‘Top Chef Masters: Battle of the Sous Chefs’ review: How does Douglas Keane compete?

If you remember back to Wednesday night’s “Top Chef Masters” episode, there was some surprising news that came down courtesy of Drew Glassell: He was having to leave the “Battle of the Sous Chefs” competition for a family emergency, which in turn left Douglas Keane in a bind. What’s an awesome chef to do for the webseries to ensure that he does not get a punishment every week?

Well, he was luckily able to find someone else from his culinary family to help him out in Paul Winberry, Jr., who made his first appearance in this week’s edition of the competition. Not only does Paul look kind of like Drew (which suggests to us that Douglas may be building an army of similar-looking culinary machines to conquer the world), but he also did a pretty good job in his first competition: Utilizing the onion to the best of his ability in order to impress Hugh Acheson and Curtis Stone. As a matter of fact, he came in second place to David Burke’s sous chef Chris Shea.

As for who is in danger now of going home, and in a double-elimination no less, it is Neal Fraser, Sue Zemanick, and Jennifer Jasinski courtesy of the losses for Jason Bowlin, Nick Lama, and Jorel Pierce. The only other person (save for David) that is celebrating right now is Sang Yoon, who has been forced to spend the past couple of weeks dealing with constant punishments … even though he managed to win Restaurant Wars while also dealing with one.

While we initially complained about a webseries directly impacting the competition every week, we now like it. It’s an entertaining little show that gives us an opportunity to oogle some tasty food. Not only that, but it allows us with yet another opportunity to watch some “Top Chef” on what are otherwise slow weekends.

If you want to read some more of the latest “Top Chef Masters” reviews and videos, just be sure to click here.

Photo: Bravo