Mention It All - Your Honor, It Wasn’t Juicy (Top Chef)

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Dylan is back with another solo Top Chef recap, and things are getting down to the wire in the kitchen. A color-coordinated quickfire seems to be a high point for a floundering chef, but he again falls short in the emotional elimination challenge. But the biggest question: can Dylan make it through a single episode of this season without crying? 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 and check me, boo. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Mentioned All podcast. I'm Dylan Hafer, and I am back to talk about Top Chef. It's another Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week.

Yesterday, I have the pleasure of recording with our brand new Real Housewife of Atlanta, Sonia Richards-Ross. That interview was going to be out on Monday. I have to say, it was a pleasure for me. as a major, of course, Atlanta fan, but also a big fan of the Olympics. Interviewing a four-time Olympic gold medalist, pretty special, got to say. Definitely check that out on Monday. The Atlanta premieres on Sunday.

I've already seen it. It's a great episode. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. If you're at all on the fence about Atlanta this season, I feel like there's never been a better time to just jump in because the cast, they've done a slight little retool. We're fresh. We're ready to go.

I think it's going to be a great time. A little peek behind the curtain. This is my second time starting this recording because at first I was in my bedroom and then somebody outside the window, it decided to blast a traveling soldier by the chicks. So that is now stuck in my head, but I am back with vengeance to talk about Top Chef. We're all just waiting on the love of a traveling soldier. Oh, wow. It is a Friday.

It feels like a Friday. Woo-hoo. I have to go to the DMV later. So send prayers. But for now, let's get into Top Chef. We are in the wake of restaurant wars. It feels like we're really getting into the home stretch. We have seven chefs left and it's down to the wire. It's starting to feel like a close competition like anybody that's left could have a good day or a bad day and either be gone or be the winner. You never know. For this quick fire, we are greeted by Padma, of course, and guest judge chef Naisha Erington.

And we are doing a vegetarian challenge. Padma is like, you guys, I've been eating so much meat since I've been in Texas. And I have to agree, this season it's like we've had a meat challenge, we've had a biscuit challenge, we've had, there's been a lot of comfort food, I would say. And while the elimination challenge this week is more of that, Padma's like, give me just one day where I can eat a vegetable. And this is that day. Each chef has to make a vegetarian dish using items only from one color palette. So they draw knives for their colors and they each have to make a monochromatic dish. And importantly, this is the last immunity of the season. So the colors,

I didn't, it was kind of wild to me. Everybody has a different color. We have seven different colors, a full rainbow. I feel like there are Certain colors that are more kind of favorable than others maybe. I mean, like, DeMargates green, which you would think would be easy because it's like, oh, yeah, like greens, like vegetables. But at the same time, it's like you have to make a whole dish of that. It can't just be like a bed of lettuce and then broccoli on top and then, you know, some cucumber. Like, it has to be delicious. Everyone's a little jealous of Nick because he has orange, which means he can use sweet potatoes.

Evelyn has black. She's kind of like, what do I do? Also, every black vegetable, which news to me that they're like all of these black vegetables out there in the world. But she points out that when you cut into them, they're like white on the inside. And that is Buddha's color. So she can't be, she can't be presenting like a white dish. But basically this just sounds, again, stressful to me. I'm like, it's lucky for me if I can eat one vegetable. So the fact that you're putting together like six different ones, all the same color to make a dish, again, Every time I watch this show and then talk about it, I feel like I just am more and more deeply reminded of how horrible I would be at competing on this show.

The lowest performers in this Quickfire are Nick and Ashley, though I do like that we get to hear about Nick's nonprofit that he has in Mississippi to get kids to eat more vegetables. This is a perfect opportunity for him to plug that, and I'm glad he got to. But, you know, they didn't have the strongest dishes. Ashley's curried cauliflower puree. I actually thought looked fine. But then she tried to add a crispy component right at the end with some freeze-dried peach. Can't do that.

The top performers were Buddha, Damar, and Evelyn. And Luke got an honorable mention, which I will say at the beginning of this week's episode, I was looking through who we all had left. And I was like, okay, I could tell you some front runners for sure. I feel like Evelyn's up there, Buddha's up there, Jay's up there on a good day. Damar, but like the one person that was kind of sticking out to me, like, what are they still doing here? It was Luke. It was Luke. It felt important for him to get that little shout out from Padma, but at the same time, there are seven of them. She named three people that were in the top,

and then Luke got an honorable mention. So like, he was really smack dab in the middle. You know, he wasn't in the bottom three, but he also was not in the top three. Demar, of course, is the winner. which means he has the last immunity of the season. That's very exciting. I feel like the last couple, few weeks we've really sort of gotten to see more of Demar's talents unfolding. And so while maybe for the first sort of section of the competition, I felt like we hadn't really gotten to know him that well or gotten to sort of,

he didn't seem like a standout performer maybe. Now I feel like he's really getting in there. He's coming down the back. I could see him making it to the final for sure. We'll see. We'll see, we'll see. 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 sandals 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.

In our elimination challenge this week, we have guest judges, Don and Kwame. This is a very fun pairing. I like both of them a lot. Kwame looks very, he shows up to the judging with his nails painted and he's wearing this gold, like, mesh sleeve thing on glove on one hand. He looks drippy, if you will. I'm loving this. Again, you know, I always love the guest judge All-Stars.

coming back. Always great. And I'm really excited by the theme this week. It is a Juneteenth-inspired fundraiser they're doing at this church in the Friedman's town in Houston. So it's like this culture that was created by former slaves. And they are really paying homage to that. And they're at this church that has been preserved. And they're creating a dish for 100 people at this fundraiser that speaks to their soul. And I like that they're doing this angeles. And I like that they're doing this angle where it's like inspired by this one culture, but they're still letting the chefs make something that speaks to them on a personal level. Because I think if you had said, like, okay, each of you make seven of these like Texas Friedman's inspired dishes, it would have been

a little bit like creatively stunted. And some of them wouldn't have been able to embrace their full culinary identity. But we have everybody taking inspiration. Evelyn is cooking for her recently passed grandmother. Buddha's cooking for his dad that we find out, we find out his dad died a week before he got the call to be on top chef. And that, I mean, Buddha's like my, my baby boy at this point. And I, Buddha and Evelyn really are my, are my two faves, I think, right now. And so seeing them both be so emotional about what they're doing and really opening up about their families, I just am, oh, I'm for clumped. But Jay is,

you know, making her dish that is like her mom's thing that she flew from Korea to New Orleans and made for her after being on the plane for 20 hours. Really, really, really. Everybody, I feel like is digging deep for this challenge. And something about the way Top Chef does this, it's like, I feel like on some other shows. If they did a challenge that was like, draw on your family, whatever, it would feel very like engineered sob story for the cameras. Something about this challenge. I think because the food is so good that it's like, oh no, this. This is real. This is real.

Ashley is pulling together both of her parents' upbringings doing a low country crab rice with oyster gravy. Demar is making collard greens and hoagakes. And I mean, Damar's dish, you guys, it looks so good. Ashley's dish looked really good too. Luke, I'm not so sure he's making some kind of Danish meat. Okay. Luke for me. I was confused. I feel like we were using the terms meatloaf and meatball interchangeably.

And maybe this is a Danish thing. Correct me if I'm, I'm part Danish actually, but I don't not in a way that I like know anything about it, just in like a 23 and meat kind of way. Meatloaf, meatball, not the same food, not to me. Personally, I love a meatball. I need a meatball all day. Meatloaf was one of my least favorite food. growing up. My mother is a great cook. I was a picky eater as a child, which Luke says he was too. Meatloaf. I had this like vendetta against it in my mind and it was one of those things where I had like this is this, pardon if this is TMI. I had like a gag reflex when I put meatloaf in my mouth and it was not always pretty. But so it was odd for me to see Luke referring to a meatball and a meatloaf interchangeably.

And I don't know where we really landed. And perhaps the judges don't either because he gets kind of puzzling critiques because it's like there wasn't enough sauce. It was too crispy. I liked the flavors, the texture. Like, it feels like it didn't really come together. And perhaps if he had been more clear in his mind about whether it was a meatloaf or a meatball, that could have been avoided. I don't know. I know clearly, as we've established, I know fucking nothing.

But I do, you know, I love these events where it's like out in the community. people have paid to come to this fundraiser. It's all going to a good cause. Our friend Kendrick Samson stops by, aka Nathan from Insecure, who is, let me just say, so hot, but after watching all of Insecure, I can't with him. Like a red flag immediately triggers in my mind. And I'm like, uh-uh, fuck boy. Uh-uh. I know that's my personal problem. It was very fun to see him out there supporting. He says he's born and raised in Houston. Love that for him. I feel like, like he and like Kwame are friends. Like I want to like be a fly on the wall as they're going to get drinks and like are they like has Kendrick Samson met Maya from Summerhouse? Quame's ex? I need to

know. I should do some digging. But anyway, we get to the judge's table and overall a great bunch, a great bunch of dishes. This is a week where nobody really like screwed the pooch. Obviously there are critiques. There are criticisms. I think that's one thing that this, the judging panel on this show excels at is that they can give a constructive criticism with the nuance of saying, like, I liked your dish. It tasted good. All I wish is that this texture would have been better, or this flavor would have been more prominent, or this component of the dish didn't need to be there. I think they do a great job of that. Like, with Buddha, they're saying, we just wanted a little more spice, a little more flavor,

perhaps a little bigger portion. With Nick's salmon cake, they're doing the same thing. The criticisms are granular at this point, which is the way it should be. Everyone here is talented. But they loved DeMar. They loved Evelyn and they loved Jay. To me, those three plus Buddha are kind of like the top four at this point. I like Ashley a lot. I think she obviously has had some strong moments she won last week.

I think Ashley is a little bit more of like a good day, bad day type of person. I think Nick is sort of similar. And then Luke, Luke's meat loaf ball just doesn't get across the finish line. As Gail says, it wasn't juicy. And I feel like that is, that is a tough thing to come back from him. Because if you ain't juicy, go home. It's time. Luke does get sent home.

I have to say, he was not, he was not a nemesis for sure. I didn't find him offensive in any way the way I have some of these other contestants in the past on this season. But it was, I feel it was his time. Jay wins the challenge. Oh, Jay. Sweet Jay. I, oh, I'm so happy for her. I'm happy for everyone.

I just, I'm rooting for everyone. That's not true. That's not true. At this point in the competition, I'm rooting for everyone. I wasn't in the past. And you all know that. We know. We know who I wasn't rooting for.

But at this point, I'm team everyone. I'm team good food. I'm team Pad Miguel and Tom enjoying themselves judging this season. And I'm team us getting through this season together. It's been so fun. Always a pleasure. Thank you for listening. And don't forget

to rate, review, and follow the show so you never miss an episode. 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. Guest booking by Nicole Pellegrino. Be sure to follow at Bravo by Betches on Instagram and Twitter. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava theater stage on April 30th. The powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th. And the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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