If you don't want me to spoil anything for you, or if you simply don't watch this show and don't care, then stop reading right now. That's your warning.....
Why is it that the person who should win Top Chef never winds up winning? They choke, they make bad decisions, whatever it is, it always winds up with the winner being the person that makes you say, Ugh.
So it was down to Hosea, Carla, and Stefan. I, like many people, were rooting for Carla. She's warm, funny, genuine - and the woman can cook! I kind of wrote her off in the beginning, but she kept getting better and better. She really hit her stride over the last 4 or 5 episodes and I was hoping she'd win it. Stefan is the cocky chef from Europe (Finland, I think) and there's no doubt he's good. Very consistent all the way, but his attitude is off-putting. Hosea seems like a pretty good chef too, but he was totally obsessed with beating Stefan the whole time. It got annoying.
They wound up bringing back 3 losers (former contestests who were 2nd or 3rd place) to be their sous chefs. Hosea had Richard, Stefan had Marcelle, and Carla had Casey. This was the beginning of the end for Carla, and I blame Casey for it! She talked Carla out of doing the food she was originally intending to do. Carla's a comfort food kind of chef but Casey talked her into preparing a steak sous-vide style. WTF? Who does steak sous vide?! Seafood or poultry might work sous vide, but not steak. Steak, you need the smoke and char from a grill to give it the right flavour and texture. Plus, Carla had never done it before. Why would you do it if you've never tried it before? sigh.
And then on her dessert plate, Casey talked her out of a tarte and into doing a blue cheese souffle. As soon as I heard souffle, I was like, nooooo!!! Why do the things that will fail miserably if not the perfect, perfect conditions? Oh Carla, what were you thinking? She's not a sous vide or a souffle girl, yet that meddling Casey tried to comanndeer her menu. Though of course, it's not really Casey's fault, is it? No one put a gun to Carla's head and she could've just said, no, I'm going to do my food my way. So that was the end for Carla.
Hosea's food looked okay, except for the sashimi. I don't really get the deal with that, but maybe it just tasted really good. His venison dish just looked too simple. His appy looked good though. I've just never been convinced that he's a top chef, at any point during the season. It's too bad Fabio got booted out last week instead.
Stefan's stuff looked alright too, but they were really trashing his dessert, saying it was very 1982. Really? It didn't look that way to me. If I were presented with that plate, I'd have been quite happy with it! But obviously, these are food snobs, so you've got to impress them.
I think the problem with how they determine winners is that they judge solely on this one meal, not taking into consideration the previous work or consistency throughout the competition. Also, I don't like how they make them rush the cooking. If you're going to judge who makes the best food, then let them take their time to prepare something amazing. Don't turn it into "who can make the best food in a short amount of time with ingredients they don't know (like alligator)." What's the point of that? That should've been one of the challenges, not the finale.
So anyway, Carla screwed herself out of the competition by following Casey's meddling suggestions. And so it was down to Stefan and Hosea. I don't particularly like either of them, but I would say that at least Stefan was consistent the entire competition and won most of the challenges. Unfortunately, Hosea won Top Chef. UGH. Again, the undeserving chef won the competition. (I still think that Marcelle was robbed in season 2.) He basically squeaked by the whole competition and then got lucky that others made mistakes. Would you rather win because others made mistakes, or would you rather that everyone put out the best, and that yours really was the best of the best?
Just saying.
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