- Previously on Top Chef... - Argh!
- This is a double elimination.
We all have to judge
the three dishes that are gonna be in the bottom.
- This is not like cooking normally.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done.
- That is raw as the day it was born.
- All Dakota had to do was cook the venison properly.
- Ed, Ty, congratulations.
- We gotta make a decision.
- Okay. - You guys...
- No, no. No, stop, stop.
- ...don't speak up. No, you stop.
You're not my sous chef.
I don't need you to come to me and ask me a thousand questions.
- That just really hits me,
because I have a really strong work ethic.
- Dakota, Nyesha...
- She should not be going home...
- No. - ...That's all I gotta say.
Ten 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.
[Theme music playing]
♪ Top Chef: Texas 9x08 ♪ Tribute Dinner Original Air Date on December 21, 2011
== sync by elderman ==
- Holy crap.
That's an emotional roller coaster.
- I'm gonna be alone in my room over there now.
I definitely think Heather
crossed the line at the judges' table.
Some people misinterpret my humbleness as being weakness.
The universe is full of karma, and it's very powerful.
It always comes back to you.
- Good evening, chefs.
- Hi. - Hi.
- We have some more business to take care of.
- Please God, don't let us cook any more tonight,
We're going to Austin.
- Yay!
- Yes! Finally!
- I love Austin.
There's a lot of music, there's a lot of food.
It's just a really fun city.
- We're going to stay at Paul's house.
Oh, pressure.
- I feel more pressure now.
I have to represent my city well.
So, I'm like sweating balls at this point.
Bring it on home to Austin.
- Hometown, Paul. You made it.
- Yes!
- Here we go. Lock it up, load 'em out.
- Get that bitch in the car.
- Back seat again.
- We load everything into our Toyota Siennas,
and we're ready to hit the road.
So, bring on Austin.
- Ready. - Ready.
- Yeah. - Wooh!
Pictures up, rolling.
- We've had a lot of handsome judges, I thought.
- Oh, indeed.
- What kind of guy are you looking for, Heather?
- Funny.
I like tall, dark hair, usually.
It's difficult to have a long relationship
because I've been so career focused.
I'm 40.
And where would I be if I had started a family 10 years ago?
I think about it a lot.
- All right.
You have one night with John Besh.
- Or you win $5,000 and immunity in the next round.
- I'm gonna take John Besh.
- So Paul, if you are on match.com...
- Oh...
- Do you think we'd be compatible?
- If, like, Malibu was a girl, and you were the boys.
- Why do I have to be the girl?
- Well, you're prettier.
- Chris Crary got the nickname Malibu because he's beautiful.
He's very concerned about his hair.
And Malibu just suits him.
- I'm a little exposed here.
- When's the last time you had gym time?
- Oh, it's been a while.
- Wow! - Wow!
- This is like the governor's mansion.
- The Driskill Hotel is pretty insane.
These rooms are crazy.
Everything is covered in a very Texasy motif.
- Do you like the fur?
- Ooh, that's nice.
- Ooh, is that fake or is it real?
- Me as a guest judge.
I moved to Austin to change my lifestyle.
Between the ages of 15 and 22,
I'd sell weed for my friends so I could have extra money.
And I just woke up one morning, my apartment is trashed.
I had dogs, and they've everywhere.
And I decided that I needed to do something with my life.
That's when I started to pursue my culinary career.
And it helped shaped me into a stronger person.
- Let's go cook.
- Here we go.
- Oh, man.
Tom doesn't usually grace us with his presence at quickfires.
I have a feeling that this one is going to be crazy.
- Welcome to Austin, chefs.
- Thank you.
- Austin, Texas is a hot spot in the world of technology.
And technology is gonna play a big role in this next quickfire.
The social network, Twitter, gained popularity here in Austin
at the South by Southwest Festival in 2007.
Now, it's part of everyday life, and it's a worldwide phenomenon.
- The two of us get challenge ideas and suggestions
all the time from our Twitter fans.
And now we're gonna let them get in on the fun.
- At Moto, during service,
we actually Twitter back and forth with the guests.
We have real-time photos going up
of the food that we're serving,
and that gets people interested.
- For the first time ever, the fans will be deciding
what you chefs will be doing,
and it's all live as the quickfire is taking place.
Wow.
- As our Tweets roll in, we'll call the ones out that we like
while you're cooking, and the execution is up to you.
- My God.
This is pretty freaking cool.
I'm just crossing my fingers
that a Tweet doesn't come through
that says, "Make your dish into baby food."
- The chef who wins will take home $10,000,
but not immunity.
Tom, let's see what our fans want.
- Denton Diddy. He says,
"Everything is better with bacon."
Well, let's see if that's true.
- All right, chefs. You have 45 minutes
to cook a dish with bacon in it.
Your time starts now. Good luck.
- Whoo, sorry.
Anybody seen miso?
That's actually a softball that they're throwing us,
because bacon is just every chef's guilty pleasure.
It's so salty, and sweet, and delicious.
- You all ready to cook bacon?
- We're gonna ask for some twists now.
So got some great ideas, so, uh...
- I love bacon.
I get a pressure cooker on, and I start braising pork belly.
I don't have any experience with pressure cookers,
but I'm gonna have to make this work.
- Hot pan.
Bacon should be its own food group
because it's damn delicious.
I'm making a very simple corn puree scallop bacon.
So I can give myself a little leeway,
because I think there's gonna be some changes.
- That's a good one. - Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- All right, listen up.
- Oh, no.
- Habitat 67.
Do a hash-- for a hashtag challenge.
So you guys have to make a hash
as one component of your bacon dish.
- Oh, no. - Oh, Jesus.
- The dish I'm making is bacon pate
and pairing it with soft shell crabs.
The dish was gonna be just a quick explosion of flavor,
but now I've got to stop, and I got to do this hash
without muting the other flavors.
- Right behind--hot, hot.
- 28 minutes.
- Can I use some of this oil?
- You can do whatever you want.
- I'm very German, and one thing that is always in our house
is potato pancakes.
It actually complements my dish even more.
As long as I don't have to incorporate a cupcake, I'm okay.
- We have 15 minutes left,
and that's when I decide to open up the pressure cooker.
Hopefully the bacon is braised enough.
So I open it, and it is tender.
So I'm like, yes.
- All right, guys. Here's another twist.
- Awesome. - Oh,.
- Pretty in blue says,
"Every chef needs to pick an ingredient
and hand it off to somebody else to use in their dish."
- Here, tomatillo. - Heather.
- Ah,.
- Here you go.
- Here. - Thanks. Maple syrup.
- Malibu Chris gives me a bottle of sriracha.
Why did you do that to me?
- Sorry. It was right there.
- Which kind of throws me off, because that's definitely not
anywhere near the direction that I'm going.
- Someone give me something.
- Hey, I'll give you a lemon for butter.
- I don't think it works like that.
- Lemon. - I took your oil.
That was simple.
- The least you could've done was open this for me.
- That's what southern gentleman do?
- That's just what men in general do.
- Oh. - Oh.
- There you go.
- All right. Limes, done.
- Hi, Ed.
I pick a sriracha.
It's spicy, it would kind of go with anything.
- Take scallion.
There's nothing in my dish
were sriracha is gonna do any justice.
- I love Ty-lor, he's a great guy.
But, man, you suck.
- I still have to get the tomatillo on the plate,
so I puree it...
And use it kind of like a sauce.
- Hands up. Utensils down.
It's killing me, it's so stressful.
Whatever.
My plate is kind of a jumbled up mess.
- So, do you come here often?
- Ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome...
Oh my God.
- This is really happening.
- Hello, chef.
- Hey, Beverly. How's it going?
- I really wanted to highlight the bacon itself,
so I did a crispy pork belly with corn,
bell pepper, habanero, and potato hash.
- Thank you.
- We have a corn puree with bacon
and butter poached potato hash, seared scallop,
with a little bit of cayenne to bring out some spice.
- There's something salty.
Do you have--sort of salt...
- No, sir.
The dish probably could have won
if I wouldn't have over-salted those damn potatoes.
- When you said bacon,
I immediately thought about making bacon jam.
I did a smoked paprika quail.
I poached some of the potatoes in the bacon jam itself,
and there's a leek hash underneath.
- There's a potato and coco nip hash on the bottom.
A braised bacon and mustard spread.
Over that, soft shell crabs,
which has been deglazed in sriracha,
which was the ingredient that I was given.
- Who gave you the sriracha?
- Uh, Ty-lor did.
I think he thought I was doing Asian foods,
so he gave me sriracha.
- I did a burrata stuffed squash blossom
with a bacon and zucchini hash.
- It's crispy. - Thank you.
- So I did a bacon wrapped monkfish over a potato leek,
and bacon hash with some clams,
and then passion fruit braised bok choy
and some maple syrup that Lindsay gave to me.
- I think it works really well. Surprisingly well, yeah.
It's interesting.
- I made a shrimp puff, I put a little fig in there,
then I did a bacon hash cake.
- Why are you calling it a puff? - Yeah.
- I wanted it to get in your mind
that it was light and fluffy.
But I don't know.
- I made a maple glazed bacon with a bacon and kale hash.
I wanted you to have a little bit of the bacon
with also the hash, the same time.
- Paul.
- So, I did bacon several different ways.
There's just bacon fat on the plate,
there's crispy bacon,
there's also a chorizo and mushroom hash.
- Very interesting.
- I feel like maybe they don't like or get
what I tried to put on the plate.
- Tom, how did our chefs do today?
- All in all, I thought the food was,
for the most part, pretty exciting.
- Who were the least favorites?
- Grayson, that shrimp puff thing
was really just like a wet mousse.
And I know you worked some bacon into the puff,
but then you just had one little strip of bacon
over the top of it.
So that dish wasn't really that successful to me.
- Chris J., the scallop was well-cooked.
You incorporated bacon rea,
but really, really salty.
- Ed, you burnt your hash. It was really bitter.
That really threw the whole dish off.
- I have not been on the bottom of a quickfire.
It's not a good way to start a trip to Austin.
- And who were the standouts?
- Beverly, nice job. It was subtle.
It had just one piece of pork belly.
It had a lot of flavor. Nice work there.
I liked Sarah's dish a lot.
Really subtle, not a ton of over-the-top bacon,
but just enough to give it some smokiness.
The fritter was nicely fried.
- I really want to win the 10,000.
I haven't won any money yet,
and I'm worried that I'm gonna go home empty-handed.
- Another favorite was Paul's. Really unusual dish.
And when you look at it, blackberries and asparagus
and clams and bacon...
And it shouldn't work, and it does.
- Tom, please announce the winner.
- One dish really stood out, and that would be...
That'd be Paul's.
- Thank you. Thank you so much.
Winning this challenge is very exciting.
I pull a lot of energy and strength
from knowing that I'm from here,
and I need to make sure that I show well.
I just wanted to win in Austin.
Just one challenge in Austin.
- Congratulations, Paul.
You win $10,000 furnished by Healthy Choice.
- Paul, you're up to $30,000,
I think you need to take these guys out
for a drink pretty soon.
All kidding aside, chefs,
the drinks are on us at the hotel bar.
Don't go too crazy, but have a good time.
- We'll see you later. - See you later.
- Hey, guys. Welcome to Austin.
- Cheers! - Cheers, guys.
- Top 10 top chefs in Austin.
- Yeah.
- Thank you, Tom. - Thanks, Tom.
- Why are the girls and guys all separated?
I mean, come on.
- Let's mix it up.
- Come sit between us. - There you go.
- So, do you come here often?
- Oh, here it goes.
- Oh.
- Oh, setting the mood. Hey, ladies.
- It's making me sweat.
- Ladies and gentlemen, could you please help me welcome
legendary music icon, Ms. Patti LaBelle.
- Oh, my God.
- Wow. - Wow.
- Hi, everybody.
- Oh, my God. This is really happening.
It is really freaking cool that Patti LaBelle was here.
I mean, she's an icon.
- Ah.
♪ He met marmalade
♪ down in old New Orleans
♪ strutting her stuff on the street ♪
♪ she said, "hello, hey Joe, you wanna give it a go?" ♪
♪ hey hey gitchi gitchi yaya dada ♪
♪ gitchi gitchi yaya here ♪
- Awesome.
- ♪ Mocha chocolata yaya ♪
♪ creole lady marmalade
♪
- Whoo!
♪ Ah ah ah ooh
Thank you. Thank you.
- Hi, guys. - Hi.
- Hello. - Hey, girl.
- Oh, crap. Here comes the challenge.
- Chefs, please meet legendary singer, cookbook author,
and our guest judge for this challenge,
the amazing Patti LaBelle.
- Thank you.
- Patti and a few of her friends
are joining us for dinner tomorrow night.
Patti, who taught you how to cook?
- I learned to cook by watching my mother, my father,
my aunts as a very young girl.
They cooked from feeling.
And I think all cooks have soul.
I don't care if you're black, white,
pink, or green, or whoever.
- Now we want to know who first taught you how to cook.
Who started you on your culinary journey?
- My grandmother was such an influence in my life.
I love to sit and talk with her
when she was getting dinner ready.
So, I always look back to that and say maybe without her,
I wouldn't have such a love for being in the kitchen.
- Tell us your story tomorrow night
by serving a great tribute dinner.
- When you're learning how to cook from somebody,
there's a connection.
When I would go to my grandparents' house
as a little girl,
I saw that they made everything from scratch.
It makes me emotional talking about it
because now my grandparents are getting older,
and I know that they're not gonna be here forever.
The best way to show where you come from
and who you are is in the food.
And that's why being a chef is so important to me.
- You have two hours to cook tomorrow night
before serving the judges, Patti and her friends,
here at the Driskill.
Good luck. We'll see you tomorrow night.
- Thank you.
- Good luck, good luck, good luck.
- Can I get some rib eye?
I learned how to cook from my mom.
There's five kids in my family, so, you know,
my mom made a lot of one pot meals,
and beef stroganoff was one of the things
that I loved the most.
Two rib eyes, the big ones in the front.
- Got you.
- 20 minutes.
- I'm cooking for my grandmother today.
Probably the number one person in my life
that had to do with food,
and she always used to cook steak dinners.
- 3 1/2 pounds. - Okay.
- Can you just point me to a cheap bottle of Cab Sav?
Growing up in a household that always cooked
definitely made me more excited about cooking.
About how much is one?
- Almost a pound.
- I use to stand next to my dad when he was grilling.
I loved it.
I was a total daddy's girl, so I know I wanna grill rib eye.
That's good, what you got.
The only thing is everything is very lean.
- Five minutes.
- You really want a lot of marbling.
So, I'm getting a little nervous at this point.
- No hands.
- The cut of meat, I don't even know what it is.
- It's bigfoot.
"It's bigfoot"
- Is this your pictures, Beverly?
- Oh, yeah. That's my family.
My son was only like four months old.
This competition is
one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
This has been the longest time I've been away
from my husband and my son.
And on top of that, there's definitely
a lot of bullying going around.
But I have to keep it in perspective.
This is for my family, and they keep me motivated.
- So Patti LaBelle is going to be our guest judge tonight?
- Isn't that sweet? - That's crazy.
- She was awesome.
- Who's your inspiration?
- I had a Japanese housekeeper when I was...
- You really?
- Yeah, I did when I was a kid.
And was my favorite thing.
What about you, what's your dish?
- My grandma was actually, you know,
we were kind of poor growing up,
so we actually didn't buy a lot of meat.
So she'd make all these like vegetarian soups.
When I was a kid I spent so much time with my grandmother,
she kept me from being too much of a delinquent.
She was the one that was like,
"Keep your hair clean," or, "Shave your stupid beard."
So I'll make something vegetarian
even though I don't cook a lot of vegetarian stuff.
- That's pretty cool. - Yeah, you know.
- That'll take some balls. - You know, I got balls.
- Yeah.
- And I'm gonna show them. - Okay.
- All right, everybody. Let's go cook.
- I got my banana! I'm good to go.
- Hey, Bev. - Yes?
- I see two coolers over here with your name on it.
- Today, we're cooking at the Driskill Grill.
Two hours to prep and cook seems like a long time,
but it goes by very quickly.
- So it would be the smallest steak dinner ever seen.
- I get a lot of inspiration from my grandmother.
I always had very warm memories of her cooking for me.
So, I'm making a version of adobo.
Adobo is a Filipino dish.
We'd probably eat adobo once or twice every week,
and it's the first thing
that she ever taught me how to cook.
So I'm doing a little play off of that.
I'm gonna give it some hill country Texas flavor
and do it with quail.
I just remember her food was delicious.
- An hour! - One hour.
- Hot behind, guys.
- Chris, what are you making?
- I'm doing a little homage to...
- Did you say you're Amish? - Homage.
Yeah, I'm Amish.
I am from Ohio.
My uncle is the one who inspired me to cook.
When we would go fishing together,
he'd show me how to cook the fish.
Wow, it almost looks fake, doesn't it?
He would do all these techniques and things I'd never seen before
because my mother was not a very good cook herself.
- Oh, my gosh, it's really red.
- Fire in the hole.
- My mom is the reason why I love cooking.
I don't think I would be a chef now,
had it not been for my mother.
Seeing her in the kitchen inspired me.
I wanted to be like her.
I wanted to be a housewife.
Hot pan coming through.
I'm making braised short ribs, "kalbi Jim,"
and we only have two hours.
So, I'm actually gonna pressure cook my short ribs
because it worked really well in the quickfire.
- Like that? - Yup.
- I gotta squeeze through real fast.
Thank you.
- My grandmother always makes stuffed cabbage,
and my grandfather makes homemade sausage,
so I'm filling it with some sausage.
- It's gonna go down to the wire today.
- Is that beef stroganoff?
- Yeah, making it with rib eye, though.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
While I'm cooking the beef, I realized it's kind of spongy.
I'm hesitant to use the pressure cooker
because the previous challenge, the judges dinged me
for cooking duck legs in the pressure cooker,
which they thought were stringy.
- 15 minutes.
- So I try and braise it to try and caramelize it.
Rescue, rescue, rescue.
That's what I'm trying to do right now,
because I know my beef is not good.
- Ooh.
- 2:43, Chris.
- This is a real tribute dinner
to all the influences that each of these chefs had.
- For me, it would definitely be my mom.
I would make Portuguese kale soup with chorizo.
- Oh.
- Real simple, deep flavors, and say, "Here's for you mom."
- Ready? - I am ready.
- Chefs, I'd like to introduce you to your judges.
Of course, you remember the amazing Patti LaBelle.
Head judge Tom Coliccho.
And judge Emeril Lagasse,
host of Hallmark Channel's Emeril's Table.
And I'd also like to introduce to you to Patti's friends
Nadine and John.
Please tell us what you've made.
- So my inspiration is my grandmother,
who I call mommy two. I mean, she's my mom too.
And every Friday night, had steak and potatoes,
so I really wanted to do something
to play along with that, but I made it miniature.
I thought that would be really neat.
Fingerling potato with sour cream, chive and bacon,
asparagus and carrots, New York strip,
an A1 demi-glace, and hon shimeji mushrooms.
- I was inspired by my mom, who's an amazing cook.
My mom was the queen of one pot meals.
So I did a take on her beef stroganoff.
I made an herbed spaetzle,
roasted wild mushrooms, and a citrus crema.
- Thank you very much. - Enjoy.
- Thanks.
- I like Chris's idea here.
Meat and potato, and like I get it.
But I don't know if I would have used
the A1 and the demi-glace, but, you know, that's just me.
- The vegetables are excellent, and it was quite tender.
- I love the presentation. It was very petite and pretty.
- Mommy two, that was for you.
- Heather's dish, the cut of meat--
I don't even know what it is.
- It's bigfoot.
"It's bigfoot."
- I feel like I'm at a banquet in one of those hotels
that you would drag me to. - Me?
- I don't even wanna know the rest of that story.
- I do.
- Right behind you, Paul.
- As I'm plating,
I'm thinking it's not the most beautiful plate
because of the colors.
It's a little on the darker green side.
Meanwhile, Paul's dish is gorgeous and vibrant,
so I feel really worried.
- Okay.
- Mm, smells good.
- The person who taught me how to cook was my grandmother.
She used to make chicken and pork adobo,
so I decided to do it with a quail.
I stuffed it with ginger rice.
I put a little bit of coconut vinegar and then tomatoes,
and I'm serving that with green mango salsa.
- My grandmother makes stuffed cabbage every year.
My grandfather, 84, he still makes sausage to this day.
So, I made a quick pork sausage and filled the stuffed cabbage.
Spinach with brown butter,
and a little bit of a cheto balsamico.
- Thank you. - Thank you so much.
- Well, Sarah did a great job with this.
Really clean flavors.
You know, you think of stuffed cabbage as being heavy,
and this is really light and nice.
- And the way she did it with the brown butter
is a little sweet, but I like this cabbage.
- Whoever taught her how to do this ought to get a nice--
a nice big hug and kiss, because it's great cooking.
- To 375-ish? - Yeah.
- I really enjoy what Paul did here.
I like that he used the mango.
I like the use of herbs in the dish.
- I am not a quail girl.
I didn't get to the rice because the quail knocked me out.
- Patti, Tom and I are coming to your house for dinner.
What are you making us?
- Fried chicken cabbage,
and macaroni with eight cheeses with lobster and shrimp.
- Sounds good. I'm coming.
- Oh, you better be.
- Are you kidding me? With bells on.
- Yes, LaBelles on. Hey.
- Do you know how much time is left?
- Four minutes.
- As I finished cooking,
I see a little of the albumin coming out in the salmon,
which is white, fatty stuff that comes out of the fish
when it is cooked at a high heat.
Behind corner, hot.
So I just try to scrape it off.
Hopefully the judges aren't gonna notice.
- Switch.
Oh, my, gosh, the ribs are delicious.
It has that Korean taste to it, but it's not straight up Korean.
I think my mom would be proud.
So my inspiration is my mother,
and one of the favorite things I grew up with
was kalbi Jim, steamed and braised short ribs.
So I braised that and pressure cooked it.
The puree is a edamame horseradish scallion
with hon shimeji mushrooms.
- My inspiration was my Uncle.
You know, he really inspired me to use fresh fish.
He had this amazing brown sugar glazed carrot,
which I kinda changed into a puree with a little curry.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- Chris' dish--I love the carrot puree, but the fish was fish.
- I don't like the carrot puree
because it doesn't taste like carrot.
It tastes like a bunch of other things.
I'm not a fan of the dish.
There's too much going on. The herbs are way too big.
The salmon was cooked too quickly,
that's why all the white albumins were coming out.
- That was a little unappetizing.
- Job well done, Beverly.
The meat was tender.
- It's so good.
- She used the pressure cooker.
- I'm sure Beverly's mother did not
present her short rib like this,
but yet the essence of the dish is there.
And there's texture, there's color.
What else can you ask for in a dish?
- I think my dish may be a little bit too simple.
Its rice, egg and veggies,
there's nothing else on the plate.
You know, I'm the only one that's doing a vegetarian plate,
so it's a little scary.
The last two.
- My inspiration today were both of my grandmothers.
One of my grandmothers is Greek,
and the other one is very southern.
So this is a trout spanakopita.
And it has a za'atar beurre blanc,
crispy leeks, and rainbow trout roe.
- So my inspiration was also my grandmother.
This dish is called bibimbap, basically, a humble Korean dish.
So, you have on your plate
some pickled carrots, pickled cucumbers.
You have some sautéed zucchini, a fried egg,
a rice Patty on the bottom, some Korean chili sauce,
and some nori on top.
So, please enjoy.
- In Lindsay's dish, the roe is very much like caviar.
The first time I ate caviar was with Emeril.
- It was either caviar or chips, right?
- It was chips and caviar.
I said, "I don't like it, but I'm starving."
I ate that caviar, and I love it.
It was beautiful.
This reminds me of it, Emeril.
- I love the crispiness of the trout.
I love the roe, but there's too much butter,
and so it shut down the dish.
- I'm allergic to egg, but I... - Oh, okay.
- ...absolutely loved Ed's dish.
The flavors were so authentic.
- This played right into the story of his grandmother.
I loved it.
- Ty, has like all his little stuff and it looks awesome,
and I have like a 12-ounce steak,
so I'm a little bit worried my portion size was too big.
- Wow.
- My, my, my.
- My inspiration, and who taught me how to cook, were my parents.
What we eat in Wisconsin is meat and potatoes.
Yes, I realize this is a gigantic cut of meat...
- Girl, yeah.
- ...but this is how I learned how to do it,
so that's what I did.
It's a rib eye, and then I grilled some vegetables.
I made a German potato salad.
Enjoy.
- My inspiration to cook was a woman named Machiko
that was my Japanese nanny.
One of my favorite things that she used to make
were panko crusted chicken tenders.
I prepared for you a buttermilk battered chicken tender
that's been fried in duck fats
that's sitting on a nest of pickled peaches.
Thank you very much.
- What did you think of Ty-lor's chicken tender?
- It's beautiful. - It is.
- Beautiful food.
- You can tell that this dish means a lot to Ty.
I mean, the story that he told of his nanny cooking for him
was really sweet, and I think she would be
really be proud of him tonight.
Where did you get your musical start, was it in church?
- Mm-hmm, when I was a shy 15-year-old.
My choir director put me out there,
and I got a standing ovation, and it was on after that.
- You know, Grayson just made the dish that she probably had
every, you know, Saturday night at home.
- And this thing was like she was cooking for a family of 20.
- I think it's an appetizer in Wisconsin.
- Right?
- My cut of meat was very stringy.
- It was gristly.
- Mine was like this much on a plate.
- Huge. - So, I did Wisconsin style.
I really feel like every component that I put on my plate
was delicious in its on way, and the flavors were on,
and I'll fight for that.
- Nice job.
- You know, I loved hearing
all the different personal stories from our chefs.
- Their hearts were on those plates.
- There were some chefs that just got
kinda stuck in their grandmother's kitchen.
- And the ones that stood out really just sort of
modernized it, and really just brought the dish to life.
- The sockeye salmon, but I think it might have went
a little over because it started to really...
- Don't be overcooking Ms. Patti's salmon.
- I didn't think the beef was trimmed.
- That plate didn't flip me.
- I expected a lot more from you.
- This actually goes out
to everyone that inspired us with the dishes today.
- True dat.
- This was not just a challenge,
this is an homage to these people that you love.
They're the founders of why we're here.
- I agree. - Cheers.
- You know all the people that inspire these dishes
are people that are, like, love us and care about us,
and they don't care what you do.
They just want you to be happy, you know.
"Are you happy?"
That's how the phone call always goes.
- Always. - Yup.
- Patti LaBelle is awesome and beautiful.
- Did you see that her toenails were painted
to match Padma's shirt?
- I did see that. - Oh, yes, they were.
- Chris, you saw that? - The same exact shade.
- Good evening. - Good evening.
- Hello. - Hi.
- We'd like to see Grayson, Heather, and Chris.
Thank you.
- Good luck, guys. - Prepare yourselves.
Good luck.
- I don't know what to think anymore.
- Have they ever called bottom first?
I don't think so. It's always top first.
♪
- Chefs, we asked you to cook a dinner paying tribute
to the person who taught you how to cook,
and tonight your tributes fell flat.
You three served our least favorite dishes of the evening,
and one of you will be going home.
- Are you guys surprised at all?
- I think that the flavors were there.
I purposely gave you a huge plate
because that's how we eat in Wisconsin.
- Grayson, now, I didn't think the beef was trimmed.
I expected a lot more from you.
- I actually trimmed off all of the outside of the rib eye,
and I felt confident cooking it the way it should be.
- It was very sinewy and spongy.
- Sorry for that.
- This dish that you grew up with,
why didn't you think to use that as a starting point
and then go into a more modern direction?
Did it cross your mind at all, I mean, why--
what was the thinking behind it?
- I mean, I really took it literally,
and, I mean, obviously, I shouldn't have.
- Chris, the dish was just seared too hard,
so the outside got really dried out,
and it was just seared too fast.
- There's a little white layer of albumin,
which made it slightly unappealing.
- Yeah, I did notice that,
and I tried to scrape most of it off.
- Chris, I also think that the dill
really overpowered what you were trying to do.
- I thought I had a lot of flavors on the plate.
I do--I do agree I had, you know,
maybe too many herbs and too large.
- I mean, we're talking literally pieces like this.
When I got that shocking dill,
it just changed the whole palate of things.
- I loved the potatoes.
I didn't care for the salmon.
It was just like basic.
That plate didn't flip me.
- Heather, beef stroganoffs are the starting point,
and it just kinda went awry from there.
- And then those dumplings,
they felt dry and chewy and overcooked.
- Got it.
- I thought I had bigfoot on the plate.
I don't know what that was.
Both meats were so gristly. I couldn't cut it.
- I'm not sure what you did with that meat,
how it was cooked.
If it were braised, it wasn't cooked enough.
And if it wasn't braised, it was cooked too much.
So it's somewhere in between.
- Yeah, I second-guessed myself.
I was--I was afraid to use the pressure cooker.
- So you were trying to go with braised?
- Yeah. Yeah.
I should've put it in the pressure cooker,
but I didn't because I put the duck in the last time,
and it was-- the meat got stringy.
- I mean, Beverly used the pressure cooker,
and...She's not here.
- Thank you. That'll be all.
- Well, it's not good news for us,
but it's good news for some of you.
- All right. So they'd like to see
Beverly, Sarah, and Ed.
- You guys are on the bottom?
- Congratulations. - Yeah.
- Go get 'em.
♪
- Congratulations.
You three served our favorite dishes.
- Thank you.
- Congratulations. - Really nice work.
I mean, you took these ideas that you had
at a very sort of young age
when you were just kind of thinking about food,
and to see you use that as a starting point
and then really just took it from there
and gave us beautiful dishes that clearly meant a lot to you.
- You put your heart and soul on the plate,
and I thought Ed's dish was very amazing.
With the mushrooms on top,
it reminded me of meat, of course.
It was just a beautiful presentation.
- Thank you.
- You know, Ed this is your second time on the top.
You're on a little bit of a roll.
How does it feel?
- Let's keep it that way.
- Beverly.
- Presentation was quite beautiful.
I mean, when you look at the dish,
you look at the whole dish, everything had a purpose.
I don't think you could look at the dish and say,
let's take something off to make it better.
I'm sure your mom is very proud of the work that you're doing.
- Thank you.
- Sarah, a lot of technique in that dish.
I was impressed.
You could've bought the sausage, but you didn't.
The whole thing just worked.
- Thank you.
- You know, again, all three of the dishes just hit that mark.
You know, there are times when you get a dish and you just--
you know, you remember it,
and you remember these dishes, so congratulations.
- Patti, please announce the winner.
- Okay.
- Sarah.
- Oh, my God.
- You are the winner.
- Thank you. Oh, my God!
Oh, I needed this.
- I woke up and said, I need a win.
I need a win really bad. Thank you.
- Thank you very much.
Please return to the kitchen.
- Thank you.
- Yay!
- Congratulations. - Oh, it's so good. Thank you.
This is one of the best challenges for me to win.
I was very inspired,
and I'm just happy that now my grandparents
have definite bragging rights
for all their friends for a long time.
- Congrats. - Thank you, guys, thank you.
- Heather, Grayson, and Chris all made fatal errors tonight.
- Heather's steak was completely overcooked,
and everything else just fell apart from there.
The two sauces just didn't work.
- I agree.
- She had this gristly, greasy piece of rib eye
that she clearly knew she messed up.
- How could she not?
- Chris, I think, suffers mostly because of his salmon.
- It wasn't off or anything, it was just not great.
I like the potatoes, and that's really bad
for me just to like a potato.
- It did seem a little unappetizing
with the white parts leaching out.
- Yeah, the dish could've been just cleaner,
and I think that dish suffered from
things just got thrown on a plate and see what happens.
And I think Grayson's plate
suffered from a lack of imagination.
We're looking for more.
- She didn't freestyle or anything to make it current.
- The dish that she put out for us this evening--
no way could win Top Chef-- just no way.
- Well, I think we have our answer.
Are we in agreement?
- Absolutely.
- Yes. - Okay.
Let's get them out here.
♪
- Chefs, for tonight's challenge you were asked to create a dish
that would pay tribute to the person
who taught you how to cook.
Chris, that dish had a lot of mistakes.
Too many ingredients on the dish,
herbs being too large, salmon being seared too much.
The dish just didn't work for us.
Grayson, at this stage of the competition,
you just need to push it a little more
and give us something that is above and beyond.
Heather, sometimes when you have an original plan,
and you get thrown off, you got to rework the whole thing.
Your dish missed the mark in the cooking of the steak.
It's very difficult to send anybody home
for such personal experiences,
and I think we all are very happy
that you shared those experiences with us,
but it makes it even more difficult to send someone home.
- Heather, please pack your knives and go.
- Thank you.
This has been an amazing experience.
Thank you.
I figured it was coming.
I made this dish specifically for my mom,
and that's what's so upsetting to me.
- Heather--she went home for overcooking the steak.
Bye.
Don't be upset.
It's--it was a crucial mistake.
- Heather reaped her own karma.
Nobody else told her what to do,
and she's going home for what she did.
I'm sorry to say,
but there is a personal satisfaction with that.
- I'm gonna miss you guys terribly.
This experience has already changed me as a chef.
I love you guys.
It has been the most fulfilling
and rewarding experience I have had in my career.
To be able to make it this far--
it's something that I'm very proud of.
- Tonight on Last Chance Kitchen...
Going for her second win,
Nyesha is determined to prove she packed her knives too soon,
and Heather, the queen of mean, looks to redeem herself
in this epic battle to get back into the competition.
- And the winner would be...
- To watch Last Chance Kitchen,
go to bravotv.com now.
Next, on Top Chef...
- Oh, we got a fire.
This is a monster of a barbecue.
Brisket, you're on the ground..
- You're gonna love it.
It's gonna be like sex in the mouth.
- I start to feel a little dizzy.
I'm so sorry.
- I'm pissed off.
I would've pushed through it. And what's wrong? Is she dead?
- Does anybody find the white team's ribs really salty?
- I don't wanna eat that right there.
- It was a very French grandmother's roast chicken.
- But it was so salty. It was--it was really inedible.
== sync by elderman ==