Top Chef: Restaurant Wars

I'm elbow deep in household projects and don't have a lot of time to blog. Six days later, here are a few random thoughts about Restaurant Wars:

Quickfire:
- I was blown away at what those chefs could do in 30 minutes. In 30 minutes, I couldn't have even decided what to make. Radhika's dish looked wonderful and she did a great job explaining her concept. I wasn't surprised that she won. Leah was more of a surprise.
- Jamie wanted to do seasonal, local, sustainable ingredients, and then she cooked Chilean Sea Bass, which is a politically incorrect dish. Maybe she was serious that she didn't want to win the Quickfire?

The "Chemistry": The thing I noticed about the shots of the "snogging" between Leah and Hosea is that it looked like the video was shot around a wall. My hunch is that they didn't know they were on camera when they were on the couch. Then there are interviews with Hosea and Leah, who appeared to be genuinely guilty and regretful. I wonder if they didn't know they had been caught on camera, and once asked questions about it, were freaking out. Their behavior was not cool, but if that's the way it went down, it's also an uncool way to run a show.

Sunset Lounge:
- How is "Sunset Lounge" the name of an Asian restaurant?
- Would anyone think less about Bridgewater Restaurant knowing their freezers and ovens don't work well? Either way, Stefan coming up with a solution to the freezers without freaking out was badass. At least he has the skills to back up his ego.
- Fabio: "I run the front of the house. We can serve monkey ass in empty clam shell ... we gonna ween thees one." He is SO STINKING ADORABLE! He could probably sell me on monkey ass. As someone said, he was "Fabio-less!"
- The appetizers didn't appeal to me but the entrees looked good. The desserts were gorgeous, as were the mango and chocolate lollipops.
- In his interviews about the restaurant, Hosea seemed to distance himself from Leah. I'll bet he would have thrown Leah under the bus. I'm liking him less and less.

Sahana:
- Great name for a restaurant.
- Poor Radhika appeared to have had no leadership skills. She has done so well in the competition for her food, but didn't seem to put her vision into the restaurant. She was smart to lean on Jamie in the kitchen, but she should have told Jeff to do the front of the house.
- The appetizers and entrees looked wonderful. TOO BAD about Carla's desserts.
- "A train wreck is coming, Lord have mercy I know it is," said Carla about her desserts. "I wasn't happy with what I put out, but I had a good time," she says later. I so like her personality. Honest, funny, positive people are a treasure -- we could all use more Carlas around us. By contrast is the sneering judge from Britain -- I'm not going to bother remembering his name. As an example, about Carla's yogurt: "It reminded me of the career of Elvis Presley. It started off incredibly well..." "... and died on the toilet," finishes the other guest judge. HEY!!!! ELVIS PRESLEY IS AN AMERICAN ICON AND BELOVED DECADES AFTER HIS DEATH. SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT ELVIS!!!!

In the end, a young woman who clearly has a ton of talent went home. Too bad. Me? I would have sent that British judge packing.