Many things have already been said about last night’s Top Chef Season 4 premiere, but that doesn’t mean we can’t add in our own two cents! And also the two cents of MP:Boston, to whom we live-emailed our thoughts during the show and received responses from this morning, after much reflection. So really, you’re getting almost a nickel! To it:
• Why are there no Chicago chef judges? Because Bravo doesn’t want to scare its loyal Top Chef audience with exotic Midwesterners? We call bullplop! Also, MP:B is concerned that A. Bourdain will be a judge in every other episode. Concerned in an excited sort of way.
• The new interstitials are low-budge Iron Chef-style or something. Come on, Bravo, don’t use interstitials.
• Richard, the smoked Moroccan spice guy with last year’s fauxhawk, used the royal “we” when describing how he made his dish. We can’t blame chefs for doing this - obviously - but we wanted to call attention to it anyway. Also, he’s wearing pink Crocs in his Bravo photo, which is derivative.
• Dale, of Chicago, reminded us too much of Hung for comfort. The second Dale utters the word “sous-vide,” we’re calling the cops.
• All wine commercials are stupid, especially the ones for Rutherford Hill, which ran a few times during the show. Beer commercials at least have the potential to be funny, or make us particularly angry. Wine commercials that tell us the good life comes from drinking a glass of merlot and pretending we’re standing on a cedar deck overlooking a vineyard in Napa…just shut the f*ck up. Waiter, we’ll have another Scotch, please. (MP:B notes that she watches via DVR, duh.)
• That scary bald biker guy, Erik, is not scary at all! He almost cried during the low-scoring grill session, but at least got off a graceful joke and the end that made Bourdain smile (he saw a kinship of sorts or something). Also on the not scary front - he grew up in Chappaqua, a.k.a the new homeland of the Clintons.
• We had a sense that Nimma was going when she referenced her crap-tastic cauliflower why-isn’t-it-a-flan to call attention away from her Dead Sea shrimp (MP:B thinks she shouldn’t have even sent it out. Then she would have lost with dignity). But oh well! At least she tried.
• Stephanie Izard is too adorable not to win! May we make reference to the fact that many adorable people have won in the past? Plus that Yoda backpack or whatever she was wearing in her application video is telling. She has a little green creature in her head telling her how to cook! So it’s a shoe-in.
Okay, we’re still deciding if this is going to be a weekly feature or what. Your reactions, or lack thereof, will probably be a determining factor. Love it!
Top Chef Season 4 [Bravo]
