‘Top Chef: Boston’ episode 3 review: Focusing on Fenway Park

There is not a whole lot of doubt to us that Fenway Park is a legendary establish. We’re not from Boston, but we remember traveling to the city once and experiencing some of the sights and sounds of being around there at the time of a ball game. Basically, it’s insane, and we understand why so many love being a Red Sox fan.

There was a noble attempt to capture some of this history on Wednesday night’s new episode of “Top Chef: Boston,” and we would say that by and large, the hour was a success. There was once again a move by the show to focus on the contestants and the creativity, which we have been hoping for the past few years.

First of all, we really like the Sudden Death Quickfire twist. While we were not completely sold on it at first, it works because it gives a chef two tries to not cook something horrible and get eliminated from the competition. For example, Aaron (the show’s current rabble-rouser) came in last during the Quickfire, and then challenged Katie to a showdown due to some psychological need he had to beat a culinary school teacher. He won, and got to stay. Meanwhile, so did Katie, who did not deserve to go home. Very good twist.

Interestingly, Katie recovered in the Fenway-themed elimination challenge despite thinking that she messed up her dish royally. The only part of this we disliked was that for a challenge all about making food highlighting something you’d get from a concession stand, there were not many choices. Most chefs had either pretzels, peanuts, or popcorn, so we saw many repeats. Katsuji is the only person to choose fried dough, and we would have loved to see people have to do something using nacho cheese sauce, cotton candy, corn dogs, or other traditional fare.

In the end, losing Ron was sad since he seemed probably like the biggest everyman of the group. His food is something that a ton of people can probably relate to, but the unfortunate thing is that this show probably was not for him. The people who tend to go far here emphasize super-high-end, gourmet food. That means smaller portions and a ton of precision. Gregory won another challenge using some of these techniques, and the man appears to be a beast already. Grade: A-.

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