of body parts and knives and pans and pots,
and people just go flying around everywhere.
Behind!
So our two hors d'oeuvres are gonna be
the shrimp cocktail and the huarache.
Keith and I are doing a pork tenderloin huarache,
then we have ceviche by Nyesha, corn with chiles by Chris,
carne asada by Ty-lor, green pozole from Whitney,
enchiladas by Keith,
the cochinita pibil pork by Sarah and myself,
and then birthday cake by Dakota.
Let's find those shrimp, and let's look at 'em,
because we might need to fry them.
Where are the shrimp?
I wanna get a really intense [Indistinct] On
to poach the shrimp.
When I open it up, I am truly shocked.
Oh, [bleep].
I see cooked, frozen shrimp.
Why did y'all buy these?
That was all Keith.
Why did he buy cooked shrimp?
Why didn't you guys stand up for the frikkin' shrimp?
- I didn't see it. - Oh, my God.
We're not gonna be able to use this.
Did y'all not go to the counter with him?
We did, but he's like, "I got it, I got it."
Ah, God.
- Who would buy pre-cooked shrimp in a cooking competition?
The point is to cook the shrimp.
Keith, why did we buy cooked shrimp?
God...
No one described what you were doing.
Are these the same? They're just loose?
All those are the same shrimp.
It's baffling to me that anyone would assume
that a pre-cooked product was acceptable.
We're not gonna do this.
We're gonna 86 the shrimp. They're terrible.
There were a few chefs around me.
As we were shopping, they didn't voice any concern at all.
I'm gonna get the cooked shrimp.
Whatever, get it.
If my decision might've been a little shaky,
someone should've said, "hey, let's go another route."
Slight sabotage.
I saw Lindsay.
She's over there talking [bleep].
My only concern is that I really
don't have a dish anymore.
Is it me against the team now?
I'm feeling alone.
You guys, where's all the baking stuff?
Heather, it's right there, yeah.
For our menu today...
Paul is doing a shrimp ceviche,
Richie is doing a pork carnitas chicharron,
Grayson is doing chicken mole,
Edward's doing a tomatillo gazpacho,
Chris Jones is doing a green Chile empanada,
Beverly's doing a short rib asada,
I'm doing a braised goat birria with cabbage,
and Heather is doing the vanilla tres leches cake.
15 minutes!
- Oh, Grayson. - Yeah?
You got a second? Tell me about that mole again.
Yeah.
I'm the resident Mexican of the bunch,
and all the other chefs are coming to me,
asking about the general flavor...
I haven't tasted it yet.
I just wanna double-check the seasonings.
And making sure it makes sense to a Mexican palette,
so I feel like even though we're all different,
it's gonna go really well.
Good stuff, right? Cool, man.
Richie! Could you grab me a scale? A baking scale?
Copy! Scale!
The monkey on my back
is making sure I finish that stinkin' cake.
If I screw up anything, I'm going home.
- [Bleep]. - Sarah...
Spin it.
All right!
Holy [bleep].
That sounds good.
We probably need the pineapple salsa.
And cut pineapple big,
where I can just put one piece on top.
If you wanna cut it big,
then we can, you know, cut it big.
Well, it's a team, so I'm trying to get feedback.
It's seeming like one person is deciding this.
Let's get some feedback on it.
That's what I'm looking for right now.
If you say, "well, man, nah, we should maybe do it this way,"
I'm not opposed to that, I'm just trying to, you know...
Absolutely.
I don't do well with a whole lotta B.S.
That's why I'm really looking forward to tomorrow,
is to wash away all of today and win this contest.
[Playing mariachi music]
Our cake is the leaning tower of tres leches.
This side, this side.
That side?
We arrive at Aldaco's restaurant.
We have 2 1/2 hours to finish everything off
for the quinceanera.
I'm gonna bang mine out first, as quick as I can,
and then I'm gonna-- - Do it, do it. Yeah.
I feel like everybody on the green team
is confident in what they're doing,
and I feel like my team is gonna win this thing.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the way you want it.
I do think some of this pork might be a little thick.
That's gonna be hard for, like, a woman.
I've got so much pork, I can slice some more thin.
Yeah, let's do thin.
There's an underlying tension
between Keith, Lindsay, and Sarah.
Okay, this is the thing. He's cut the pork really thick.
Um, so I told him to leave the rest of 'em whole.
We're gonna blast 'em, we're gonna slice and order out there.
Slice and order, I agree.
Sarah and Lindsay are basically trying
to oversee and control the entire group.
Do you have more sauce, or you feel good about that?
Hey, Chris, do you have, like, a mallet?
No. No, I don't.
I have three layers of cake.
It started leaning because it is extremely hot in the kitchen.
Toast 'em out.
I'm gonna get, um, a cutting board set up for you.
Two minutes!
I gotta grab my shaper.
Yeah, yeah, go do your thing, man.
I just wanna get this first round out.
Yeah. Absolutely, man.
It's coming down to the wire.
I see my good buddy Richie plating like a madman,
so I jump in.
I'm like, well, there's no way
these appetizers aren't gettin' done.
I swear, I [bleep] had 10 minutes left.
[Groans] God, that's heavy.
Comin' up behind.
Real delicate, and I will cry if this falls.
You're so pretty.
- Wait, wait, wa-wa-wah... - No?
I'm usin' cast iron, unless you wanna use it.
I could use that.
I have everything on green line pretty much set.
I'm ready for people to come through
and taste all of our good food.
Is there, like, Spanish for bon appetit?
Buen provecho.
Wow.
Very nice.
Well, here's to our first quinceanera.
[Glasses clink] Cheers.
Johnny, thank you for sharing it with us.
I hope it doesn't taste, like, artificial.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please help me welcome the guest of honor,
Miss Blanca Flores.
[Cheers and applause]
[Playing mariachi music]
♪ ♪
- Hi, Blanca! Happy Birthday. - Thank you.
- You look beautiful. - Thank you. You too.
- This is Tom. - Happy Birthday.
Hi. I'm Blanca.
This is Johnny. You remember him from yesterday.
And this is Hugh Acheson.
And these are your parents. Tom. How are you?
Nice meeting you.
- Jose. - Pleasure, Jose.
Blanca, what are you looking forward to the most?
The food.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
♪ ♪
This is the pink team, Blanca.
Please, please. Start us off.
Ty-lor made a fire-roasted summer fritter.
It has avocado mousse on the bottom of it.
It was good, but, like,
you couldn't really taste the avocado.
It was just there.
It's very dry.
I mean, it's a hush puppy. What do you want?
Thank you.
So this is the green team.
Richie made a pork carnita chicharron.
- [Crunches] - Sounds like it's crispy.
What I think is the chicharron could've been more crispy,
'cause with the pork in it, it made the middle of it soggy.
You're good. You're good. All: Yeah.
The chicharron?
Oh, it's autentico and delicioso.
You care for one, young lady?
Thank you.
This is Keith and Lindsay's pork tenderloin
with a pineapple salsa and a fried plantain.
Pork is really nice.
I took one bite of it,
and I dragged the whole piece of meat in my mouth.
We're still struggling with execution,
we're still struggling with the presentation.
Paul made this dish.
A little shrimp ceviche yucca chip.
I actually like Paul's dish.
I think, so far, of all the hors d'oeuvres,
I enjoyed this the most.
I think it was, um--had more flavor than everything else.
I'll take the other bowl back.
- Hola. - Felicidades.
Gracias.
- Where's the pork? - On the cart out there.
I just wasn't able to bring it out yet.
Ladies and gentleman, the buffet line is now open.
All right, guys, let's go taste the pink team's food.
Great.
This stuff looks good, Blanca. Like, I mean, for real.
I know. I wanna go have some. Go sit down.
- How are you, Nyesha? - Hello, Padma.
Let me introduce you to our judges.
Hugh Acheson. Pleasure to meet you.
Hey, good to meet you.
- Tom Colicchio. - Pleasure.
Of course you remember Johnny Hernandez.
Yes, of course.
I have prepared a ceviche,
with a bit of tomato, lime,
avocado, and some spiced popcorn for texture.
What's the dish?
It's a tilapia.
- Hi. - Look at you.
You look like a princess.
So today I've made corn with Chile picante,
and with cotija.
Thank you.
A little chicken enchilada, here.
Stuffed with spinach, mushrooms,
topped with a little salsa verde.
Did you just do this dish on your own?
This actually isn't my dish at all.
This is Chef Keith's. Okay.
Want me to do those?
Just do another batch, and put 'em in here,
and just bring 'em to me in the bag.
These are for our tacos
that we're building over here, to the left.
Did you make these tortillas?
We did not make the tortillas.
Okay.
- This is actually Ty-lor.
He made carne asada with some pinto beans.
I worked on the cochinita pibil with Sarah.
We braised pork shoulders with a lot of achiote,
some orange, but it has the pickled red onions.
And then I made a salsa negra.
- Thank you, ladies. - Thank you so much.
- [Speaking spanish] - [Spanish]
Well, let's start with Nyesha's ceviche.
- I think flavor-wise, it's good.
I find the texture a little mealy.
Yeah.
- You like it? - The ceviche's real good.
Hugh, what do you think of Keith's enchilada?
It's a flour tortilla,
which, if it's an enchilada, it should be corn.
Certainly, yeah.
I think once it absorbs that sauce, it gets doughy.
- I think flavor-wise, Keith did a nice job.
Like it or not, Keith's made a burrito.
Let's discuss Sarah and Lindsay's cochinita.
Kinda falls apart,
and I'm not sure what cut of meat they used.
I think it needs some work.
- The bigger problem I'm having with this is--
- is the tortilla. - Tortilla.
And I just think it's a real cop-out to go buy these.
They taste like they were bought.
- Tortilla. - Oh, yes.
- [Speaking spanish] - [Spanish]
- I like Ty-lor's carne asada. I think it was really yummy.
- I agree. I think Ty-lor did a nice job with this.
The beans are nicely cooked. Some good flavor.
- I'd love to give you more. - Thanks.
My favorite thing that the pink team made
was that corn salsa.
It had a lot of flavor,
I think Chris did a really nice job with the corn.
How are you? You want some corn?
Let's go try the green team's buffet.
This is good stuff.
Oh, there's the birthday girl.
Hi.
Are you enjoying yourself so far today?
Yes.
- Hi. How are you? - Hi. I'm very well.
So I wanna just start you off with something
nice and cold and refreshing.
We have a tomatillo gazpacho. Nice.
And then this is chicharron
with a little bit of dried plantains.
Great.
- Enjoy your evening. - Thanks, Edward.
I made the empanadas this afternoon.
Inside, fire-roasted poblanos, mushrooms, and Mexican cheese.
- I made goat birria, which is an ancho-stewed goat dish
that my grandfather taught me.
And Blanca mentioned also
that she loved steamed cabbage leaves,
so we did some slightly steamed napa.
I have the short rib.
I marinated in Tequila and soy,
so I did kind of a Korean-Mexican fusion.
Sounds like a food truck.
All right, what have you made for us?
So I have a pulled chicken mole
- smells good. - Holy mole.
With some pickled red onion, radish, cilantro,
lime, and a little bit of sour cream.
I'm smelling cinnamon.
These are just grilled corn tortillas.
I take it you didn't make your tortillas either.
No, we did not. Did they?
Nope.
I apologize.
Dude, you should try that. No, that thing's good.
I thought Chris did a very nice job.
Really highly seasoned,
the dough is really nice, and flaky, and light.
And then a little bit of rojo salsa to finish it off.
Edward's gazpacho's great. It's got good flavor to it.
I think the chicharron was kinda lost on me on the top.
Tom, what do you think of chuy's goat?
I'm enjoying it. I like it.
The cabbage I'm not quite sure of.
It doesn't add anything.
You know, you're not sure what to do with it.
You're not gonna eat the cabbage?
No.
I think Beverly did a great job.
The meat's very tender, there's a lot of flavor.
I like that they chose to at least
griddle the tortilla a little bit.
Just that one step, I think, changes the dish.
- And you like flour tortillas? - Yes.
I gotta say, I'm not a real fan of Grayson's dish.
I find the whole dish mushy.
It's almost too much cinnamon. That's all I get.
Mole's a very elegant sauce when it's done properly,
but it takes a skilled hand.
The chicken tasted like cinnamon.
That's the only thing I didn't like.
There you go.
And then, like, the chicharron,
like, I never expected that.
Like, it was really sweet on my tongue.
There were some hits and misses.
Um, they did a pretty nice job.
Well, let's not jump to any conclusions.
We still have cake.
Ah, cake.
All: Blanca!
[Playing mariachi music]
♪ ♪
Keep going. Can we go faster?
I really listened to what Blanca asked for.
I gave her the colors,
I gave her the strawberry and the pineapple
that she wanted.
- This is the good side. - Okay.
So you can screw this side up, so carry this side toward you.
Excuse us. Pardon us, pardon us.
So, this is the front.
Can you help me?
Careful, careful, careful. You're good.
Heather's cake looks like a frikkin'
Easter basket gone bad.
I would even have it a little this way,
so it leans back.
Our cake is the leaning tower of tres leches cake.
♪ ♪
[Cheers and applause]
Whoo!
Yay!
Do you like the pink team's cake?
I like the pineapple filling and stuff.
I think it has too much frosting.
- A lot of frosting on there. - Yes, there was.
- There you go. - Thank you.
You're welcome.
- So it's vanilla tres leches. - Thank you.
What do you think of the green team's cake, Blanca?
I actually think it's better than the pink team's.
'Cause it's not as sweet,
but yet they still threw in fruit.
- The cake-- it was pretty sloppy.
[Laughs]
[Speaking Spanish]
Blanca, I know you have a dance to get ready for,
so Happy Birthday. Thank you.
- Bye. - Buh-bye.
♪ ♪
[Cheers and applause]
Watching Blanca dancing with her father,
I was just thinking how special that relationship is
between a father and daughter.
I always think about how I still want to make my dad proud,
and show him that, like,
even though I'm a daughter, hey, you know,
I can just do as much as a son would do.
[Cheers and applause]
What a great quinceanera. I had a great time.
Blanca was awesome.
I have to say, I think that one team did stand out.
I agree.
Let's go deliver the news.
Teams, we thought that you really came together,
put together a great display of Mexican food.
Blanca really enjoyed her party.
But we felt that there was one team
that just pushed a little further,
was a little more authentic,
and a little truer to what we were looking for.
And that team...
Was the green team.
[Cheers, clapping]
It's a group thing. No, dude.
I feel so good to be on the winning side.
Especially in the first challenge.
I feel like I stood out as a person
that was leading the whole thing,
so I feel relieved that I'm not going home,
that I'm staying another night in that beautiful house.
Pink team, that means
we'll need to see you at judges' table.
People loved our food.
The judges matter, but I felt good about that.
I'm feeling a little anxious
about going in front of the judges.
I'm foreseeing the throwing under the bus,
especially about the shrimp.
Were you shopping by yourself?
No, sir, I had a team with me.
I am not here to boss everyone around.
You love drivin' the bus. Hittin' people.
A lot of different variables came up, and we still produced.
Food was on time.
Except the shrimp cocktail.
And I did what I did to try to really help us get going.
Right.
Do you think some people worked harder than others?
No, not necessarily.
I see what you're thinking about,
but we were all in agreement on what everybody was gonna do.
And everybody fulfilled that.
This is my first judges' table.
I don't know what to expect.
I'm worried because whenever you take a leadership role,
you have to be able to sink with the ship.
I don't know how you guys came back with frozen shrimp.
Like, I don't know how that happened.
You have to be careful making excuses.
Yeah, but someone's going home,
not just necessarily for what they did.
Hello. Chefs: Hello.
We'd like to see Ty, Sarah, Lindsay, and Keith. Thank you.
See y'all later.
Oh...
[Suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
You four had our least favorite dishes
on the pink team today.
Unfortunately, one of you will be going home.
All in all, you guys did a good job.
The other team did a better job.
The birthday cake
on the other side was also better.
Now, I know Dakota has immunity,
and that's why she's not standing here with you.
Sarah, let's start with you.
We really did not utilize
our 30-minute menu planning wisely.
It really set us back.
None of us really spoke up,
and we shoulda picked a group leader at that point.
You guys are eight chefs.
You can't figure out how to lead a bunch?
You do this every day.
There really wasn't a menu,
Ty-lor was gonna do carne asada,
Lindsay was gonna make the shrimp cocktail...
Shrimp cocktail?
I don't remember seeing that.
The shrimp for the shrimp cocktail
were pre-cooked.
- Who bought pre-cooked shrimp?
I bought the shrimp.
I looked at price, I figured about labor...
I was just thinking about a lot under pressure.
Were you shopping by yourself?
No, sir, I had a team with me.
I feel for you,
but if you had brought back pre-cooked shrimp to me,
and I was in their position,
I'd be yellin' at ya too.
Sorry.
Lindsay, what did you ultimately do
in place of the shrimp?
Ty picked up and made a fritter.
Just the term "fritter,"
from the beginning, didn't set right.
It certainly did lack flavor,
and I think that was the problem.
The corn fritter was sort of
a "your first appetizer didn't work out,
"you need to come up with something immediately,
you have 30 minutes or less to prepare it."
Certainly that's not the reason it was dry.
No, sir, that's a cooking failure.
Yeah.
Let's talk about the cochinita.
Lindsay and I got achiote, the garlic.
We couldn't find sour oranges so we brought clementines.
I made the salsa negra. I made the chipotle cream.
Wanna know my big mistake that you made with that?
Is the tortilla. They were crappy.
Let's talk about the enchilada.
When I was shoppin' for it,
I just thought about an enchilada.
I never had a corn tortilla enchilada.
In my region, we get flour.
- From the get-go, a flour tortilla--
technically, that was the problem with that dish.
If you were with the corn,
you could appreciate the spinach,
you could appreciate the sauce.
I grew up here in Texas,
I've eaten enchiladas my whole life.
I never do enchiladas with a flour tortilla.
Sarah, it is a team challenge.
Did you say to Keith,
"we usually do enchiladas here in Texas with corn?"
I did not.
I am not here to boss everyone around
and tell them, "your dish sucks, your dish is great."
I don't wanna be that person.
If she had an opinion about something, then say that.
- This is--
- you love drivin' the bus. Hittin' people.
We had an army of corn tortillas.
So no one ever suggested to you to use corn tortillas.
- Not at all. - Okay.
Even though this is an individual competition,
we were working as a team.
Keith, during the prep, you weren't talking to anybody.
If I could go back, I would change it,
because this is the last place I wanted to be right now.
If Sarah or Lindsay said to you,
"I think you're makin' a mistake by using a flour tortilla,"
you woulda listened to them and used the corn?
Sure.
Chefs, we have a big decision to make.
We'll call you back. Thank you.
What was it?
Nothing was great, and a lotta things sucked.
They say anything about the cake?
Yeah, they said she would have been there
if she didn't have immunity.
Oh, my God.
Defining point about the flour tortilla was huge in there.
No one stepped up and said,
"hey, this is how it should be done."
I made what I thought, and what else could I do?
What a mess this is.
All of them deserve to go home for one reason or another.
This is tough, because these are all really talented chefs.
Sarah works at spiaggia, it's a Michelin-starred restaurant,
she's the executive chef there.
Keith has been on the short list for a beard award.
Lindsay's the executive chef
of one of Michelle Bernstein's restaurants.
Listening to them, they were lucky they got food out at all.
You see where the miscommunication started.
From the very beginning, it was just a house of cards.
What I wanted in this challenge
is for somebody to step up in front,
be the person who's going, "this is the menu."
All that time that they spent messing around,
they coulda made everything better.
Well, there's certainly enough blame to go around.
Let's talk about Keith's enchilada dish.
For an elegant, refined request
that we asked them from the beginning,
maybe they should have trimmed 'em,
they shoulda put something over the top
other than just melted cheese.
I mean, there's so much that they could've done.
Even Blanca thought that the enchiladas
shouldn't have been with flour tortillas.
He needs advisement
on not to buy frozen, pre-cooked shrimp
and what an enchilada is?
I have some worries about why he's standing up there.
Sarah cooked
the cochinita pibil with Lindsay.
The aromatics that were missing
were the clove, the oregano, the pepper.
None of that came through in Sarah and Lindsay's dish.
They attempted something that needed a lot more time,
and a lot more flavor going on.
Lindsay didn't do a great job.
For her to live in Mexico,
that's a very traditional dish,
I mean, that she should nail.
That was one of my least favorite dishes.
The other one was the fritter.
- Ty-lor kept saying,
"I decided to do that with 30 minutes to go."
If this is the best thing
that he could pull out of his pocket for that,
there's some issues.
Ty's fritter was also too large, it was dry.
I couldn't even discern what kind of fritter
it was supposed to be.
I think we know who's going home.
- Yeah. - Sure.
Let's get them out here.
Chefs, you four had our least favorite dishes
on the pink team today.
Unfortunately, one of you will be going home.
Chefs...
Today you were asked to prepare a meal for Blanca's quinceanera.
And I think one of the biggest problems
was just a lack of leadership.
You guys seemed scattered,
and just sort of not all on the same page.
Sarah, I think you probably should have
suggested to Keith that he was using flour tortilla,
and the corn tortilla was the proper one
for the enchilada.
Okay.
You also had a hand in the cochinita,
and, you know, it just wasn't that great.
Lindsay, you had the most experience
working with Mexican food and spent time in Mexico,
and your cochinita just didn't have
that authentic flavor that we were looking for.
Ty, that fritter was dry because of that preparation.
Keith, it was your enchilada.
Even if someone knew better and didn't point it out,
we still had a pretty soggy enchilada
that didn't have just a ton of authentic flavor.
It's very difficult being the first one to go,
but we have a decision to make.
Padma?
[Suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Keith, please pack your knives and go.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you.
I've had some tough times in my past
that have caused me to really dig deep,
and just know that there is light at the end of that tunnel.
I've been through that tunnel a few times,
so good things happen to good people.
It's been real, guys.
All: Oh... It's all good.
Seriously?
Yeah. It's my pleasure. It was nice to meet you, dude.
It was good to meet you too.
I didn't know what to think of Keith,
and as I got to know him, he's kind of like
a gigantic Teddy bear.
And it's sad to see new friends go
before you really have a chance to get to know them.
Thanks, y'all. Come on. Right here, one time.
All right, good luck, everybody.
- Bye. - Keith made poor decisions.
But he's a very genuine man,
and it's heartbreaking to see that it is Keith
that has to go home.
- All right, love you guys. - Bye, Keith. Love you too. Bye.
God, that was awful.
Bein' on Top Chef is definitely
one of the highlights of my career.
I just wanna say, dream big, dream hard,
because dreams come true.
I'm a testimony to that.
Peace.
Next, on Top Chef...
- We're havin' a chili cook-off for 200 rodeo goers.
Oh!
- Seeing Padma on a horse-- it's just pure beauty.
Am I sweating again?
There is no clock.
I'm a little really [bleep] pissed off.
There's no sleep till the rodeo.
Chili's an all-nighter.
I am so [bleep]ing tired.
It's just weird. There's no crying in cooking.
And, for the first time ever...
Eliminated chefs will have a chance
to get back into the Top Chef competition.
- Two minutes. - The winning chef is...
To find out, go to bravotv.com now.
== sync by elderman ==