Another week, another reckless Top Chef Wisconsin Challenge.
And don't just take my word for it. Milwaukee Journal SentinelRachel Bernhardt of Foodie wrote that these were “interesting challenges that made the chefs feel like fish out of water.”
This week it's boiled fish. As Dan pointed out multiple times, boiling fish is just gross. Best Chef What made it even more fun was that the chefs cooked on the sand, in the sun, and without using purchased ingredients.
Best Chef: After spending a third of the episode making fun of you, just cook me some good food.
Oh, and the title of this episode was “Door County Fish Boil,” and Door County is about a three-hour drive north of Milwaukee, but the Door County Fish Boil took place on a beach about 20 minutes south of Milwaukee. Best Chef Kitchen set.
But first, the meat raffle. With guest judges Top Chef Master Apparently graduate Art Smith came to pound meat.
Art was wearing a bright reddish coat, and Michelle called him a “fashionable Santa Claus,” but he retorted, “Bless you,” which, as any true Southerner knows, is sometimes a term of endearment and sometimes a sarcastic insult. In the case of an undercooked chicken nugget the size of a hockey puck, I think it probably roughly translates to, “Oh my goodness, you've done a really bad job.”
After choosing their meat, the chefs created a dish with it. Sue and Savannah came out on top, with Savannah's corned beef dish soaked in Saratoga Springs water boiled in a Viking range winning $10,000 from a Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. (The producers really packed a lot of awkward product names into this quickfire, thank you.)
At the bottom was everyone else: Dan, Danny, Manny, and of course Michelle.
Kristen asked the chefs, “Chefs, are you ready to light this competition on fire?” and, symbolic of this season, Manny was the only one to raise his hand.
No explanations had worked so far, so the chefs were told nothing except to put on comfortable clothes and go outside.
So the six of them gathered around the fire Best Chef Alum: Tournament of Champions Winner: Mei Lin Tournament of Champions contestants Shota Nakajima and Justin Sutherland; I like fast food Starring (with Kristen and Justin) Jeremy Ford. Minced Guest judge Gregory Gourdet, Chopped: The All-American Showdown Winner: Sarah Bradley.
They were trying to make a fish boil, not a fish fry or a crab boil, and Dan's response seemed appropriate: “No.” He said, “A fish boil goes against everything I've ever been taught as a chef.”
The best thing about this challenge is the torch, which is not a Clippy-esque cartoon character made out of flames but the name of an actual person.
Torch is the “fish-cooking master” and it's his job to throw a pitcher of kerosene on the fire under a boiling pot, causing the pot to explode and boil, and to get all the dirt off the fish. Yummy!
This was also really funny. Sue jumped back and put the other chefs between her and the fireball, which is exactly what I would do. Gail Simmons just said, “That's crazy.”
Everyone tried the torch fish, and then we added a twist: we planned to cook it for 100 people, just in case cooking it with sand and heat wasn't enough.
And to truly test them as Top Chefs, the graduates had to go shopping for their own food. They were randomly assigned partners (except for Savannah, who picked Shota as her winning prize), and then had five minutes to discuss their menu plans.
As Kristen explained, “You never know what ingredients you're going to have until you get to Grant Park Beach.” Minced: Soft fish edition.
Thankfully, producers didn't hand the grads any paper, pens, or phones, so they just had to remind themselves what the chefs wanted. Why was that necessary? Why can't Andy Cohen seem to answer any question that isn't on the card? These are Bravo mysteries.
Michelle repeatedly expressed skepticism: “Are they on our side or on the side of the judges?” she asked.
The grads planned to spend $500 at Whole Foods, which led to my second favorite moment of the episode, when Gregory says he spent $499 and Justin calls him “Bob Barker over there.” Justin had some money left over, so he bought Dani a bath bomb, too.
In the end, no one messed up the store. Mei Ling wanted Manny to make his own tortillas, so she bought the masa, but she also bought pre-packaged tortillas, as per his request.
As Dan put it, cooking on the beach “was probably the most physically challenging challenge of the season,” while Michelle said she “nearly died cooking on the beach.”
Ah, friends, wait until next week, when I have to cook while swinging. American Ninja Warrior Fish the fish out of the tank with your teeth, of course!
The beach cookout turned into a culinary disaster for several chefs, but only one required emergency medical treatment: Savannah, who cut her hand. After paramedics bandaged her so she could finish cooking, Savannah tossed the fish she was filleting in the trash. “This fish is crap!”
Before each chef served his dish, a torch was tossed with kerosene, causing a fireball to erupt in shock near the chef and diners.
“Hide your wife, hide your kids,” Michelle said.
As they sat and waited, Kristen enjoyed the reunion, and Tom complained about the chefs' general problems. “That seems to be the problem, they're just throwing everything at the wall.” Hmm, that sounds similar to this season's challenge designs!
The winners were Dan, Danny and Michelle, and Art said Michelle's coleslaw was “artistically made,” which made me laugh, because Art is his name.
At the bottom were the rest of the group: Manny, Savannah, and Sue. Manny's fish boil was cohesive but boring. “You've got to give it your all,” Tom said. Gail replied, “We just wanted to be creative.”
Savannah's overcooked fish and mushy tofu salad didn't please everyone, but she did win the Quickfire Challenge. A recent rule change probably saved her, but it didn't save Sue, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sue's cooking had no theme; Tom said it was “like a potluck” and Kristen said it was “like a raw casserole.” Last Chance Kitchen again.
Before Kristen announced Sue's departure, Tom Colicchio said, “To change these dishes, you really have to understand them,” calling it a “misunderstanding of what this is.” It's strange why they never fully understood fish boils when they had them once and then tried to do them in a completely different way than normal.
Last Chance Kitchen is ending this season
Sue and Karina rejoined the competition five episodes ago, so Top Chef Wisconsin Episode 10 Last Chance Kitchen Ends again.
Sue joined Amanda and Laura and the three had to create a dish from all seven previous Quickfire Challenges – combining different ingredients and techniques.
Sue put too many ingredients into the fish boil, and yet again he cooked up a Thanksgiving-style mashup that was a mess; Best Chef Where he started.
(If you haven't read my interview with Sue yet, we spoke hours before the elimination episode aired, so we didn't discuss that. But we did talk about the confusing challenges this season and Last Chance Kitchen Weirdness.
Amanda and Laura competed in the final round. The two had been practicing together throughout the competition, but, as Amanda pointed out, were eliminated together. So, will the two rejoin the competition together?
No, for some reason there was only one winner this time. At least Last Chance Kitchen is just as troubling as Top Chef Wisconsin This season.
May joined Kristen and Tom as a judge for the LCK Finals, replicating the simple task that landed Kristen back on the season: cook a delicious dish.
Incidentally, Tom introduced May as “someone who's never been to the Last Chance Kitchen,” which is quite an insult to literally everyone else in the room.
The best part was Laura's pickled vegetables. She will definitely come back. Best Chef The final four episodes take place in a pool filled with Saratoga Springs water and Morton salt, on a raft made from Wells Fargo credit cards.
