This past weekend, I checked out Spike Mendelsohn's new Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill (if you're familiar with the area, it's in the narrow building where Pulp on the Hill used to be). The Top Chef contestant offers a variety of burgers, salads, sides (fries, onion rings) and some tasty-looking milkshakes (I didn't try one; the burger I ordered was big enough).

The line was out the door (plenty of Bravo-watching 20-somethings and their boyfriends), and a guy outside who I assume was Spike's dad (who, with his wife, are owners of the eatery, which they hope to turn into a chain; Spike is executive chef) talked about the menu like a proud father would. His comments went something like this: "If you're looking for something good, the Colletti's Smokehouse is good. So is the Spike's 5 Napkin. ... Well, everything is good! And beer! We have the Moon ... Blue Moon, and Red Stripe!"

Once inside, I spent about 10 minutes waiting to order and staring at Spike bagging burgers for his line cooks. In fact, many of the customers were silent -- like me, they were staring at Spike. He was wearing a signature (ugly) red-and-black hat, and at one point he addressed the crowd: "How's everyone doing? You're all gonna get fed!" He was pretty charming in person.

My boyfriend and I tried the Good Stuff Melt (a burger topped with cheddar, muenster, caramelized onions, mushrooms) and Spike's Village Fries (seasoned with rosemary, thyme and pepper). The burger (like Five Guys, two patties) was pretty tasty. The best I've ever had? No. But it was pretty good. I actually wanted to substitute a turkey patty for the beef one, but the woman at the register didn't know how to do that. Maybe next time, when it's not so hectic.

Posted by Carla Correa at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Posted by Carla Correa at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Because of a computer glitch, my entry that I planned to post last night disappeared. So, I'll try to re-create my comments!

Well, an earlier Top Chef viewers' poll got it right: There would be a female top chef before a female president. Chicago's Stephanie Izard, 31, won Top Chef last night in a, well, rather boring episode. But, for a good 20 minutes or so of the episode, I thought Lisa (ick) had it in the bag. (Poor Richard, but I'll get to him later.)

After reading these comments from sometimes judge Anthony Bourdain and hearing the heavily edited judges' remarks about the food, it seemed like Stephanie's crunchy leeks and pedestrian ricotta cheesecake (Gail really hated it) would do her in.

Continue reading "Stephanie wins 'Top Chef'" »

Posted by Carla Correa at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Lisa from Top Chef had some words for all of us bloggers. See if she beats out Stephanie and Richard for the title at 10 tonight on Bravo, or come back here to read about it.

Posted by Carla Correa at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Augh, really?

Lisa is in the final three on Top Chef? I wish I could say it's not true, but Antonia was undone by undercooked beans (ick) in the first challenge in Puerto Rico, and Lisa skated through once again.

All I can say is: Go Stephanie! Go Richard!

And from the previews, it looks like Richard decides to tell the judges exactly what he thinks about Lisa during next week's finale.

I sure hope that isn't a misleading preview.

What do you think about this final three? 

(Confidential to the commenter who spoiled Top Chef for me after I posted about my power outage: That wasn't very nice! *sniffle* On the other hand, at least I was prepared for the outcome.)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

I thought that was a pretty cool challenge on last night's Top Chef -- the final five had to cut down huge sides of beef into tomahawk steaks, then cook one. Spike took it easily (he claimed he had butchering in his blood.

But I think his quickfire win was his downfall -- nothing annoys the judges more than when someone gets an advantage and then squanders it. Spike was given first choice of proteins for the final challenge, and he chose frozen scallops for his appetizer, which ended up being a big problem.

A bigger problem was when, at judges' table, Spike blamed the guest judge -- Chicago chef Rick Tramonto, whose restaurant the final challenge took place in -- for having the frozen scallops in the walk-in fridge to begin with. Tom Colicchio had the most priceless look on his face.

To his credit, Spike was totally embarrassed, and once they were in the waiting room, he chastised himself for the outburst.

But it was too late -- he was done for.

So next week begins the finale in Puerto Rico, with a final four of Stephanie, Antonia, Richard and Lisa. So long as they dispense with Lisa pretty quickly, I think I'll be fine with any of those three as the winner.

What say you? 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I've been watching Top Chef this season, but I haven't really had time to blog about it, unfortunately -- until now.

It's been an interesting season with such a mix of weirdos and unpleasant personalities and bizarre hairdos and also some seemingly good people, too.

I'm pretty surprised to see Dale out before the final four, but I understand why he was sent home, too. (See his exit interview above.) I enjoyed last week's restaurant wars episode and was glad to see a team finally pull off a successful opening. I hate when the challenges seem like they are being set up to fail.

Anyway, here's my take on who is left:

* Antonia: She's level-headed, creative, takes no guff and has been pretty consistent throughout the season.

* Lisa: Highly unpleasant -- not to mention, how many times has she claimed a dish to be super-hot  or really spicy and then the judges or her teammates find it to be totally bland? I'm ready for her to go.

* Richard: Pretty nutty, but one of those people who's like, "Hey, look how unconventional I am! See? See?" That has worn thin pretty fast. But he gets credit for being into gastronomy but not serving everything with some kind of foam or another.

* Spike: He's a little goofy, but granted, not as goofy as his best bud Andrew, who had to pack his knives and go a couple of episodes ago. He seems to be working defensively in the group challenges, doing at least one thing to protect himself if they end up in elimination, instead of working his hardest to keep them out of elimination in the first place, which is annoying.

* Stephanie: See Antonia, in terms of level-headedness and creativity. She's had a couple of rough moments, but generally, her work has been among the most-praised. I think a final two of her and Antonia could be great, even if it's not as punchline filled as it would be if Richard or Spike stuck around. I'd rather see great cooking anyway.

What are your thoughts on the final five? Predictions for the finale? Thoughts on the season overall? 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

Have you guys been watching Top Chef? I've been watching but got a little behind on the blogging, unfortunately.

Last week, the contestants split into teams and created dishes for a fund-raiser at a zoo. There were some highs and lows, but in the end, Valerie was sent home. She was teamed up with Stephanie (who she already knew before the show) and Antonia. She made a blini dish that didn't really go anywhere, and her departure wasn't a huge surprise, but for me the most unfortunate thing was the relationship among the members of the team. The three women got very middle-school on each other. I felt like Antonia came in and became the alpha (the queen bee, perhaps?) and kind of pushed Valerie aside, and she never really recovered from that. Plus, it would have been nice if Valerie's teammates had told her they didn't think her dish was going to work, but they seem to have kept that to themselves. Oh, well.

On last night's show, the chefs were split into two teams to cook food for a block party in Chicago. The twist was, they had to get all their ingredients from the homes of the people on that block. Thankfully, many of them had already shopped for the party, so it wasn't like they got stuck with wilted lettuce and old sour cream or something. But still, much different from heading to Whole Foods.

The red team went for classic picnic type of foods (pasta salad, sliders, corn dogs), and blue decided to go a little more gourmet. Unfortunately, despite a whole lot of posturing, it didn't go that well for anyone.

At eliminations, the blue team got called in first and was taken to task for its problems, so the team members assumed they'd lost. But no, Stephanie's awesome drink and interesting dessert barely bought the team the win and Stephanie another personal challenge win. The red team went in to defend its choices, and it seemed like Zoi was toast (I'm no cook, but even I can make pasta salad). But Erik's corndogs -- which de-crispified during the trip from the kitchen to the party (sounds like Valerie's bellinis last week) -- put the target on him.

Hit the jump for a couple more videos. 

Continue reading "'Top Chef' ketchup" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Did you catch last week's premiere of Top Chef: Chicago? I thought it was a pretty fun premiere, all things considered.

Tons of characters, lots of good food and some interesting challenges already.

For their first Quickfire, the contestants had to create a deep-dish pizza (being in Chicago, natch). Some had trouble with proportions and other issues, and some others created some unexpected pies with such ingredients as peaches and tea sauce (Richard) and Marmite (Mark). The judges divided them into a favorite group and least favorite group.

For the main challenge, the favorite group had to draw knives, then each chose a person from the other group to face off with. That person then got to choose the "classic" dish from a list that the two would cook head-to-head. The classics included such dishes as shrimp scampi, duck a l'orange and (painfully) souffle.

There was some posturing, a little trash-talking and tons of manic cooking. I enjoyed the moment when Zoi and Erik, who were both making souffle and not happy about it, bonded over the fact that their souffles were actually rising.

In the end, Stephanie won for her duck a l'orange, and Nimma went home after messing up salt quantities in her quickfire (not enough) and her elimination challenge (WAY too much).

I'm not sad to see her go. She exuded basically zero personality (and if you don't believe me, check out the exit video after the jump) and didn't seem interested in getting to know her fellow contestants, which would have been a tactical error if she'd lasted longer since there are typically a number of group challenges.

Continue reading "'Top Chef: Chicago' debut" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Maybe the folks at Top Chef were concerned that people would find out the winner before the end of the show. Who knows? Anyway, for tonight's finale, the cooking all happened a while ago, but the reveal of the winner will happen live in Chicago.

Final three Casey, Dale and Hung get their breakfast, and it comes with the instruction to take an Aspen ski lift to this mountaintop to get the info on their final challenge, which is at the Aspen Mountain Club.

Tom Colicchio tells them their final challenge is to cook "the best meal you've ever cooked in your life." But they will be cooking in the same kitchen and serving together instead of going one at a time as in past seasons.

Hung's three-course plan is Hamachi, a Vietnamese fusion dish with prawns and duck. Casey's is foie gras, giant prawns and pork belly. Dale's is foie gras, lobster and Colorado lamb. They draw knives for sous chef -- Hung gets Rocco DiSpirito (wait, WHAT?), Casey gets Michelle Bernstein and Dale gets Todd English. Yeah, so that's a twist. The sous chefs get to help out for three hours of prep for the first day, but not the second day.

Continue reading "'Top Chef' pulls a 'Survivor' for finale" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

Nothing like a day of mandatory bedrest to get a girl all caught up on her reality TV viewing.

So ... whaddaya think about the final three going in to next week's Top Chef finale? Are you surprised? I didn't expect it to be Dale, Casey and Hung. Well, Hung, I thought if he was as good as he kept saying he was would probably be there, but he wasn't sweeping challenges or anything ... Casey cranked it up toward the end, as did Dale, I guess. Hmm, actually, you know, I like Dale, but I don't really recall his food standing out all that much until this last episode. But hey, he made it through.

I sure didn't think somewhat nutty Brian would make it to the top four.

Hung is definitely the typical "I didn't come here to make friends" reality contestant. He didn't seem that excited to see his fellow members of the final four, whereas the three of them were group-hugging before he got there. During the quickfire, they had 20 minutes, and he finished in 13 and started gloating. Then, as the clock ran out, he realized he'd forgotten to garnish with lemon juice. Hello, instant karma! Casey ended up winning that one.

For the elimination challenge, the four remaining chefs had to cook elk for the participants in the Snowmass Rodeo. Brian's was overly complicated, Casey's was too rare, Hung's wasn't quite the best, and Dale's was judged most excellent. It seemed like it was a tough decision for the judges, but they finally sent Brian home for being too indecisive by offering a choice of cheese with his dish.

Brian did give the best quote of the night, I thought. When talking about how he didn't think he had sullied his reputation as a seafood guy in his failure in the quickfire challenge, he said, "When chefs consider seafood, they don't think of trout as seafood." I'd say overall, wrong, especially in Colorado, where they were for the challenge.  

Next week, finale. I'm thinking Hung or Casey will be the winner.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Josie Smith-Malave, who was a contestant on season 2 of Bravo's Top Chef, was attacked over Labor Day weekend in Long Island, Newsday reports. 

Smith-Malave and a group of friends were beaten in an anti-gay attack by a group of women who also yelled anti-gay slurs and spit on them. According to the story, the attacked women were bruised and one was injured in the head. 

What is wrong with people? It sounds like everyone is (mostly) OK, but that just sounds horrifying. I hope the attackers are found.

(Photo courtesy of Bravo TV)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

All right, funniest quote I've heard in two days comes from Brian Malarkey a mere five minutes into tonight's episode of Top Chef.

For the quickfire challenge, each person draws a knife with a number on it and can only use $10 of ingredients from that aisle in the supermarket to create a dish. Seafood fan Brian finds himself with the canned seafood aisle: "If I couldn't find a better aisle for myself: canned seafood! But in the back of my mind, I'm going, 'Colicchio doesn't think you can cook anything but seafood.' And then it was like the skies parted, and the holy lights hit me: SPAAAAAAM!"

Oh, lordy, it gets better. Back in the kitchen, Hung is creating this food art thing, and says, "I love eating, I grew up eating!" What a coincidence, me too!

Howie (pictured) hates his dish so much that he dumps it right before time is up, and thus has nothing.

Host Padma gets in on the quotable action, telling Sara of her dish: "It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be."

CJ on Hung's dish: "Hung's dish looked like Candyland meets some sort of diorama." I'd like to quote the guest judge, but then I'd get fired, so let's just say he made an inquisitive exclamation.

The guest judge, Michael Schwartz, says Howie's failure was a cop-out and that CJ's accidentally salted risotto that should have been sugared was awful. Brian and his SPAAAAAM win the challenge.

The main challenge is to cater a party at Pure nightclub for a bunch of fashionistas. Howie: "Do I look like I care about fashion? This is from Target. It's all I have." They have to feed people on $350, which is apparently like five bucks in catering dollars. Brian volunteers to be team leader.

They manage to get their groceries down to $349.75. The next twist is that they have to cook in the kitchen of a yacht (which is particularly mean to super-tall CJ).

They get moving on their dishes, but once they start serving, the appetizers are disappearing faster than they can serve, and the fashionistas are getting restless. But the chefs seem to catch up enough to prevent total disaster.

There is a tiny bit of drama when they trash the dessert, which some people had already heard about.

But most of the drama is reserved for judges' table, where they don't really like much of anything, except Casey and Sara's dishes (the failed dessert notwithstanding). Howie feels so beat up that he tries to beat the punch and withdraw himself from the competition, but the judges don't let him do that.

The judges mention again that they loved Casey's, Sara's and CJ's dishes. They didn't like Dale's or either of Howie, and they seemed downright offended by Hung's cliche salmon on cucumber.

But my money's still on Howie getting kicked out.

The winner is Casey, and she's thrilled. She also wins a Mac and is thrilled about that, too.

And Howie is indeed out, so we won't be seeing his Target-clad self (not that there is anything wrong with that) any more.

(Photo courtesy of Bravo TV)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Last night, I got to see parts one and two of the "restaurant wars" on Top Chef. (Last week, I'd only seen half of part one and missed all the drama.)

Based on part one, it seemed like the judges had spontaneously decided that there could be no winner and that they would have a do-over. But when they met with a decorating consultant, Christopher Ciccone (Madonna's brother), it turned out he was one of the (really rude and irritating) guests the first night.

And the team that won the quick-fire challenge got help from "a sommelier" for their second night opening their restaurant. (Not surprisingly, this was Steven from season one. For some reason, Dale and Hung acted surprised.)

Anyway, obviously, the "do-over" was clearly part of the plan the whole time.

As it turned out, Dale, Hung, Sara and Howie -- the outcasts who didn't get chosen for CJ's dream team -- ended up making a ton of alterations to their restaurant and winning the whole thing.

CJ's team -- him, Casey, Tre and Brian -- tweaked only a few things, and not enough, and ended up losing. Tre, who was acting as executive chef, and who also created an apparently horrifying salmon dish, got the boot. Too bad. Could have been Casey, who proved she couldn't chop an onion during the quick-fire challenge. Or CJ, who chose the team but then abdicated leadership entirely.

I sure thought Tre was going to be there at the end. What did you think of the results? 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

The comment from Rob just now reminded me. I saw about half of last night's Top Chef, which featured a first as far as I can remember. The contestants were divided into two teams and had to open and run a restaurant for one night -- a challenge we have seen previously. But as the judges tried to come to a decision, they realized that so much had gone awry with both teams that there was only one choice. Call it a soft opening and let them do it again the next night.

I actually didn't see any of the challenge, but it sounds like both teams made some tactical errors. I wonder whether it will be another even split if they both make the needed improvements.

What did you think about the judges' decision?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Ilan Hall, who won the last season of Top Chef, gives cooking demonstrations today at 2 p.m. (sorry for the short notice!) and tomorrow at the Great Grapes Wine, Art & Food Festival at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds.

See more information here.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

It was all about friendships on last night's Top Chef. Early in the episode, we learned that Lia and Casey had become great friends. This made it clear that something was going to happen to one of them, since it wasn't the smoothest introduction of the relationship.

But first, there are Joey and Howie to discuss. These two had a very contentious relationship right off the bat, but it seems they are now buddies. Joey won the first challenge (in which the chefs had to use frozen pie crust) -- and, I might add, he said in interviews that he had pastry experience, but when he presented his dish to the judges, he said working with pastry was new to him. OK, pastry shark!

For the main challenge, the chefs had to each create a main dish to be served to the cast and crew of Telemundo's telenovela Dame Chocolate. Howie's braised pork idea looked like it was going to get him in trouble when the twist was revealed: Instead of three hours to cook, they would have an hour and a half. But he went forward with his plan anyway and ended up winning the task. But in a very close second was his now good buddy Joey, with a black-bean stew that included lobster. After the win, Howie gave Joey his prize (a bottle of wine from Argentina) because he said Joey actually had the best dish. It was a love-fest!

The mood turned sad, though, when buddies Casey and Lia found themselves in the bottom four together, and Lia was eliminated. That was unfortunate because she seemed like a great person, but her rainbow trout on polenta was apparently not great.

One last thing, though: Hung needs to get over himself. His bluster about how great he is is wearing thin. It was one thing when he was backing up the boasts with challenge wins or near-wins. But he's just exhausting now. 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Last week on Top Chef, a guy who didn't even finish the challenge was saved for a guy whose food was just not really that great. Then last night, the judges flipped it and sent home Sandee, whose poached lobster was deemed to not exactly be barbeque in what was supposed to be an upscale barbeque challenge. And they saved a couple of people (Howie -- also the one who didn't finish the challenge last week -- and Joe) whose food was was mediocre. So which way are they judging? The inconsistencies annoy me.

What did you think of the show?

I also have to say that I saw the commercial for Hey, Paula, which follows Paula Abdul and debuts next Thursday, about seven times last night, and the part where she gazes in the mirror and declares, "I'm a WARRIOR," as some stylist hairsprays her cracks me up endlessly. I hope the rest of it is that funny.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

(Photo courtesy Ticketmaster)

I don't want to like Kathy Griffin, but I do. On her show My Life on the D-List, she comes across as sometimes abrasive and sometimes patently offensive (and always foul-mouthed), but I still think she's funny. Her "reality" show is surely stilted, filled with such stunts as going on a date with Nick Carter specifically to try to get tabloid coverage and "auditioning" handymen. But despite her need for attention that is the conceit of the whole show, she's still engaging and amusing.

On last night's episode, Kathy learned of the death of her father while she was traveling, and the show took a more serious turn. Her (absolutely hilarious) parents appear on the show regularly, and her father was always a warm presence on screen. To see her going through such a visceral, awful experience on a typically pretty fluffy show was almost unexpectedly moving. Undoubtedly the cameras were there when she got the news, but the show handled the moment well, skipping over any of that footage for clips of her talking about it in an interview. Cameras followed her as she put the finishing touches on a photographic tribute to her dad at his memorial, but did not invade the service itself. And the episode managed to combine the tragic and the comic by the end, with Kathy performing a scheduled show a couple of days later, being straight-up with the audience about what was going on in her life, and paying tribute to her father with some anecdotes.

All in all, I was touched and actually impressed with the episode's careful handling of the death, while still conveying the emotional heft of the situation.

(Speaking of Kathy Griffin, she's at the Lyric Opera House June 27.

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I also saw part of an episode of On the Lot, and it remains pretty boring. Only a handful of filmmakers are left, and they each created a short film. I didn't see all of them, but I was less than impressed with the ones I did see, including the one that got raves from judges Garry Marshall, Carrie Fisher and Wes Craven. All the kind comments surprised me. "You can really write dialogue!" He can? "That was a masterful piece of storytelling!" It was? I agreed with them on the condemnation of a short that was supposed to be a horror film from a tree's perspective. Why was it boring? Nothing ever happened. I wanted to give the show another shot since it's been reformatted since last I'd seen it, but I don't think I will be back.

I neglected to check out America's Got Talent, yet again. Did I miss anything good?

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I'm looking forward to tonight's episode of Top Chef, the second episode of the third season. The first episode saw the departure of Clay, a Mississippi chef who failed on the quickfire challenge when he didn't know what an amuse bouche was (which he would have known had he watched the previous seasons) and then on the main challenge by misusing the exotic meats and fish they were working with.

There was also a tale of redemption (already!). Chef Tre was in the bottom three in the quickfire, but came back to win first prize in the main challenge.

So tonight should be interesting, and I will be watching.

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First off tonight, though, I will be watching So You Think You Can Dance, my personal favorite. I was sad to see earlier this week that Fox had all the clips from the show removed from YouTube. I had rewatched Lacey and Kameron's take on a contemporary routine by Mia Michaels about 15 times and wanted to see it again, but it was gone. Couldn't find any clips on the Fox site, either. I know they have to be concerned with copyright issues, but in this case, I think if anything, people stumbling across the performances would only be more likely to watch the show in the future. Oh well. I can just hope that Fox will make the clips viewable on its own site soon, or else that I didn't delete it from the DVR.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)