Staff Blog
Top Chef Las Vegas Episode 10: Ms. Portman’s Wonder Vegporium
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Natalie Portman and Tom C make a lovely couple, don’t you think?
I said DON’T YOU THINK? WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING TO ME?
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Look what you have done. LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!
Quickfire: Chef Paul Bartolotta, who runs his eponymous restaurant in Vegas’ Wynn Hotel, joins the transcendently beautiful (and increasingly callous … preg rage?) Padma in challenging the close-to-there cheftestant crew to whip up a TV dinner inspired by a randomly assigned television program.
Mike V, who draws Cheers, starts lamenting about he and Bryan (M*A*S*H) eating frozen dinners when they moved in with their father as kids. Was this pre-Kids Cuisine? If so, that’s a goddamn shame my friend, as the brownies were the bangingest. Mike I has never seen Seinfeld, but it’s all the better because it means he doesn’t know to make any facepalm-worthy “It’s a show about nothing, so here’s a plate of air!” jokes, but his decision to rock sausage and peppers is an interesting one — he at least knows Jerry’s Jewish, right? No latkes or something?
Eli’s too little to have watched Gilligan’s Island, but he knows it’s set on an island so he makes shrimp. Our girl Jen C draws The Flintstones but can’t find any bone-jutting-out meats. The first thing that Robin thinks of when she thinks of Sesame Street, apparently, is crispy kale. The boy Kevin ends up winning for his Sopranos-inspired meatball plate, and he also manages to tell an adorable story about how his gram cooks breakfast for his family every morning.
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| bravotv.com |
Elimination: The cheftestants are originally told they’re cooking at Tom C’s Craftsteak, so they start concocting massive meat menus. Then Princess Amidala shows up and the lovely shit hits the lovely fan — Nat’s a total “foodie,” Tom C tells the crew, but she’s also a vegetarian. (She actually turned vegan after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, and she wrote an essay about her decision for Huffington Post, which is quite possibly the whitest thing to happen to America since the theatrical release of The Big Chill.)
So out goes all the red meat and in comes veg innovation. “I love cooking vegetarian food!” exclaims Robin. “They’re people too.” No one was claiming the contrary, Robz! Mike I’s confident because a huge chunk of menu items at his D.C. restaurant are veg to begin with. Jen C and Eli flip a dehydrated orange chip to see who gets big beautiful eggplants (Eli wins). The Volt brothers, as per usual, display Vulcan-esque dearths of emotion while preparing their fantastically elaborate plates. Kevin, conversely, preps mushrooms and turnips and kale and is jolly.
At the top: Kev, whose hearty meal proved that “vegetables don’t need to be light”; Eli, whose dish got a nod despite Bartoletta comparing it to “sucking on a bar of soap” in Provence; and Mike V, whose triple asparagus/tomato sashimi/banana polenta dealie was daring in all the right ways. Kevin snags a W again because I’m pretty sure he’s going to win this thing.
Bottom: Mike I, who’s criticized for using scallop-shaped leeks as his dish’s protein (”You know that leeks aren’t protein, right” Gail asks him); Robin,who was just generally mediocre; and Jen C, who gets guff for her small portion sizes and shaky tableside saucing. Mike I cops a bit of an attitude, with I think ultimately contributed to him getting hacked. Now, let us go back to a kinder, simpler time, when we Photoshopped Mike I’s head onto one of the guys from LFO, and people just listened to one another:
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NatPo-centric asides: Why do you think Padma got such a pep in her step in her presence? Do you think Where The Heart Is is one of Padma’s favorite movies? Was Padma sauced when she said that thing about having a “little prick on the tip of her tongue”? Why was NatPo wearing so much makeup when she’s so naturally beautiful? Is Garden State overrated? And who would win in a transcendentally beautiful transcdence-off, Padma or NatPo?
One of Tom c’s dopest suites I might add.
Thank goodness, I was worried at the beginning because you didn’t a) have a Princess Amidala photo, and b) you didn’t call NP another transcendent beauty. But you fixed it all by the end.
Also, I think you should write menus. I’d totally order a triple asparagus/tomato sashimi/banana polenta dealie.
I was wondering if she had some sort of a wheat allergy or low-carb thing. There were a couple dishes with potato, but other than that.. wasn’t it weird that nobody had pasta or rice?
Another good summary Drew. But how is Mike I on the top and the bottom? Wasn’t it one of the brothers on top with the banana polenta? I can’t tell them apart.
And yes, they were all getting a little sloppy at the dinner table. Hopefully Pads wasn’t preggo during filming!
G Nagle:
Sorry, that was a typo — Mike V at the top, Mike I at the bottom.
This is some of your best photo shop work yet, I totally forgot Tom was in Closer. Padma did act super giddy during the dinner with Natalie, like they became super bffs in a matter of second over a glass of sparkling wine. Can’t wait til next week when Robin hopefully gets sent home!