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Top Chef - 6/16/2008 12:17:27 AM

Hippiekinkster

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I've been watching this on whatever channel it comes on. Judges go orgasmic over a braised lamb chop with pistachio something or other. I'm like, fuck-a-doodle-doo, I was doing roast duck breast with pistachio mole back in 94.

I've seen some bizarre shit there, too, like "butterscotch scallops". That is just downright weird.

Was the semi-finals in Puerto Rico I watched the other night. There was a tablefull of stuff and the chefs were supposed to pick their ingredients for most everything (they had to butcher a pig for the main course)(already dead). This being Puerto Rico, they all did something with Platanos. They all called what they did "tostones" but two of them just had a plantain puree as a base for the display. Tostones are fucking boring anyway, but these two were hopeless. Tragic.

That whole "tall food" trendoid shit just won't go away. Fuck, plantains are not a Nouveau Cuisine ingredient; they're Carribean soul food.

This whole idolizing cooks shit, well, I ain't on the bandwagon. There's a whole group of people in every major city who breathlessly await the Saturday "Lifestyle" section review du jour. Oh, that's another bullshit trend, celebrity food "critics". We have this runty little French twat here in ATL who presumes to critique Vietnamese or Pre-Columbian Mexican without knowing fuck-all about them.

I have many more pet peeves about the foodie "scene". What drives y'all nuts about the whole trendy restaurant/chef/critic/dish fad thing?
(Please, if you think "Olive Garden" or "Outback Steakhouse" are the best thing since the invention of fire, well, I'll try not to humiliate you)

Polenta is grits, people.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 7:48:56 AM

sub4hire

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If it bothers you so much, why are you watching it? I imagine judges go "orgasmic" because people overall do not cook anymore. When we lived in California I knew zero people who cooked.
Now living in NE...about 70% or so of the people I know cook. Some are even excellent cooks...some not so good. I still hear rave reviews when I cook for someone but not as many as I did on the west coast.

Anyway..next years season of Top Chef or one of those cooking shows is going to be filmed from the Denver Culinary Institute. I have a friend going there....no idea yet if they are going to rip him a new one or they leave the students alone.
So far in competitions they have been a bit less nice overall. He lost a Vegas competition for dicing the bell peppers instead of cutting them in 5/8th sections. Yet...the winner diced his to.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:04:44 AM

xxblushesxx

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I just find it hard to believe that people actually *like* the combinations some chefs come up with.
When I'm served food, I don't want to have to guess what it is.
I want to look at it and know.
I don't want portions the size of the ribs that tip over Fred Flinestone's car, nor do I want three teeny tiny bites with artistic swirls of sauce in a lame attempt to make the plate look full.
You don't have to have 'unusual' ingredients to get my attention; just cook 'plain' food, and do it well.
Then again, I live in Kentucky, so, what do I know?

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:19:25 AM

DomKen

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I think the whole celebrity chef thing is ridiculous.

There are some downright great chefs who've gotten genuinely well known, Rick Bayless for instance, but a lot of these guys are just self promoters who got lucky when food network got started.

These guys who own several restaurants, often in different cities, simply can't have much day to day influence on what comes out of their kitchens. Wolfgang Puck's place in Evanston closed a while back and in 5 or so years of operation Puck had never actually been on site according to the head bartender.

Tall food is just annoying as hell to try and eat. Put my food on a plate with a little style but don't forget that some one has to eat it.

And now for my biggest complaint about this whole thing. Bad food coming out of big name kitchens. I took a friend to Charlie Trotters to celebrate her divorce and the entire degustation menu was awful. The best courses were bland and poorly cooked. The worst were simply either burned or salted beyond being edible. We're sitting there surrounded by diners acting like this crap was great. When I complained somebody not Trotter came out and didn't seem shocked that the whole menu was crap. He apologized and told the waiter to tear up our check, with wine slightly over $300. This place has got a string of awards including a bunch of 5stars/diamonds as well as several James Beards and at least on this night it was getting by on having most of the people dining being too clueless to notice the food was awful or too timid to complain.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:26:46 AM

MusicalBoredom

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I watched Top Chef for the first time a couple of years ago and watch it sometimes if its on when I pass by. I really never thought much about the food but did enjoy the petty drama sort of like the morbid fascination with watching a train wreck in slow motion.

As to the new food trends, I think they are a bit silly. I enjoy a good meal and always like it when I know the chef and they want to show off some new creation. I absolutely abhor the trend in trying to make something "great" simply by using some odd ingredient. It always reminds me of collage art students calling anything full of angst and gore art simply because it's full of angst and gore. I tend to stay away from new trendy restaurants where the latest craze is brazed gravel in lizard shit sorbet.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:29:54 AM

Domin8tingUrDrmz

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I love Top Chef. It is the only 'reality-show' I watch.

With that said, I've tried quite a few of the recipes from the website (the show airs on Bravo, and the recipes can be found on their site), a few were spectacular, many were nothing to write home about muchless admit to trying.

One chef, who I find quite talented, is a young chef named Curtis Stone. He did a television show entitled "Take Home Chef" which aired for 2 years on TLC. So far, each recipe of his that I've tried has been wonderful. Crisp, fresh, exciting food...stuff that makes you realize how talented some chefs actually are.

Edited multiple times because my eyes are crossed this early in the morning

.

< Message edited by Domin8tingUrDrmz -- 6/16/2008 8:32:27 AM >

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:37:53 AM

cjan

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I sometimes enjoy watching the Food Network and related shows. I like Mario Batali , a no bullshit chef and guy who really knows his stuff and is, imo, a good teacher. I also like Alton Brown whos "Good Eats" show is informative and educational as to the essential understanding of basic principles. I also find his show entertaining and pretty bullshit free.

At the other end of the spectrum there is Rachael Ray

, and that stupid Italian cunt with the big toothy smile that don't know shit and drive me bonkers ( no, I don't watch them.

I also enjoy Tony Bourdain's show on the travel Channel. Also bullshit free, although not a cooking show. Tony is also not a bad writer. I've enjoyed his novels and non-fiction books.

Most of the shows, though , I think are dreck, but, obviously, a lot of folks enjoy them.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:40:02 AM

philosophy

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FR

..i have a certain amount of admiration for Jamie Oliver. His commitment to good food in schools and trying to create jobs for young people in the food industry is worthy of comment........

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 8:44:42 AM

Domin8tingUrDrmz

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Oh yeah. He did a series titled "15" I believe. Where he took 15 teenaged kids (or young twenties) who had absolutely know knowledge of cooking, sent them to an expedited course in a culinary school, took out a 2nd and 3rd mortgage on his home (while expecting a baby) and opened a restaurant to teach them how to become successful at something. About 5 of the students wound up receiving interns from other award winning restaurants and a few stuck around to assist in the restaurant of the same name (15?).

I thought his commitment to seeing underprivileged kids have an opportunity at his own expense was a wonderful thing - and hope more people like him participate in future programs similar. I must admit though, I'm not a fan of Jamie's cooking, but I am a fan of his 'principle' of cooking - organic, fresh, local foods.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 9:46:27 AM

MissMorrigan

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Jamie Olivier has tried to clean up the entire school dinners system of feeding our children processed crap and getting them into that neverending cycle of unnatural sugars/syrups/fats and low grade foods. My son never knew what a burger was until he went to school at the age of five. Food doesn't have to be expensive to be good, nor fancy to be tasty.

Something he has tried to do more recently is bring awareness to battery eggs and why we should not be consuming them, along with battery farmed chickens which sell for just pennies, are kept in appalling conditions and are then sold to the consumers for a handsome profit for the supermarkets, not the farmers, which is why we have this problem in the first place - supermarket greed.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:08:50 AM

popeye1250

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quote:

ORIGINAL: xxblushesxx

I just find it hard to believe that people actually *like* the combinations some chefs come up with.
When I'm served food, I don't want to have to guess what it is.
I want to look at it and know.
I don't want portions the size of the ribs that tip over Fred Flinestone's car, nor do I want three teeny tiny bites with artistic swirls of sauce in a lame attempt to make the plate look full.
You don't have to have 'unusual' ingredients to get my attention; just cook 'plain' food, and do it well.
Then again, I live in Kentucky, so, what do I know?

Here! Here!
I'm a pretty good cook myself.
I try to keep it simple and good.
I hate those *undercooked* little red potatos that "gourmet" restaurants serve.
And they're usually sitting beside a pile of 4 or 5 greenbeans with chopped almonds on them!
What's that all about?
Cjan, I like Tony Bourdain too!
I (used) to watch him on the Travel Channel until they went "Paid" on Time Warner!
And I loved that Samantha Brown too!

< Message edited by popeye1250 -- 6/16/2008 11:12:35 AM >

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:14:26 AM

PanthersMom

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i tried watching one of those shows once, i forget which one. whatever it was they came up with looked totally inedible and probably smelled worse! that's when i decided i wasn't going to be bothered with that trendy crap; my family would probably mutiny anyway, lol. try serving a bunch of neanderthals froo-froo food and see what you get!
PM

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:18:38 AM

rubberpet

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That foo-foo gourmet shit they make on TV shows like that isn't cooking. Come down to south Louisiana and we'll be happy to show you how to really unleash the true power of seasoning and your stove! We ain't one of the fattest states in the nation for nothing! LOL

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:19:26 AM

tsatske

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Hmmm - pet peeves. National Chain Resteraunt Quality food and service at Really Expensive Not Chain Resteraunts. This really annoys me. I am not rich, I don't mind a bill for dinner for a special night coming to a hundred or two hundred, but it had better be worth it!
And, in my experience, the really best places in town are often small not chain but really quite cheap places. I mean, i can go somewhere and have a knock your socks off meal for $25, then when i go pay $100 it better be damn good!
My sister has a best friend who likes to treat her to dinner at the really expensive places. She told me her friend took her to a Brazilian place in town, and, in her words, the veggies were $6 each, extra, after you ordered the entree, plus, and extra $16-$18 for a salad that she described as being 'not quite up to Denny's standard'. See, i don't mind that my side salad is twenty bucks, but i do mind paying twenty bucks for limp shredded iceburg and Kraft dressing. I had tried to go to that same resteraunt with my sons a few months earlier, and they happened to be closed on the night in question, so we ended up at one of my sons' (and my) two favorite places - an Ethopian places that is in-fucking-credible.
btw, Blushes, if you haven't been to Queen of Sheba (reasonable prices, incredible food, really friendly service) or Vietnam Kitchen (Unbelivably cheap, Unbelievably GOOD) - I'm only mentioning it to live vicariously. I have not discovered the good local resteraunts in Little House Land yet, haven't really been here long enough, and now I am jonesing for so African or Vietnamesse.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:22:17 AM

popeye1250

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PanthersMom

i tried watching one of those shows once, i forget which one. whatever it was they came up with looked totally inedible and probably smelled worse! that's when i decided i wasn't going to be bothered with that trendy crap; my family would probably mutiny anyway, lol. try serving a bunch of neanderthals froo-froo food and see what you get!
PM

Yup, nothing like a nice plate of home made meatballs and spaghetti with home made tomatoe sauce or as the Italians in Boston call it, "gravy", with a fresh anti-pasto salad and hot garlic bread!
I simmer my "gravy" overnight.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:47:13 AM

tsatske

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Popeye,
I thought it was only Italian Americans, esp. those from large cities with large Italian populations, that called it 'gravy' ? I was under the impression that the phrase was not used in Italy?
(I call it 'Red Gravy' or 'Italian Gravy', myself, but, after all, I am American. kind of like when i berate my Dad because he won't eat my caudicon on St. Pat's day, and tease him that his Corned Beef and Cabbage is 'Immegrant food', he always says, 'We are Immegrants' He has a point....)

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 11:54:49 AM

TwoNYCDommes

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster
I've seen some bizarre shit there, too, like "butterscotch scallops". That is just downright weird.

I like trying "weird" combinations. Sometimes, even if I don't like them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster
What drives y'all nuts about the whole trendy restaurant/chef/critic/dish fad thing?

I've never been able to understand wanting to go to a restaurant because the chef is on TV. (There are restaurants I enjoy whose chefs have become famous, but their fame came from their cooking, not because they were an entertaining personality.)

I am annoyed by the proliferation of high-end chains. While logically I can understand that designing recipes/menus/etc. and training staff to follow your vision is actually an extremely important part of running a kitchen, I still selfishly feel that if the chef is so good, he should be cooking for me personally.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster
Polenta is grits, people.

I dislike that dish by any name.

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 12:14:46 PM

xxblushesxx

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tsatske

btw, Blushes, if you haven't been to Queen of Sheba (reasonable prices, incredible food, really friendly service) or Vietnam Kitchen (Unbelivably cheap, Unbelievably GOOD) - I'm only mentioning it to live vicariously. I have not discovered the good local resteraunts in Little House Land yet, haven't really been here long enough, and now I am jonesing for so African or Vietnamesse.

I've heard they're very good!

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 12:26:16 PM

popeye1250

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tsatske

Popeye,
I thought it was only Italian Americans, esp. those from large cities with large Italian populations, that called it 'gravy' ? I was under the impression that the phrase was not used in Italy?
(I call it 'Red Gravy' or 'Italian Gravy', myself, but, after all, I am American. kind of like when i berate my Dad because he won't eat my caudicon on St. Pat's day, and tease him that his Corned Beef and Cabbage is 'Immegrant food', he always says, 'We are Immegrants' He has a point....)

tsatske, lol, well, us "micks" always called it "tomatoe sauce" or "spaghetti sauce" and all my "goombah" buddys all called it "gravy."

< Message edited by popeye1250 -- 6/16/2008 12:34:21 PM >

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RE: Top Chef - 6/16/2008 1:46:21 PM

cjan

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I also expect to get value for my money at restaurants, whether the check comes to $200 or $20. I agree that some of the best places are inexpensive mom and pop joints. Authentic Vietnamese places are some of the best. I especially keep an eye out for places that are chef/owner operated. There are only a few excellent ones here in SW Florida where I live but Chicago, where i'm originally from, has many .

Having said that, some of the chains, imo, do an excellent job. Bonefish Grille is an example. They do a good job with seafood and are consistent and moderately priced. I understand that Brio is a chain, at least they seem to have a few locations, and the one in Naples, Fl is one of my favorite places to go. Everything I've had at Brio has been very good and I consider their prices to be moderate. If you like mussels, try their mussel appetizer ( $11). I have it as an entree , with a salad first course, it rocks . I also enjoy the P.F. Chang's chain. Imo, another, consistently good place that is a value.

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