by Arthur Perkins
 
The Super Bowl is upon us and the creators of Top Chef were able to anticipate this by filming an episode probably last September to make it appear that SuperBowl Sunday was imminent. However, this episode starts with a more mundane product placement in association with Quaker Oats. The Guest Judge for the whole episode is Scott Conant of Scarpetta Restaurant. The chefs have to pick a position on a board which will determine the one of 7 food groups which they will work with. Then on the top of that column, wherever it is, is a "secret ingredient" that has to be used along with the food group. This could lead to some varied results for sure, but the catch is that all of the secret ingredients are Quaker Oats oatmeal. Now most of the contestants are pretty blah about that, but Carla states that she eats Quaker Oatmeal 4 times a week (actually I eat a competitor brand more often than that). The dishes concocted in 45 minutes are:
 
Jaime(Fruits) - coconut oat-crusted shrimp, nectarine salsa, avocado crème fraiche
Fabio(Vegetables) - rolled fried eggplant crusted w/ oats, corn and parmesan salad
Stefan(Dairy) - banana mousse with almond petit fours
Carla(Nuts) - pecan and oat-crusted tofu w/ oatmeal and lentil salad
Jeff(Poultry) - oat-crusted chicken paillard w/grits and fried zucchini
Hosea(Meats) -   wiener schnitzel w/ oat crust, warm potato salad and mustard sauce
Leah(Seafood) - oat crusted branzino and mussels w/ escarole and bacon
 
The losers group was Leah, Jeff and Fabio. Leah's fish was overcooked (opposite of last episode) and clashed with the bacon flavor was too strong, Jeff had to many brown colors, and Fabio too much oat taste due to method of encrusting.
The winners group was Carla, Jaime and Stefan. Stefan is the designated Winner and his reward is to pick the opponent and city for the Top Chef Bowl.
 
Top Chef Bowl
The elimination challenge has been renamed this week in honor of the Super Bowl. It is a cookoff between the Top Chef All-Stars, with that group including nobody who had finished 1, 2 or 3 in the past 4 years and obviously trying to showcase some chefs who have received less publicity since they "graduated" from top Chef. They are:
Spike (season 4)
Andrea (4)
Josie (2)
Andrew (1)
Camille (3)
Nikki (4)
Miguel (1)
 
The NFL cities whose key ingredients are supplied and whose cuisine is going to be attempted are Green Bay, Miami, Dallas, Seattle, New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. That's an interesting range of regional cuisines. First is the pairing. Stefan gets to pick opponent, which is Andrea, and city, which is Dallas. The remaining chefs for each team have to huddle just like an NFL team and have 5 minutes to determine who gets which city. That results in these pairings:
 
New York Leah vs. Nikki
Miami Jeff vs. Josie
Green Bay Fabio vs. Spike
Seattle Hosea vs. Miguel
San Francisco Jaime vs. Camille
New Orleans Carla vs. Andrew, the motor mouth bad-mouthing the entirety of Season 5 as inferior to his Season 4
Dallas Stefan vs. Andrea
 
The scoring system was mostly logical(for a judges tie I would have split the touchdown points into half). There are 4 judges votes; if they split 3 to 1 or 4 to 0 that's scores a touchdown and 7 points for the winning chef. Then 5 secret fans in the gallery are asked for their votes, which determine which of the contestants get a field goal for 3 points. With a 2 to 2 judges vote, the fan vote will determine who gets all 10 points from both touchdown and field goal; that a bit nonsensical to have your closest competitions result in the widest point differential, but so be it.  I am going to guess that the judges are going to work to make sure neither team wins before the last opportunity (isn't this Hell's Kitchen and the way that is supposed to work?). Each pair gets the prior evening to prep and then 20 minutes to cook at the Institute for Culinary Education. Here are the dishes and actual scoring:
 
Leah - NY strip steak w/ creamed corn, snap peas and arugula salad
Nikki - chicken livers w/ onions and goat cheese on challah
Outcome - Leah wins the judges 3-1, Nikki the fans, scoring 7-3 for Season 5
 
Hosea - crispy salmon roll w/ ginger and blackberry sauce
Miguel - cedar plank salmon w/ noodles and mushrooms
Hosea wins the judges 3-1, plus fans as well, scoring 10-0 for season 5
 
Carla - crawfish and andouille gumbo over ground-ground grits
Andrew- crayfish crudo w/ spicy lime vinaigrette
Carla wins the judges 4-0 (take that and shut up, Andrew), Andrew salvages a field goal win as fan preference, scoring 7-3 for season 5
 
Stefan - roasted pork w/ coleslaw, NY steak with corn, pepper and pesto salad
Andrea - TexMex chili w/ crispy fried corn chips and guacamole coleslaw
The judges tie 2-2, so all 10 points from fan preference go to Andrea, scoring 10-0 for all-Stars (and note that Stefan asks Andrea to call him and this will be his first losers' group trip to losers' table and that Andrew has a wickedly funny impression of Stefan just after)
 
Jamie - crab cioppino w/ olives, basil and toasted sourdough
Camille - miso sweet potato mash w/ mustard crab meat and salad
The judges tie 2-2, all all 10 points from fan preference go to Jamie, scoring 10-0 for season 5
 
Jeff - rock shrimp ceviche w/ sangria sorbet
Josie - warm rock shrimp ceviche w/ papaya
The judges vote for Josie 3-1 and the fans prefer her dish too, scoring 10-0 for All-Stars
At this point there is one pair left and a 10-0 victory for Spike will win it for All-Stars; any other outcome means victory for Season 5
 
Fabio - venison in mustard sauce w/ mache salad and cheddar cheese
Spike - 5 spice venison w/ port reduction and micro herb salad
The judges vote 3-1 for Spike but the fans save Season 5 by voting for a Fabio field goal
 
Final score: Season 5 37, All-Stars 33, similar to real NFL scores. This putts Fabio, Jeff and Stefan on the bubble.
 
Winners group includes all 4 in Season 5 who won. Carla was told that Toby tasted the love this time and Tom loved the flavor and considered it smart to infuse reductions of the shells into the gumbo. Tom tells Hosea that he managed to take an egg roll and cook the salmon inside it to perfect medium rare. Scott says Jaime is meticulous, which pays off in her flavors. Leah was told she had a good simple dish (which I call damning with faint praise). Scott gets to declare the winner, who is Carla. She wins 2 tickets to the Super Bowl!
 
Next we come to the losers' group. My bet is that it will be Jeff because the producers are not going to allow the other 2 (who are both final 3 material) to be eliminated just yet. I actually think Fabio's dish was the worst by a small amount. Stefan had a good dish that was beat by a slightly better dish and he should not be in jeopardy here. Jeff is told that his dish did not have a ceviche flavor; Tom says it was watered down. Jeff argues that he did "19 things" more and he disliked paper plates, but he gets no sympathy. Tom says "he went down and he went down hard." Fabio is told by Tom he completely overcooked the venison. He claims that the meat when finished was not overcooked, but standing caused it to do so. Scott tells him that the greens were wilted and the cheese was questionable. Stefan was told that he did not have strong flavors. It is possible that the producers intervened to create this outcome although there is a 50% chance that that was the conclusion of the judges. Jeff is eliminated.

(Photo courtesy NBC)

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