Top Chef
Top Chef

Episode Report Card
Kim: B | 538 USERS: C-
YOU GRADE IT
Frozen Food

Beverly admits that she's never used an icepick, as Padma explains that they only have an hour to thaw their food and cook it. Sarah interviews that she has to win this challenge, because she doesn't want to go head-to-head with Beverly in the final challenge. Is she admitting that Beverly is not a terrible chef? That would be a first.

Paul and Beverly run right for the crab legs, but Paul gets there first. Beverly says that some of the ingredients are so frozen in the ice that you can't even tell what they are. They start tossing blocks of ice around and Beverly grabs a pan and starts whacking the ice with it, which doesn't seem very effective. Sarah doesn't have her block of ice in the sun, which seems like a tactical disaster and she's having trouble getting her ingredients out. Paul starts helping Sarah and Beverly smash ice blocks, even though he already has all of his own ingredients. Sarah explains that she chose mostly vegetables for her ingredients because they can thaw as they cook. I don't even know how any of them are supposed to have a decent dish from this disaster.

Sarah is making a soup but the cream was frozen so her soup separates. She starts blending it like a madman, trying to get the cream integrated into the broth. I feel like that rarely works out, but she doesn't have enough time or ingredients to do anything else. And then time is up.

The judges approach Sarah first. She made pea and spinach soup with turmeric, almonds, and King crab. It should be noted that Paul gave her the King crab. Padma asks what the hardest part of the challenge was, and Sarah says it was finding ingredients and then dealing with the frozen cream. Tom tastes mostly spinach, and he thinks that's a good thing. Well, she didn't advertise it as crab soup, so that's good. Gail thinks the almonds are a little heavy. Tom likes the crab, and knows that was Paul's doing.

Next up for tasting is Paul, who made poached King crab, toasted almonds, and mango chutney with orange marmalade. Gail likes the mango, but admits that it was still a little bit frozen. Skeleton dude thought the crab and almonds were exceptional. And that's all we hear about Paul for now.

And finally, Beverly served seared scallop with red wine reduction, buttered peas, corn, and couscous. Skeleton guy asks if she was thinking of any of the other cheftestants while she was hacking away at the ice with a pick, and Gail says she probably was. That says to me that the food is terrible, since they're showing this instead of people talking about the food. Gail thinks the sear on the scallop was good, but the sauce was a little heavy. Padma thought the couscous was good. I feel like if they don't show Tom's comments, it means the dish wasn't good, since he's typically the most honest.

Top Chef

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