‘Top Chef: New Orleans’ review: Food to pig out over
Seriously, “Top Chef” presented itself a heck of an episode tonight. This was not only the best episode of the show, mostly because it actually delivered on everything that you could want. There was a little bit of cooking drama, but also two challenges that were themed around New Orleans, original, and produced a high quality of food.
The Quickfire – Is Brian Huskey now fully forgiven for that “spa cuisine” nonsense? This was his second straight quickfire win, and this time, you cannot blame it on another chef helping him. What a cool idea to have to come up with your own hot sauce, and the creativity in this made it just a blast to watch. Brian did have a little bit of advantage, given that he actually works in making sauces on a pretty regular occasion.
The Elimination Challenge – This involved cooking a whole pig, and what made this so great was that it allowed for there to still be a ton of creativity, and also a ton of traditional food. Carlos Gaytan won with a Mexican dish that was in part a creation of his mother, and he wasn’t the only one that was reminded of his roots in doing this sort of rustic cook-off. We don’t like it when there are disasters; we prefer it when you have a challenge where everyone cooks incredibly, and it is somewhat more of a struggle to actually determine who goes home.
From the moment that we saw his little edited segment about how he didn’t want to leave yet thanks to the friends that he has made, we thought for sure that Louis Maldonado was in deep trouble … and he made it too complicated. Meanwhile, Justin Devillier was mostly frustrating in the way that he was pouting and carrying on, about first the first he was cooking his pork on and then the judges’ reaction to it. It felt like he should have gone home over Louis and Stephanie Cmar, whose biggest crime is just thinking way too much.
But at the end of the episode, Padma Laskhmi announced that the chef leaving the competition was going to be none other than … Louis. The show needs to start making their eliminations a little less predictable, and that was the only disappointing part of an otherwise outstanding episode. Grade: A-.
Do you agree with us that this is the best “Top Chef” episode of the season? Share some of your thoughts below! Also, click here if you want to read some more news related to the show.
Photo: Bravo