Mention It All - Heartbreak At The Night Market (Top Chef)

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Dylan is in mourning for this week’s Top Chef recap, after the Asian night market challenge proves disastrous for one of his early season favorites. He unpacks all the action and which dishes look the most delicious on the latest episode, and also unpacks his trauma from having to grocery shop for himself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ha ha, laugh, funny. Mention It All. A Bravo by Betches podcast. We don't say that, but now we said it. With Dylan Hafer. We'll go check me, though. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Mention at All podcast.

I'm Dylan Hafer, and I am back for another Friday Top Chef recap. Before we start today, I am in a little bit of a somber mood. And if you already watched the Top Chef episode from this week, you will know why. But I won't spoil it until we get to the end. But if you want to console me, feel free for the low, low price of $50 to purchase a cameo from Jenny Wynn's daughter, Carlin. Just kidding, please don't do that. That is my absolute worst nightmare.

And I would really like somebody to get Carlin off of cameo, please. For tonight's episode of Top Chef, we are skipping the quickfire. There is no quickfire this week. We are getting straight into the elimination challenge, and it is an Asian-inspired night market. I don't know how I feel about the lack of quickfire. fire. I kind of like having a couple different things to focus on each episode, but at the same time, I get that this is a pretty involved challenge. They're each making their own dish, so there's a lot to get through. You know, it is what it is. I think I prefer a quick fire, but I understand in this

context why we maybe didn't have time. So we learn that one fifth of the Houston population is made up of various different Asian communities. And these night markets that happen in Houston sometimes are a way of bringing Asian food culture, all of that to Houston, which is super cool. So in the kitchen, they have 10 of the best local Asian chefs from Houston. And they are teaching our contestants about some of the different cuisines. So everybody has to draw their cuisine on a knife. And we have one of our all stars that's back is Chef Hung, the winner of Top Chef Miami. He's like way back in the day throwback. So it's fun that they're really bringing back a lot of different people. He asks if anyone is afraid to cook Indian food for Padma. I raised my hand at home, even though

nobody's asking me to cook Indian food for Padma. But the assignments are Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Japanese cuisines. I feel like for the most part, people are not that stressed out about these assignments. You know, there's a couple people that are like, I don't know what Indian food is. You know, not everybody is in their area of necessarily, but it's not quite as bad as it is sometimes where they're like, I have no idea how to cook this food. So Joe gets Filipino food, which is her native cuisine, so she's very excited about that. Otherwise, I feel like they're pretty evenly split, you know, like Buddha gets Indian and he grew up in Malaysia with, I think his mom is Indian. So, you know, there's like some good, some good

little dynamics going here. But everyone is kind of on an even playing field for the most part. So they're going to be serving 100 guests and they get to shop at a specialty market. Padma instructs them to use their BMWx5s to navigate the streets of Houston. I love the product placement. It's anything but subtle. But you know what? It makes me feel home. It makes me feel comfortable. I want to be in a BMWx5. If anybody from the BMW team is listening to this and you want to send me a BMWX5, I would say I'm open to that. So hit me up in a five-star review. Let me know and I'll send you the address to forward that BMW to. So, We have our little cooking lessons. Sarah's allergic to chelfish, but she's feeling reckless.

She's not going to let it get in the way. Joe, like I said, is used to eating Filipino food. So she's confident, but also nervous because she reminds us, lots of people on Top Chef have gone home cooking their cuisine. You know, it's not a free pass like you might think it is. So she's a little nervous. My baby Sam, he's passionate about teaching kids to cook. He's learning about Vindaloo. He learns that Ali means potatoes, so he's going to make Sam Alu. I can't think about it right now. But so the tasting stations are fun. You know, Jackson's still talking about having COVID.

He can't taste anything. Honestly, grow up, get a life, get over it. But so they are grocery shopping for 100 people, which is just the most stressful thing I can imagine. I cannot grocery shop for my family of one. That is me, myself, and I. I go in the grocery store and I'm like, I guess I'll get like chips, apples, cereal, ice cream. You know, I, it is such a struggle for me to even leave the store with like

four cohesive things that I can put on a plate together, let alone a hundred portions worth of food. And we see later at the prep station, Jay has 35 different ingredients. Like, I couldn't go in a store and even pick out 35 different things that could possibly go in the same dish together. And she's set up at this little fucking tent with her little plastic containers. And I just don't understand how do people do this? I know I've watched this show before. I've seen other cooking shows. You know, I've seen Gordon Ramsey screaming at people for, you know, overcooking the risotto. That's how he says. I know it's a risotto. But like, it's just so unfathomable to me. And I guess, you know, Tom and Gail and Badma are a little bit like, girl, what are you doing? But to see so many

different ingredients, I'm like, it stresses me out to have to put like three things on a sandwich. I just, I don't want to talk too much about how bad I am at cooking because, honestly, it will depress me. But so, yeah, they're in the kitchen. They're prepping. And then the next day, they're going to have one hour to prep on site. You know, honestly, the cooking process for this challenge is not that interesting. I feel like we don't necessarily. We don't necessarily. necessarily get a lot of drama in the kitchen per se, aside from my sweet sweet Sam, when they're packing up their prep stations to go to the place where they're going to have the night market. He forgets his potatoes. They're like sitting in the little thing on the stove, the bowl. Oh my God.

And you're just watching it. And I just, it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But we're going to persevere. We're going to talk about these tastings because there's lots of great food happening. Sorry, wow, I need to get it together. What the fuck is happening? Oh my God. I promise I'm okay. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those same. candles you can wear all day and all night.

And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. So Sam is now going to grill his potatoes, which sounds great, right? Sounds great. Jay has her 35 ingredients.

The judges arrive. Gail looks stunning with the slick back power pony. Padma has her ACLU pin on her jacket. we love to see it. And they go through one by one tasting these foods. And honestly, most of it looked delicious. Evelyn has a little Vietnamese chicken salad on a crisp. I'm not even a chicken salad person, but that looked quite delicious. So Luke and Buddha both make samosas. And honestly, when they were talking about it, I was like, I think Buddha's going to make the better samosa, partially because I like him more. You know, like, when you like someone, you're always like,

I bet they're going to do good. But also, he was saying his mom is part Indian. Like, I thought he was going to kind of have a good handle on it. But his samosa really falls short of Luke's. Luke does a crab and corn samosa. Buddha has chicken in it. But Buddha fries his puff pastry, which is apparently very displeasing to the judges. I'm a little confused because I believe Luke also fried his samosa, but maybe he used a different kind of pastry. I don't know. Again, this is something where I'm like, I listen to what the judges are saying. I take it in, but that doesn't mean I understand it. Nick does a Japanese, like, fried chicken, which looks incredible. Jay does a Chinese stir-fried udon noodle. That looks delicious. There are some stumbling blocks, though.

Ashley does a Chinese beef skewer, and the beef is, you know, a little chewy, a little tough. And also, she has these dicon radishes that are just like, it's like a big chunk of hunk of radish. And I mean, this is something where I'm clearly, I'm no expert, if you've, listened this far. But normally I would expect that to be like shaved or, you know, sliced thin. And I don't want like a cube of radish in my mouth. That sounds gnarly. But yeah, everybody for the most part, I would say does a pretty good job. There's Robert does a Filipino chicken thigh. Monique does a little rice cake with beans and pork belly. That sounds particularly delicious to me. DeMarg gets a lot of praise for his hamhawk miso soup. A lot of people are doing interesting things

with the cuisines kind of giving their own spin on it or putting a little bit of their own kind of cuisine into it. Evelyn does a little avocado crema on her Vietnamese food, which like they end up really liking. But that brings us to Sam. His Sam Alu with the grilled potato is universally disliked by the judges. They basically are like, why'd you grill the potato? And he's like, I'm trying something new. Okay. Spoiler alert. It's not a spoiler. You're listening to this. Sam goes home. And the thing for me is I don't really get his strategy of he never admits or tells the judges that the grilled potato wasn't the plan. Like, we all saw him leave those boiled potatoes behind at the prep kitchen. So the grilled potato

was fully like plan C, whereas he's telling the judge is like, I wanted to try something new. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be out there and creative. And it's like, yeah, that was your like backup plan. But I feel like he almost makes himself seem a little bit foolish for thinking that the grilled potato would be good. When in reality, I feel like if he told the judge is like, look, look, look, look, look, I know this isn't the way it's supposed to be done. I was in a pinch and I tried something. And, you know, I was being creative. I was being enterprising and it didn't work out. I just feel like that might have been received a little bit more warmly by the judges. But overall, yeah, he's in the bottom with Buddha and Ashley, and he is sent home. Full disclosure,

I'm recording this a little early, so I have not seen Last Chance Kitchen yet. So I'm on pins and needles waiting to see if Sam is going to stick around in Last Chance Kitchen. I'll let you know on next week's episode. But getting to the tops of the week, we have Evelyn, Jackson, and Jay. They all did a great job. Honestly, aside from the three in the bottom, maybe nobody did like a horrible job. This has been a pretty solid season so far. Jay wins the challenge and she wins $10,000. Padman doesn't tell us who the $10,000 is furnished by. I feel like I'm like floating in the wilderness without knowing who is furnishing this cash prize. But overall, I'm very happy for Jay. She seems very sweet and fun. And also she is Korean, but she was making Chinese food

for the first time. And so that was really, it's exciting. It's always fun on this show to see somebody really succeed at something they haven't done before. It's similar. Jackson, who is not one of my favorites, he said that he had never made Vietnamese food before, and so he only really knew about fa, which is delicious, but that's not a street food. So he kind of converted some like fah flavors into a spring roll, which is really smart and good for him. I still don't like him. But, you know, we're all about learning, growing, caring, sharing here. So maybe Jackson can redeem himself in my eyes. But I think you should stop talking about having COVID because let's be honest, nobody cares. That's going to do it for today.

Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to rate review and follow the show. You can follow us on Instagram at Bravo by Betches. And until next time, be cool. Don't be all like uncool. Mention It All is produced by Sean Kilby and Jorge Morales Pico. Editing by Sean Kilby. Social media by Dylan Hafer.

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