Tele-bits: Top Chef - The Finale is Set

The five chefs have never looked more nervous...

...as they did in Le Cirque, standing in front of the venerable Sirio Maccione. Everyone from Maine to Minnesota to Montana knows about Le Cirque, even if they aren't foodies.

The dish that they served to the chefs was a sea bass wrapped in potato on a bed of melted leeks. Doesn't sound at all good to me on paper. I hate fish. But when I SAW the dish and saw the faces of the chefs as they tasted it even I would have tried a forkful.

The quickfire was my favorite so far - replicate the dish they had just tasted. A superior chef will know the ingredients from tasting a dish. From Mr. Maccione's face when he tasted them I could tell that all of them seemed to get the right flavors. But last night proved without a doubt that presentation, knife skills and classical training make a good chef into a Top Chef. The worst thing about this challenge was the abject terror in the eyes of the chefs as they had to work around the professional chefs who work at Le Cirque. They didn't exactly get a warm welcome!

Hung has gotten less obnoxious, quieter and almost human throughout the contest. He's no team player but he has gained some sort of calm confidence since the beginning of the season. It did not surprise me that he won the quickfire challenge. It also didn't surprise me that Casey came in 2nd. She is really amazing and I'm not-so-secretly-hoping she takes the whole thing!

Sara misjudged her timing on cooking the fish and served it raw (ewwwwwwwwwwww!) so hers was chosen by Mr. Maccione as the worst. Unfortunately for her this show, it became her theme.

Elimination Challenge - The chefs brightened up for their next challenge: using chicken, russet potato and onion as a base to create a meal for a panel of top instructors from a French cooking school. They seemed back to their normal slightly egotistical selves as they rushed through the market. Hung had an extra 30 minutes since he won the quickfire so he had 2.5 hours while the others had 2. They watched him and the clock as they waited on the starting line. Soon they were all cooking and it was very interesting how they all made something SO different from each other. EXTRA different was the way Brian's dish looked...green cow pie anyone? It looked so nasty.

Hung used his exceptional skills to create another exceptional dish. Casey took some lessons from cooking with her grandmother (ahhhhh) to make a kind of "faux" coq au vin. The judges thought it was "faux", as far as recipes I've found for it, it seemed pretty right on? Brian's was, as I mentioned, a green cow pie. Ok it was really shepherd's pie. I was surprised that he put sausage into the dish and the judges were also. They thought that it overpowered the chicken. But they did really like his dish, so that was great. Dale tried something that seemed too sophisticated and complicated for a two hour prep. Again he forgot something (that poor guy on the airplane is still wondering where his food went) and that really hurt his ratings. Sara's "Jamaican" dish looked very nice but the chicken was rubbery for some and raw for others (again, eewwwwwwwwwwww). They also wondered where the Jamaican spices were since it didn't seem to have any.

In the end it came down to Hung, Casey and Brian as the top three and Hung as the winner. Between Dale and Sara I'm glad that it was Sara who went home. Poor Sara. She doesn't have the skills or the palate that the others do. I'm sure she's great at cheeses (which seem to be her real love anyway) but high skill cooking isn't her forte. I bet she kicks ass in the dairy dept though.

Four go to Aspen: Hung, Casey, Dale and Brian - good luck guys!