Cheese Course or Just Desserts: A Dramatic Exit for One Top Chef Contestant

Is it just me or does Restaurant Wars always bring out the worst in the cheftestants?

The fiercest comments on Top Chef this week didn't emanate from former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, but rather from the contestants of the losing team.

On this week's episode ("Restaurant Wars"), the eight remaining contestants were split into two teams and tasked with running a dinner service at a restaurant for one evening, developing and executing the menu and running the front of house at the same time as the kitchen. It's a fan-favorite challenge that always pushes the contestants well past their breaking points but this season the Restaurant Wars challenge wasn't so much fun as frustrating to watch, given that the eliminated chef was an outstanding talent who went home while other, lesser contestants still remain in the competition.

It was this elimination that left me scratching my head at the end of the episode. While I've disagreed with the judges' decisions in the past, this one just left me extremely perplexed. Yes, you're only as good as your last dish but when your ten last dishes have all been pretty abysmal, how are you not getting sent home?

That's the question that I kept asking myself after the final credits rolled last night. How are Amanda and Alex still in this competition, despite some truly awful dishes and near-eliminations, while Kenny gets sent home, despite taking the reins in the kitchen?

Granted, their team--which ran the 2121 restaurant--lost in the challenge. Ed's team, which oversaw the egregiously named EVOO, had more better dishes collectively than the blue team. But Kenny kept them motivated and kept the dishes going out of the kitchen. If only the dishes themselves had been better. Which lead me to wonder: just where was the quality control at 2121? Kenny, the self-regarded "beast" of the competition, has been an outstanding competitor and has dazzled the judges in the past with his refined palate and precision. So just what happened here?

Kenny's two dishes--a salad that contained no less than what seemed to be 72 ingredients and a dessert/cheese course that featured a fried goat cheese croquette atop of a bed of strawberries and rhubarb--failed to hit their marks entirely. I'd agree with the judges' criticism that Kenny should have listened to Coco Channel and removed at least two accessories from that starter, which was over-labored and overflowing with too many ideas and ingredients. For a salad dish, there was far too much going on and it wasn't tasty either. As for the cheese issue, I do applaud Kenny for looking to reinvent the cheese course but what he created would have worked better as a starter than as a dessert replacement, really. The judges also said that it tasted soapy and the crust on it was ghastly. Neither of which you really want in a dessert, especially as Kelly's chocolate ganache tart was a thing of beauty (even if her ice cream was tasteless).

Still, Kenny not only delivered two dishes--sub-par though they might be--but he also oversaw the kitchen as the executive chef. Did he ever taste Kelly's soup? It certainly looked that way from the footage, when he advised her not to add more salt to the "thin" sweet corn soup. Which means that he was also attempting to keep an eye on the quality of the dishes going out into the dining room and failed on that account as well.

But it was clear that he had his hands full, in any event.

Amanda, on the other hand, had only one dish to execute and it was a monumental failure. Why is it that every week she seems to be struggling with an unknown protein (in this case, grass-fed beef), an unknown cooking element (here, a wood-burning stove), and outright confusion why she keeps landing in the bottom week after week? Why does she seem to fail every time she attempts to cook a piece of meat? And, even more irritatingly, how is it that she's managed to squeeze past elimination time after time?

I thought for sure that she would be the one to be packing her knives and going home, just as I thought that it would be Alex, who has long outstayed his welcome on Top Chef, who would be eliminated should the red team have lost. The fact that Alex mangled everything he touched this week would have been brought up for certain. His efforts to butcher the lamb were shockingly poor; his filleting of the fish left not only scales but bones for Tiffany to then deal with in the kitchen. No wonder his team relegated him to the front room (which the blue team should have done with Amanda), as he seems to create a perfect storm of discontent and mess everywhere he turns. (And that's to say nothing of the fact that he seasoned the fish during the Quickfire Challenge for no apparent reason and way too early, resulting in his team's loss there.)

Was the blue team right to attempt to throw Alex under the bus despite the fact that his team had won the challenge and was therefore safe from elimination? I'll get back to you on that. But the fact that they failed to bring up the pea puree was an odd moment as well, considering what a big deal that had been the last two weeks and that the cloud of suspicion still hung over Alex this week. Why not shine a light on the controversy in front of the judges?

The fact remains that the two weakest chefs at this point were Alex and Amanda and either one of them should have been the one to pack their knives. To send Kenny home seemed both a capricious move on the part of the judges and an effort on the part of the producers to inject some drama into the proceedings, following a season that's been severing lacking in narrative tension. (In my opinion, it's been the weakest season of Top Chef to date, one that's been waylaid by poor editing, lackluster casting, and tired challenges.)

Sending Kenny home was clearly meant to be a message that no one left in the competition is safe. The early episodes of the season seemed to relish in setting up Kenny and Angelo as adversaries who would be fighting until the bitter end; both were keen competitors, driven by this rivalry to outdo one another on a weekly basis. But to send Kenny home is to remove even the slightest of intrigue from the season.

Not that Kenny should have been kept around in order to justify that intrigue, but the fact that he *was* sent home rather than the two consistently weak links makes me question the validity of the entire competition. If Kenny has to go home but Alex and Amanda remain to fight another day, then what's the point in performing well? Why not play it safe and remain in the middle until the final rounds? Why be a strong chef if you can be just a hair better than the weakest of the weak and narrowly avoid elimination?

I had thought with last week's ouster of Stephen that the competition this season was finally moving in the right direction. But this move makes me question just what the judges are thinking, really. And that, more than anything, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

What did you think of this week's episode? Was it right that Kenny was sent home? Who would you have eliminated and why? Head to the comments section to discuss and dish out your thoughts on this week's episode and this season of Top Chef.

Next week on Top Chef ("Covert Cuisine"), mystery and spyjinks abound when items in a mystery box challenge the chefs, who must then transform famous dishes into different culinary fare; later, the chefs head to the Central Intelligence Agency for their elimination challenge.

Top Chef Preview: Mystery Box



Top Chef Preview: At the CIA Headquarters