Top Chef D.C.: Capitol Grill by Tina Charles

It's been a week (for viewers) since Angelo's sabotage and not surprisingly, he's not seeing it as a sabotage at all. In fact, he's upset at Kenny for not standing by the team during judges' table. What? Plus, I'm still completely disappointed with the way Kenny folded during the elimination challenge. He should have taken the word "challenge" to heart and stood up for the fact their team didn't actually have any vegetables of substance in their school lunch. It's a good thing Kenny gets a letter from his girlfriend. He's been feeling like a second fiddle so maybe he'll use this letter as a wake up call.

Quickfire Challenge

Gail Simmons and famed pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini (well not "famed" to me. This is the first I've heard of him). We're about to hear a lot more of this James Beard Award winner since he's the head judge of Bravo's upcoming Top Chef: Just Desserts. And if you haven't heard yet, Gail's the host. This is yet another plug for the upcoming series. Is this going to be happening all season long? I hope not.

The Challenge: It's a dessert quickfire challenge where the cheftestants have 2 hours to make a pie from scratch. Those are the only rules of this particular game. The winner will get immunity in the elimination challenge.

• Angelo says he's never made pie before
• Alex decides to make tapioca pie. What is he thinking?
• Ed incorporates some sort of celery and peanut-y thing with his banana cream pie. What? Dude likes to over-think his dishes.
• Angelo helps out Tracey. I do like that Angelo is nice when it comes to her.
• As for Tracey, she's forced to scratch her first almond blueberry pie and attempt a second.

Out of all the pies, I totally have my eye on Kenny's take on bananas foster and Kelly's spiced raspberry and dark chocolate ganache tart. And I'm completely in fear of Alex's white chocolate, tapioca and chevre pie with almond crust and raspberry puree as well as Tracey's blueberry almond crunch pie with light cream and almond brittle.

• The judges (especially Gail) aren't taking much crap this season. Amanda (apple pie with rosemary and bourbon with a hazelnut crust) tries to make the excuse that she's not a pastry chef but Johnny's not having it. I think Amanda is just trying to fish for a compliment. I'm not sure about her at all.
• Gail seems turned off by Stephen's curried apple-date pie with saffron. There a sour taste she's not digging
• Gail also goes after Ed's banana cream pie with salted peanuts and celery spuma. Her comment doesn't reach the level of last week's sherry/vodka sarcasm, but I'll take it.
• Johnny and Alex have this awesome exchange (Johnny's tough by the way I already feel sorry for the Just Desserts competitors):

Johnny: "Is there egg in here?"
Alex: "There is."
Johnny: "So it's more like a quiche."

It looks like a quiche to me. Real men admit to making quiche, Alex. Not surprisingly, the least favorite dishes come from Alex, Tracey and Ed. The most successful desserts come from both Kelly and Stephen and the winner of this challenge, Kenny. I'm happy for Stephen because before this he didn't seem like he could put together a tasty concoction. But I'm really happy for Kenny even though his general cockiness since the beginning of this season makes me sad. At least he's been able to finally rise above his second fiddle status.

Elimination Challenge

This season takes place in Washington D.C. so just about every elimination challenge will feature some sort of patriotic or political take. Last week they cooked school lunches for a worthy cause First Lady Michelle Obama champions. This week the cheftestants are, according to Padma, celebrating another American tradition: the summer picnic. Very appropriate considering we're heading into the July 4th weekend.

The Challenge: Prepare a cookout for 150 Capitol Hill interns that includes one main dish and two sides. And guess what? No dessert necessary. Rejoice! And they'll be cooking said meal on the grounds of George Washington's Mt. Vernon Estate and Garden. Pretty cool. Everyone gets their own grills which stereotypically pleases the men and makes the women fearful. Not really. Well, just a little.

The Shopping: Amanda reveals some really personal information which we hear while she's running through Whole Foods looking frazzled and practically mowing down the people in front of her. She tells us that in her mid-20s she had a problem with cocaine and pills and anything that she could get her hands on. But the fact that she fought back and survived all that means she can do anything. As soon as I hear that I do a double take and then rewind to make sure she just told us about her past drug problem. I don't know why I was incredulous I guess I just didn't expect the mother of all TMI confessions to happen while the chefs were frantically grabbing their ingredients for the elimination challenge. Wow. I don't know why but suddenly I'm liking Amanda a little better.

The 3-hour Prep: The quirky personality portion of the program continues when Tracey starts talking to herself incessantly during prep. It's kind of disturbing and oddly fascinating at the same time. Alex and Amanda start fighting for the ovens. Amanda insists she labeled an oven and Alex stole it from her. It's unclear whether there are other empty ovens available, but Amanda calls Prison Rules: Label the oven, it's yours. Ed seems to have a lot going on with his dish again while Arnold seems like he's one of those chefs that no longer spends a lot of the time in the kitchen. He finds it difficult to do all the sous-chef responsibilities himself. Stephen says the issues that can arise with his seafood dish is if the fish dries out or the bacon doesn't get crispy. That's all?

The Event: Arnold has no grilling experience so he just spies on Kenny and does what he does. Very smart. Right now I feel like Tim's all talk and no follow through. I hope he can make a good meal but I'm not completely confident he will. Top Chef Master finalist and the Obi Wan Kenobi of the kitchen Jonathan Waxman is handling judging duties along with Tom, Gail and Padma. He's also a grilling expert so this challenge is perfect for him. The Dishes:

• Arnold: Sesame lamb meatballs with Tabouli salad and gazpacho (Me: I want some; Judges: they're impressed)
• Tamesha: Marinated skirt steak wtih caramel soy glaze and fennel citrus salad (Judges: the steak is overcooked)
• Angelo: Vietnamese lettuce wrap and smoked egg salad (Me: it's a pretty dish but there doesn't seem to be much there. Judges: they're impressed. Jonathan calls it a magazine cover dish.)
• Alex: Grilled pork butt with lemongrass, polenta and cucumber salad (Me: I'm not digging Alex's lame attempts at humor. I won't even repeat his ass butt joke. Judges: The pork is beautifully cooked but the sauce is too sweet.)
• Tim: Pork 2-ways [dry loin and wet baby back ribs] and grilled vegetables. Right when Tim's talking about the veggies, a bird dumps a substantial gift (Judges: Pork is OK, the vegetables and beans aren't OK.)
• Amanda: Dry rub baby back ribs, grilled asparagus, bacon hazelnut vinaigrette (Judges: They like Amanda's ribs more than Tim's ribs. And Jonathan is in love with her grilled asparagus)
• Kelly: bison burger, watermelon and tomato salad (Judges: the burger's bland, the dish is super simple)
• Kevin: Puerto Rican-inspired grilled marinated flank steak, rice and beans and tomato & avocado salad (Judges: the beans are overcooked and the rice is bland)
• Lynne: leg of lamb with ras el hanout, zucchini "spaghetti" with balsamic onions (Judges: her lamb feels heavy)
• Kenny: harissa-marinated pork loin, quinoa-grilled eggplant (Judges: well-cooked meal)
• Tracey: Italian sausage slider, tomato, cucumber & red onion salad (Judges: too much fennel; slider a tad undercooked and too big to be considered a slider)
• Tiffany: Tamarind glazed wild sockeye salmon, Israeli couscous (Judges: fish is bland and glaze inexplicably has no flavor)
• Andrea: spicy root beer-glazed skirt steak and potato salad (Judges: root beer glaze too sweet)
• Stephen: bacon-wrapped sea bass, ratatouille and olive pine nut couscous (Judges: not impressed at all; Tom's especially not a fan of the fish)
• Ed: spiced tuna loin with lentil hummus (Judges: his food is picnic friendly and there's a lot of flavor)

Judges' Table

The most successful dishes come from a trio of "A's": Arnold, Amanda and Angelo as well as Ed. The judges praised all meals although they did say Amanda's salad didn't need to be there. Arnold wins his first challenge. I'm all for someone who's not Kenny or Angelo taking the win. Very cool. The least successful dishes are: Tim, Stephen, Tracey and Kevin. Tim is told his veggies just weren't good. Padma calls Kevin's Puerto Rican dish the "safest Puerto Rican food I've ever had." Kevin begs to differ. He says all the Puerto Rican people he's familiar with (including his wife), that's the food that they would do. Sassy Gail tells it like it is:

Gail: "Are they chefs?"
Kevin: "No."
Gail: "Exactly. You are. So show us great Puerto Rican food that a professional chef would make. Step it up."

I agree. It's crazy that his rice and beans were bland. I'm pretty well versed in all things rice and beans. My mom cooks them and every time there's flavor. There's no excuse for making it bland. The judges were particularly brutal with the resident psychic and chef Tracey. She tells them she's not surprised to be there. Tom's insulted she calls her dish Italian food. Jonathan says she stopped trying instead of figuring out how to fix it. They were also brutal with Stephen's food. Jonathan calls the Ohio chefs fish "really seriously inedible." Tom thinks his greasy couscous was even worse. He thinks Stephen lacks confidence.

The deliberation: After the bottom 4 leaves the room, the brutal comments don't stop. Jonathan continues to have a lot to say. I love that Jonathan's so vocal in this episode. He again uses the word "inedible," this time to describe Tim's grilled zucchini. And as for Tracey, the Obi Wan feels his 10-year-old son could have made that patty. He cannot believe a professional chef made that slider. While Kevin's meat was grilled nicely, his food really was a watered down version of the real thing. He didn't do anything to elevate it. Meanwhile, Tim had watery beans and wilted greens. Two-thirds of his meal reached epic fail status. The person told to "pack their knives and go" is Tracey.

For me, this could have very easily been a double elimination. The things said about Stephen's food were just as bad as Tracey's. However Stephen did do well in the quickfire this week. Tracey fared poorly on all counts so I'm okay with her leaving although I really did learn to enjoy her presence. Anyway, Top Chef D.C. is saving the double elimination for the next episode which is cool with me because I still think there are too many chefs around. Feel free to work a triple elimination into things, Top Chef!