Top Chef: Insulting International Cuisine

Hola amigos!  Willkommen , liebe Freunde!  Bienvenue amis!  Nor gwadänyamoc!  In case you didn’t already guess, that’s how you say “Welcome, friends!” in Spanish, German, French and Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia).  I fear I am not much of an internationally-seasoned man.  I’ve only been overseas one time, I flew almost 8,000 miles only to touch down in a strange foreign land… where they still speak English, only with a sexier accent.  No, I didn’t go to Texas, my trip was to Sydney, Australia!  Hey, it’s in a weird time zone and they drive on the wrong side of the road down there, so I say it still counts as foreign, even if they do have McDonald’s there.  Speaking of Mickey-Dee’s, guess who could probably use a nice juicy Big Mac right about now???…

these three

Yes, on tonight’s episode of Top Chef, the chefs take a whack at fucking up international foods for a change, and we’re all going to die a little inside watching them do it.  I may need some of that General Foods coffee crap when we’re done…

“Let’s pour lots of brandy in this shit and then date rape each other.”
“Oh, you… by the way, did I mention I have a penis in my panties?”

I don’t wanna complain or anything (even though the BF says that’s what I’m best at… you know, other than recapping) but oh, how I am growing to loathe this season and its awful, horrible cast of hacks.  For starters, we have Miss Swan in the Bilious Brownstone whining about how haaaard it is for her because Big-Haired Andrea went home.  Then the Magical Elves helpfully play “The Funeral March” while giving us a loooong tracking shot of Andrea’s now-empty bed and implying that perhaps Swanella should have finished that sentence with the words “to Jesus”…

how much you guys wanna bet that pillowcase is stiff with Jhirmack products?

Except Miss Swan isn’t really sad for Andrea, she’s sad for herself because she got selfish with the salt and served several people a steak that had roughly six kabillion times their recommended daily allowance of sodium in every bite.  Then she tries to squeeze out a few…

aaaaaaand sorry, you’re still kind of a bitch

Hey, I bet you guys wonder what that clearly convicted allegedly thieving chef Nosferatu is up to this morning, right?…

besides generously sharing his hotness with the world

He’s still maintaining that he didn’t know MassholEd had made a pea purée and DEAR JESUS FUCKING COOZEY CHRISTING SAVIOR ON THE CHRISTOPHER CROSS could we PLEASE just let the goddamned PEA PUREE BULLSHIT GO ALREADY??!?!? Sorry, I just got really super-tired of typing “pea purée” last week.  Anyhow, Nosey says he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about him, he’s still feeling really good about his undeserved win and is rip-rarin’ to get out there and cook, dammit.  And maybe snag someone else’s mashed potatoes along the way.  It’s a sad, sad day when you have to lock up your baby food on the set of Top Chef, y’all.

As for MassholEd, he says he’s not mad about losing the PP (o yes he is), he’s just perplexed at what exactly happened to it, did someone with a bald head and beady eyes take it, or did someone with a bladelike nose and giant buglike glasses throw it away?  Oh Ed, I feel for you… the crash of the Hindenburg, the death of Marilyn Monroe, and your missing mushed-up peas… mysteries all that will haunt the world until the end of time…

and to make matters even worse, Nosferatu’s deodorant has apparently failed

ChesTiffany’s been busy trying to comfort MassholEd, but she’s got her own problems to deal with, such as bra-strap pain and the fact that she’s about to get married, so having a boyfriend right now is kinda inconvenient.  She’s not liking the fact that she hasn’t won any of the challenges so far (well, DUH, she is not an Alpha Dawg or a Kitchen Beast like KennEgo claims to be) and feels like she needs to prove she can cook and that she belongs in the competition.

Time to head on over to the Hiltchen, where they find Scar standing and smiling with a strange drag queen…

mayhap it’s her long lost sister, Pudya Licksme

KIDDING!  Nope, this isn’t really a drag queen, but everybody’s favorite Swedish-Ethiopian (or Swethiopian) and the winner of Top Chef Masters Season Two, Marcus Samuelsson (a.k.a. La Marquessa)!  If any of you were here for my recaps of that show, you already know that I don’t care for Ms. Marquessa very much, and I don’t think she was the rightful winner of the title of Top Chef Masters (should have been Sussudio Lee!) but that doesn’t mean that JerseyMoobs can’t pop up in an interview and claim that Lady M is one of the best chefs in America, and call her an “animal” in the kitchen…

KennEgo would beat you into the ground if he heard you say that about anybody but him, Moobsie!

Whatever, Scar’s blathering on, saying how D.C. is such a diverse city, and therefore a draw for restaurants of every kind of cuisine, and yet one nation’s plethora of culinary delights dominates them all… Ethiopian food.  Check out ShortyPants’ face when he hears this…

“Really?…you sure you don’t mean North American food?”

Nope, they’re serious all right, and Shorty says he wondered if they would be having to do some kind of QuickFire Challenge like this, since he claims everywhere you go in D.C. there are four or five Ethiopian Restaurants.  I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to beg everyone’s pardon for a moment if I find this rather hard to believe.  I mean, I’m sure that there are some excellent culinary points of view that come from Ethiopia and that they have a rich and varied and colorful culture and all that, but honestly, for the average American who has grown up with news of the ongoing African hunger crisis, and watched “We Are The World” and “Idol Gives Back”, and seen late-night infomercials featuring a yowling Sally Struthers, isn’t this the first thing that pops up in your head when you hear someone say “Ethiopian Food”???:…

fess up and admit it

Well, we’re all wrong, there is a whole lotta food technique coming out of Ethiopia, and La Marquessa is here to tell us allllll about it.  For instance, they use a lot of this spice blend called berbere…

not just for carpeting anymore

Actually it’s made out of a combination of chili peppers, ginger, cloves, coriander, allspice, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t pronounce.  They also have a supply of injera bread, which looks to be the Ethiopian version of a tortilla, only thicker, spongier and more akin to sourdough.  Beyond that, he tells them about making wat, which is a spicy stew that you get to eat with wedges of injera.  It’s hysterical to see the faces of most of the chefs listening to him explain all of this like there’s almost any hope they’ll be able to recreate it authentically…

can I get a wat wat?

ShortyPants is the only honest one in the bunch.  Scar says the winner gets immunity but no large sums of cash, they get 90 minutes, and good luck, try not to cause La Marquessa to mastawäk all over the place.

Bloody Mandy is enthralled by the leg of goat she sees laying on the table, so she snags that and decides she’s going to make some goat wat.  Nosferatu, on the other hand, is remembering growing up “lower middle class” (a.k.a. “poor”) and how his grandmother would go to the market and steal shop for the leanest cuts of meat she could get her thieving hands on, which usually wound up being beef or lamb tongue…

“This is why I don’t like to French kiss.”

Ugh, like anyone wants his tongue in their mouth, either!  Anyhow, in order to braise his tongue within the time allowed, he plans on using the pressure cooker, which he happens to snag just before Miss Swan can get her hands on it.  This leads her to complain to us how Nosferatu tends to get “really aggressive” in the kitchen…

this is her impression of “aggressive”

This is also total bullshit, because he had his hand on the damned thing and she came running up behind him to try and grab it from him.  Plus there’s another one right there on the shelf, so whatever, she just likes to complain about people.  I’m telling you guys, the lady is a douche.

Also jumping on the Douchewagon is JerseyMoobs, who says Nosferry’s win last week was bullshit, and claims that his cooking technique is like throwing darts at the wall and hoping some of them stick, which “doesn’t work.”  Then Moobsie turns right around and says that he’s never made anything remotely Ethiopian himself, and that he’s just kind of “winging it” at this point with regards to the food and flavors…

as is evidenced by the fact that he’s making faux-crescent rolls out of injera bread

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that his technique was oddly akin to “throwing darts at the wall and hoping some of them stick” but I’m not that much of a bitch at this point in the evening.  One of the few people not quaking with fear over this challenge (or talking shit about other people’s cooking skills for whatever reason) is OranJello, and this is because he worked at a restaurant in NYC that had “an Ethiopian concept” so he’s actually familiar with these kind of flavors.  He says you have to be careful with spices like berbere and make sure you don’t overuse them or you’ll mask whatever it is you’re eating in a spice haze.

Now we have the privilege of hearing from the Alpha Big Dawg KennEgo as he notes the only three chefs comfortable in this challenge are MassholEd, OranJello and (naturally) himself, because they’ve all cooked “some kind of version of Ethiopian cuisine” and admits that OranJello actually has the extreme advantage this time because of his consulting work at that Ethiopian place…

this is what KennEgo thinks of other people who have advantages

Still, The Ego has misplaced confidence he’s going to win this QuickFire and therefore gain irrelevant immunity.  Over at the semi-likeable ChesTiffany’s station, she’s telling us there are not a lot of Ethiopian restaurants in Dallas, or Houston, or Beaumont, or maybe in Texas, period.  She’s decided to make something she knows how to do well, which is a hearty stew, and just use a whole bunch of Ethiopian spices in it.  “I wish I could tell you the name of my dish” she says wonderingly…

“Let’s go with ‘Stew-Wat’!”

At last time runs out, and here come Scar and La Marquessa to taste JerseyMoobs’ dish…

looks like he chickpead out on using his injera-rollups!

La Marquessa chews thoughtfully for a moment and says he can definitely feel the heat in the dish and then they’re on to ShortyPants’ station…

and his Big Brown Ring of Balls™

Next they move on over to Nosferatu’s licky-boom-boom-down…

definitely poor people food

He says he doesn’t eat a lot of spicy food, so he wasn’t sure how spicy he could make it.  Scar immediately shakes her head and mumbles “It’s not very spicy at all.”  Ouchie, looks like that dart didn’t stick in the wall!  Let’s visit Miss Swan, who is probably dancing a jig of glee on the inside after seeing Nosferry get pummeled…

heyyyy, shouldn’t that have been “myint” purée?

Lady M again mentions that he’s feeling the heat coming through in the dish before they move on to Swan’s real nemesis, Bloody Mandy and her goat wat…

or as we call like to call them “cheeseless quesadillas”

Marquessa calls it a “modern stew” and says it tastes wonderful.  Miss Swan looks like she just tasted lemons mixed with Mel Gibson.  And now it is time for a bizzit to the Double Dawg House, yo…

and we all know that since last week KennEgo’s been dying to do a duo of something

La Marquessa says he likes that there are a lot of deep flavors and KennEggo looks properly mollified and fully stroked… until it’s time for them to taste the food of his nemesis, OranJello…

this looks appropriately dusty

Oranjie says that Ethiopian is one of his “top-three” favorite kinds of foods, and La Marquessa asks him if he’s sure he wasn’t actually born in Ethiopia…

which serves to irritate everyone else very nicely

Next in line is MassholEd…

and is it me, or is this stuff all starting to look exactly the same?

Lady M says it’s “definitely well-balanced” before they finish off with ChesTiffany’s dish…

which, sadly, she chose to call “goulash” instead of my much cleverer “Stew-Wat” idea

Oh well, she’s telling him even though she’s never made Ethiopian food before, she tasted each of the spices and worked them into something that she knows she likes, which is actually a pretty smart approach, and seems to have worked better than so many of the others who just threw random shit in a pan.  La Marquessa’s pretty impressed, too, because he tells her that even after 8 other dishes he’s still ready for more of her food.  ChesTiffany beams as though he actually said that to her face and not her tits.

So who are the bottomsies tonight?  Well, JerseyMoobs to start with!  Lady M says Ethiopian cooking is very bold, and his dish was just way too shy and not nearly bold enough…

looks like that dart didn’t stick in the wall, either!

Also sucking (and not surprisingly so) is poor ShortyPants.  Marquessa says he did a good job with the cabbage in his dish, but the lambballs were dry and not very juicy.  Finally, he nails the other dart-thrower (Nosferatu) for having dry tongue stew.

As for the ones who best reminded him of his dusty homeland, Lady M says Bloody Mandy’s combination of goatmeat, spices and taters was totally amazing, which completely makes her night…

and clearly also makes her a little wet

How sweet for her!  Now if she could just do something about that cold sore on her upper lip, that thing is creeping me right the fuck out.  Also getting praise is OranJello, whose doro wat La Marquessa calls “absolutely beautiful” and he compliments The Citrus One thoroughly on his clearly extensive knowledge and understanding of Ethiopian cuisine…

which engenders the usual shittyfaced responses

And finally Miss ChesTiffany receives high praise as Lady M says there’s a deep similarity between goulash and Ethiopian cooking thanks to their hearty flavors… and the QuickFire winner tonight is… ChesTiffany, who smiles toothily and makes dingdingding sounds…

like a Zoltar machine

I’m really happy for her win, and she’s clearly excited at the prospect of having some immunity to do whatever the hell she pleases for the Elimination Challenge, but nowhere near as excited as her secret lover MassholEd…

who is all but making kissy-faces at her

Then he has to go and ruin it by saying the real reason he’s happy is because she beat OranJello, “That’s the best part because Angelo cooked Ethiopian food!”  Yeah, well, supposedly so did you, so that doesn’t exactly highlight your skills, does it asshole?  You know, it’s this kind of crap stands at the center of what’s wrong with this Season Seven that Sux, MassholEd just had to go and cheapen ChesTiffany’s win by making it not about how good she is, but about how he’s more glad OranJello lost.  It’s just petty and sad and speaks way more negatively about MassholEd than it does about OranJello.  I’m making sure of it.

Oh well, let’s find out what their insanely amazing Elimination Challenge is going to be about.  Scar and La Marquessa leave the room and come back rolling a wheelie-board…

which they didn’t even need, they could have just put all that stuff on the front of Scar’s blouse

KIDDING!  I like her a little chunky, too, it means she’s actually human as opposed to that fat bitch Heidi Klum who spits out babies like a Salad-Shooter and never gains an ounce.  Anyhow, on the board is a big world map with several countries highlighted on it, and Scar says the Elimination Challenge will have them taking “a culinary trip around the world”…

while conspicuously avoiding Africa

Naturally KennEgo’s gazing at the board with some contempt and says that the countries they have to choose from don’t really matter to him, “There’s nothing on there that I didn’t feel comfortable about cooking.”  I maintain to my contempt about his poor grammar.  Anyhow, they’ll have to make 100 portions of food and serve them at this place called the Meridian National Center, which Scar says is the center of diplomatic life in D.C.  Plus they get to serve their food to ambassadors and diplomats from the very countries which they have chosen to cook food from!  Plus there won’t be a kitchen, only Sterno-fired chafing dishes to keep the food warm.  Wow, this one is gonna be hard.  And what exactly does it say when all of the chefs are standing there looking gravely serious, except Nosferatu, who is grinning like a dumbass?…

get ready for World War III

OranJello says his parents exposed his palate to a lot of international cuisine since he was a child, but he isn’t necessarily looking forward to making Brazilian food if it comes to that.  And right on time Scar trots out the Knife Block of Doom™ so they can find out the order they get to choose their country.  ChesTiffany scores again as she lands Knife #1 and picks Mexico.  Miss Swan goes next and snags Italy, which is fine with Bloody Mandy because she wanted France anyhow (which is the cuisine she’s spent her career studying).  KennEgo chooses Thailand, Nosferatu takes Spain and OranJello goes with Japan.

With only 3 countries left, JerseyMoobs decides to take a risk and pick India, knowing full well that Scar will curryhole him if he fucks it up.  MassholEd gratefully plucks China off the wall, which leaves ShortyPants stuck with Brazil.  Poor ShortyPants wonders aloud if Brazil even has a cuisine.

Off to Whole Paycheck Market, and after last week’s nearly-KennEgo-free episode, it seems like the producers are determined to shove him down our throats this week, because he’s angrily pulling produce bags off the roll and totally whining about not winning, “I dunno why I end up in the middle!…  (or the bottom, don’t forget those three times you’ve been on the bottom, big boy)… This is a competition, every challenge is game-time!”…

“Just like everything that comes out of my mouth is a cliché!”

Then he goes on to tell us that he’s been through more in his life than just about everybody else (on the planet, apparently) and I thought he was about to trot out his Long Dead Wife™ again and get some more mileage out of her, but no, instead he goes for the other Overused Sympathy Ploy, which is playing the I-Had-Cancer-Card and now he really is dead to me.  I’m sorry, but that has fuckall to do with how good of a chef you can be, and it doesn’t make anyone more deserving of winning a reality TV show.

Let’s go somewhere far more fun, like over to ShortyPants and see how he’s doing trying to figure out what Brazilians like to eat…

this is the face he makes when he finds out it’s not just nearly-hairless vaginas

He remembers this one time when he took his family to a Brazilian steak-house, so he’s going to go with a nice flank steak and maybe some rice & beans, and possibly a prayer.  Hell, he needs a divine ascension just to get the attention of the meat counter guys…

poor little thing

Someone I’m finding it’s hard to feel sorry for is JerseyMoobs, who says he has no idea how to make Indian food, all he knows is he wants to use chicken and that he plans to make his own curry.  I don’t understand why he went with India when he still had fucking China to choose from.  Hello!  Serve that chicken with some orange glaze and you’re done!  Instant Panda Express!  Hey, I bet some Chinese people eat there just to laugh at America and what we think passes for their food.  I know better, I’ve eaten plenty of authentic Chinese food, and no matter what it is, it always still has the eyes attached… and that’s why I love me some Panda Express, you never get deep-fried shrimp or fish or chicken-eyes there.

They head back to the Hiltchen for 2 hours of prep time, and Miss Swan has decided to go with a cold beef carpaccio, thus eliminating the need for her to infuse her meat with Sterno-fumes.  This is a smart move on her part.  It also appears that she is stationed as far away from Bloody Mandy as possible.  This is a smart move on Mandy’s part.

Meanwhile, MassholEd’s tiredly telling us that he’s really “very familiar with the culture and the food” of China.  He looks as white as rice, so how did he come by his deep and intense knowledge of all things Asian?  “I had some Chinese girlfriends in the past…”

“…and they all said how much they loved my big egg roll.”

這個人是像靶垛的孔!  In any case, he’s using his amazing knife skills to open up several packets of green tea that he’s going to use to make “tea-smoked duck breast” along with some pot-stickers.  I guess we’ll all be spared having to look at his egg-roll today.  Buddha be praised.

ChesTiffany’s telling us she picked Mexico because she’s been there several times and also loves all the bold flavors her local Taco Bell has to offer, so she’s making chicken tamales with some radish pico de gallo.  She is determined not to slack off even though she has immunity, and I gotta say, in this bunch that’s quite a rare attitude, cuz you know most of them woulda been making a Mexican Pizza Bell Grande and calling it good.

OranJello’s also working hard, he’s decided to go with a sashimi of tuna, cut into ribbons and served with a unique mixture of avocado and candied wasabi…

which just happens to be the exact same color of his v-neck baby tee

Bloody Mandy got the country she wanted (France) and is going to make the classic dish Beef Bourguignon, and it cracks me up that she pronounces it “boof borgnine” or whatever.  I know that’s the right way to say it, but it still makes me giggle.  Anyhow, she’s adding “pommes fourchette” to it as well as a horseradish mousse.  I don’t know exactly what a “potato fork” is supposed to be, but I’m not French, all I can say with any certainty is “cuillères mène aux fourchettes du RuPaul”.

Nosferatu’s working in the Exiled Assholes portion of the Hiltchen, and he’s really excited that he got to choose Spain because he’s been there, and eaten there and knows a lot about it, so he’s decided to do a three-part dish consisting of veal braised in red wine (this is appropriate as the majority of international diplomats and ambassadors are, you know, not children… MANDY) plus an olive and tomato salad, and finishing off with a torta.  He’s super-impressed with how hard his own menu is going to be.  This leads to MassholEd once again complaining (in his uniquely blunted voice) that Nosferatu is a “fly by the seat of his pants type of chef”.  Normally I would get pissed at him saying this same old tired shit, but then this happens…

…and we see he’s right

Sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but people falling down is funny.  Anyhow, don’t worry, Nosferatu’s okay, he bounced right back up off the floor like Tom Cruise professing his heterosexual love for Katie Holmes.

Remember how JerseyMoobs didn’t know a thing about Indian food?  Well it seems like he’s suddenly gained a whole lot of expertise looking at his little plastic bottles of turmeric and cumin from Whole Paycheck Market, because now he’s telling us his biggest challenge is just knowing how to use the spices and balance them in the blender, and he’s making it sound like no big deal.  He’s planning on making his chicken curry and adding a parsnip & leek purée on the side.  He better hide that shit from Nosferatu while he’s at it.  Then Daddy Tom comes by to fuck chat with him, and remind him that Scar is gonna be there tasting his curry and poor Moobsie’s voice suddenly sounds like Peter Brady’s in puberty, all wobbly and ready-to-shit-his-pants…

all I got to say is this:  you’re the one who picked India, MoobMan

I was hoping we were done having to listen to KennEgo (and his laundry list of tragedies he’s had to overcome) but no, he’s back again telling us how awesome he is at Thai food because he once opened a Thai Pan-Asian restaurant called Kenny’s Suit & Thai.  Okay, I’m kidding about that last part, but I wouldn’t put it past him.  Anyhow, he’s planning on making pork braised in tamarind and a rice noodle salad with thai green curry sauce.  He’s working at the station next to OranJello, and I’m not sure what happens exactly , but suddenly The Citrus One jumps sideways like he almost got stabbed or tased or something, and we hear KennEgo apologizing.  Not cute.

Over in Little White China, MassholEd’s adding extra flavoring to his duck breasts…

mmmmmm, musky!

He’s seriously running all over the kitchen in exactly the same way everybody accuses Bloody Mandy of running all over the kitchen, but I guess it’s okay for him because when he does it, it means important things are happening quickly, and when she does it, it’s just aimless disorganized scampering that is fucking everybody else up.  One thing MassholEd does take the time to do today?  Write his name multiple times on every single piece of Tupperware that contains his food.  Boyfriend is taking no chances around his buddy NosferKleptoRatu.

Back at the Bilious Brownstone, KennEgo and JerseyMoobs take their lives in their hands when they jokingly suggest to ChesTiffany that she clean up after them…

KennEgo’s lucky he didn’t wind up a pair of dirty undies shoved up his bunghole

Ah well, he could have counted it as one of the many, many hardships he’s had to overcome in his life.  In any case, the only other thing that happens here is that JerseyMoobs has a conversation on the Mobile Device Of Death™ with his family and tells us sometimes he has a short temper (flashback to his many tantrums in the kitchen)…

don’t question Daddy or he will give you something to cry about

Oh yeah, and also Miss Swan gets a “care package” in the mail from her husband (like she’s been away at summer camp) and it contains essentials such as a stuffed animal dog, a stuffed kitten, some Skittles, a box of Lemonheads…

and, of course, more booze

She’s getting all weepy as she says the box contains “all of the little things that remind me of home and him and of our life there…”

how helpful of him to include their wedding picture to remind her that she’s married to him!

That is super-sweet of Mr. Swan to do, and she is so moved she even loosens up a little and shares her booze with OranJello, Nosferatu and ShortyPants!  Yay for getting drunk!

The next day they all wake up (hung over with queasy stomachs and sickly throbbing heads and cursing Miss Swan for her successful strategy) and make their way over to the Meridian International Center …

where the statuary embodies exactly how they feel

Eh, international events are a massive fucking headache, too, I bet.  They’ve only got 30 minutes to get their Sterno fired up and 100 plastic dishes plated, and disaster has already struck… you guessed it… Bloody Mandy.  She’s discovering that her boof borgnine has made the trip to the Meridian even drier than it was when she took it out of the pan yesterday.  She’s decided to fix it by cutting it into teeny-tiny pieces and “making sure the sauce is delicious”.  I don’t know how that will rehydrate it, but I rarely understand what the fuck Mandy’s doing anyhow because of two words:  sherry jus.

ShortyPants is also trying to keep his meat moist (ew, I know) and conversely keep his rice dry…

a task which apparently frightens him badly

And he should be scared, because he immediately realizes his rice is completely overcooked.  “I’m praying that the Brazilian National Minister doesn’t walk up to my table” he says glumly.  C’mon, Shorty, show some balls!  Cover the chafing dishes and tell him you’re out of food.

Miss ChesTiffany is also discovering she’s running out of time as she struggles to chop the celery and radishes and habañeros for her superfunkyfresh pico de gallo.  She’s noticed that other people are already plating and she hasn’t even started cutting her tamales yet…

you betta stop picking boogers and haul ass, girl, before they bust you down to working at the Old Maid Supper Club

Their 30 minutes is up and people start arriving and grabbing food.  JerseyMoobs is immediately asked about his Indian food chops, and he tells us his clever way of getting around that is to tell people he’s made “stewed chicken with ‘the flavors of India’ and not curried chicken!”  He looks so smugly self-satisfied about this awesome idea…

that I decide to call him a “large hacky chef with ‘the scent of anus’ and not a giant asshole”

Then the Judges show up, and today besides Daddy Tom, Scar, Gail Simmons and La Marquessa (in a pimp fedora) they introduce a fifth judge, José Andrés…

who introduces himself by way of showing us his failing combover

You can buy Rogaine here, baldy, it’s not illegal like it apparently is in Spain.  Plus, way to name your restaurant after that tiny fridge in your hotel room that sells 8-dollar Oreos.  I’m sure he prices the food at his place accordingly.  Anyhow they’re hungry to start their trip around the world, so they hit China and Da Master Of Da Ass (MassholEd) first…

what’s all that red stuff supposed to be?  is it COMMUNISM SAUCE?  let’s bomb China.

MassholEd doesn’t mention the many Chinese vaginal conquests that were the actual inspiration for his dish, preferring instead to spin some yarn about an old and wise instructor he had back in culinary school who taught him to make it.  Yeah, old men do not inspire people to make their breasts all smoky.  Unless you’re Scar.

They olé their way to Spain and Nosferatu next…

and it’s bad, it’s bad, jamón, you know it

Nosferry claims that he’s really confident to be cooking Spanishy food for a Spanish Spaniard such as José Combovér, but his face tells me his internal dialogue is something like…

hebedeggrrgglleeooppffbbllttfuckmesidewaystilicryboohooweehewowowo

He really doesn’t have much to worry about, because they’ve hit ShortyPants and his Brazilian Rhapsody…

and look how artfully he covered up his shitrice with beef!

Shorty also made sure to get some Brazil nuts to serve with it, mostly because they have the name “Brazil” in them.  Without another word they move on to Miss Swan’s O.G. (Original Guido) Special…

great, it’s infested with Snookisnails

Oh wait, I’m wrong, they’re not orange enough…

that’s much better

And then it’s time to check out JerseyMoobs’ curried chicken stewed chicken with ‘the flavors of India’, which Scar immediately says she is very excited to try…

hopefully she gets just as excited when she comes down with the squittershits

She makes sure to ask him how familiar he is with Indian cuisine, and he honestly answers that he’s throwing darts at the wall hoping one of them sticks doing this all for the very first time.  And with that, the Judges head back to their table to slowly poison themselves.

They start with Miss Swan’s beef carpaccio, La Marquessa calls it “pretty” and Gail likes how Swamonella simplified it by serving it cold.  José Combovér says cold deeshes are dee moss deefeecolt too mage dem tayse reelee gooduh.  Cue the dude from the Italian Embassy who says the dish represents Italy better than he does…

OMG, do you think he’s related to that crazy head-cockin’ Caroline from RHONJ?

Wouldn’t that be weird?  And so not unexpected?  We all know they’re connected to the Old Country.  Anyhow, they move on to MassholEd’s Chinese food, and Scar says there’s a lot of flavor in it, and Lady M says it certainly had a theme, but Mr. Combovér says he feels China ees no beeeeng wail repressainted by dees deesh.  But then Random Smiling Chinese Guy from their Embassy says “da duck bress tase veree ossentic!”…

nice try, but we’re still going to bomb you

I’m kidding about that, but after that new missile they’ve just developed, someone else may not be.  Anyhow, next they try JerseyMoobs’ I Can’t Believe It’s Not Curry! and José Combovér says  he got a nice aroma in the food (which doesn’t really say fuckall about how it tastes) but Scar then says the lentils were tasty on top and she liked the salad, too.  She doesn’t really mention the chicken, I notice, perhaps because it was meant to slip under her Indian Radar?

Scar’s being extra-sweet to ShortyPants, saying she likes the fact that he used coffee in his marinade, but Daddy Tom immediately says the main problem with the dish is that there is very little going on, it’s just rice, beans and steak, and he didn’t even cook the rice properly.  La Marquessa then comes up with about fifty million-billion-trillion-skillion ways Shorty could have done Brazilian food which manages to both demean ShortyPants’ cooking skills and make Marquessa look like a know-it-all asshole at the same time.  Then for some weird reason they ask some Swedish guy what he thought of the Brazilian dish…

they should have asked him to control his bigmouthed homeboy, yo

Finally Scar asks José what he thinks of Nosferatu’s eSpanitch deesh.  Combovér looks uncomfortable as he says he saw what he was trying to do, but it just doesn’t work.  Lady M agrees that it needs “more focus” and Gail says she was hoping for “a bit of a punch” but instead “everything was a little bit muted.”

much like this week’s fugblouse

She needs to stop wearing shit like that or someone really is gonna punch her one of these days.  I hope its Tim Gunn.  At any rate, they’re on to Round Two and start off with a big “Bonjour!” at Bloody Mandy’s Boofwagon…

that somebody jizzed on

She knows she’s fucked before they even walk away, and says she wants to crawl under the table and cry.  I think the rest of the other chefs wish she’d try that too, only with a city bus.  Next up is OranJello’s Japanese Dream…

which manages to look like you’re eating a cartoon drag wig

and is followed immediately by ChesTiffany’s Run For The Border…

which manages to look like a bunch of birds shit all over it

Last (and certainly in his mind never least) we come to KennEgo’s Thailand Triumph…

emphasis on the “umph” sound your tummy will be making

They start out with the Boof Borgnine, and Gail says it needs more boof, wondering why Mandy chose to cut her meat into such teeny tiny little pieces.  José Combovér says if she haad poot da meet on da siyeed and jus yoose da saouse eet mide bee ah purrfeg deesh!

Next they try OranJello’s sashimi, and Combovér just can’t get over how beeyoodeefool dees peese of toonah ees…

like a leetel leemp deeck

He’s hoping it will taste as good as it looks.  Daddy Tom sighs and says while it’s a nice dish, the soy and wasabi is covering up the flavor of the fish, and Japanese cooking isn’t supposed to do that.  I think he just didn’t like eating little limp dicks for lunch.

In any case, they start in on ChesTiffany’s dish, and José immediately says the loog of de deesh remines yoo off Mexico.  Daddy Tom says this is the first time he’s eaten a tamale where you could actually taste the corn husk that it was cooked in, which is great cuz corn husks are so amazingly delicious, I guess?…

these power lesbians certainly thought so

Last dish, KennEgo’s, and Scar says she really likes the flavors in it, and Gail thinks it’s nice that his green curry isn’t too coconutty.  And with that we’re heading back to Judges’ Table (minus La Marquessa, can I get a happy dance?!)!

In tonight’s vignette, OranJello has a little fun by tightly fitting the toilet seat in Saran-Wrap and then listening to a drunk ShortyPants giggle as he pees on his own balls…

which apparently feels better than you think, at least when you’re drunk

I would venture to guess that it’s no fun to wake up to wet balls, but Shorty’s a pretty good sport about it.  KennEgo or MassholEd would have likely murdered someone.

Scar appears like a wraith in the Stew Room and asks for Miss Swan, JerseyMoobs and ChesTiffany, who are the Topsies tonight.  After mutually masturbating each other over how wonderful each of their internationally renowned dishes was, José Combovér gets the honor of handing the win… to ChesTiffany!

who’s so happy she makes with the Jack-In-The-Box-Face™!

I’m happy for her, too, she pulled off a double-win, and she didn’t have to be a bitch to everybody in order to do it.  Plus, I’m also slightly amused that KennEgo missed out on the top spot again, BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyhow, as a special surprise, Scar tells her she’s going to get $10,000.00 from Dial Bodywash (which means ChesTiffany’s wedding is now paid for… provided she doesn’t fuck everything up by letting MassholEd get ahold of her some lonely night).  Scar also says Top Chef is giving a matching $10,000.00 gift in her name to José Combovér’s favorite charity, The D.C. Central Kitchen.  José is shocked and “totsched” by this gesture.

They send them back to have Nosferatu, ShortyPants and MassholEd come in and get reamed.  ShortyPants is up first, with Gail saying the idea for his rice was fine, except it wound up “broken” and “mealy” and “overcooked” and “vomit-inducing”.  Okay, I added that last one.  She goes on to say that when he said he was giving them a chimichurri sauce, he set up their expectations for something completely different, i.e. something that would actually taste good.  Er, I mean, she meant to say that chimichurri is actually Argentinean, not Brazilian.  Daddy Tom says whether it came from Brazil or Argentina, or even the correct continent, if the rice had been cooked properly and the steak hadn’t been dry, he wouldn’t be standing there bleeding from his butthole…

he wouldn’t have won, either, but that’s not the point

Next, Nosferatu gets to hear José Combovér tell him that eating his dish was “lige a leetel nidemayre”.  In the face of such bold criticism, Nosferry decides to backtrack on his earlier confidence that his dish was awesome and say he screwed up (MassholEd rolls his eyes) and couldn’t properly edit himself.  Then he says something about how Daddy Tom told him it didn’t have to be an actual Spanish dish, it just had to be inspired by Spain, and now Daddy’s like “So it’s my fault?”  Hahaha, Nosferatu giggles and says that’s not what he’s implying, even though it kinda is.

Daddy shuts down any further Nosferagiggles when he says the problems were that the meat was dried-out, the sauce was thin and watery and totally unreduced (or even strained!)  Basically, nothing in that plate of food reminded him of Spain, unless he were in prison or something.

As for MassholEd, José claims he actually enjoyed de clom sose on dee deesh, bot he theenk Ayd ovairpromees an ondairdeeleevair.  Also he didn’t like the fact that Massholio described the dish as having sweet’n’sour, when those flavors weren’t anywhere to be found…

“Yoo sock sheet.”

He ain’t kiddin’, but then again, he could be talking about the shitty Viewer Polls this season…

big deal, *I* usually manage to make a mess in my kitchen

After Final Deliberations, the loser tonight is absolutely no surprise, cuz it’s ShortyPants…

awwwwwww

Although to be honest, Nosferatu actually gave him a run for his money in the Race To Get Sent Home First.  In any case, Shorty says he really enjoyed being on Top Chef (i.e. he got to get drunk every damned day) and thinks it was a victory in itself that the Magical Elves chose him over a thousand other people.  Something tells me they’re not likely to make the same mistake next season.

And there we have it!  What did you think of this episode?  Should Nosferatu have been the one to go home instead because his cooking techniques were just about as bad as ShortyPants’?  How much longer do you think Bloody Mandy can hold out before her number finally comes up?  And how many more tragedies do you think KennEgo’s got up his sleeves (besides his under-arm jiggle)?  And are you excited, because next week will be RESTAURANT WARS??!?!

Thanks as always for your patience and your commentary, and we’ll catch up in another couple of days, Kaysies?

Love,  J-Mo  : )