Top Chef All-Stars Recap: Fondue and Fallons



Blais, whose cockiness is all of a sudden more than just his rooster-like hairstyle, decides to pull an Angelo and does exactly what heâ€™s told not to do.Â  Tiffany does the same, and Blais calls the effort â€œpedestrian.â€Â  Iâ€™m pulling for this guy (especially after tonightâ€™s elimination), but heâ€™s all of a sudden acting like a dick.Â  The rest of the chefs get a little more creative, especially Dale, who makes a pho version of fondue, and the Black Hammer, who makes a fromage blanc and crÃ¨me fraiche fondue served with smoked salmon on toast.Â  Both of these get the most votes, along with Angelo, who makes a fondue that requires instructions on how to eat it (at least he didnâ€™t paint â€œFONDOOâ€ on the table this time around), but itâ€™s Dale who takes another win, this time netting a trip to Napa and making this competition his to lose.Â  The bores of the bunch were Fabio, Tiffany, and Isabella, who is accused by Antonia of being a one-trick pony that would be lost without Moroccan spices.Â  Registering in the deadband between winner and loser is Blais, who claims that a guest judge would have given his fondue pot the win.Â  At some point between this week and last, I guess he woke up and realized that he was all of a sudden (or has always been) better than the rest of the cheftestants.Â  Like I said, heâ€™s being a dick.

Next, the cheftestants head to the Jimmy Fallon show to play cell phone shootout, taking pictures of Jimmyâ€™s favorite foods so they can poison, er, cook for him.Â  All of the dishes are straightforward save for beef tongue, giving the chefs plenty of opportunity to fuck them up.Â  After Carla nearly has a heart attack over chicken pot pie, theyâ€™re kicked off the set and sent to Whole Foods/Colicchio & Sons for the shopping/cooking.Â  Carla continues to freak throughout the cooking, annoying the rest of the competitors, but yielding results in the dining room and showing that there is a direct correlation between her gangly flailing and the success of her dishes.Â  Hootie!Â  The rest of the cheftestants overthought things a bit, and the dishes that should have been a lay-up were all executed poorly.Â  Hell, Fabio couldnâ€™t even pronounce the word â€œburger.â€Â  The rest of the service was dick jokes, Fallon ego-stroking, and the ever growing Top Chef theme of stoner references (if it keeps up, Chef Levin should try out for the show.Â  Heâ€™d kill it).

At Judgesâ€™ Table, the top dishes were Angeloâ€™s pulled pork, Antoniaâ€™s (actually Blaisâ€™) beef tongue, and Carlaâ€™s chicken pot pie, which was the best received, giving her a guest spot on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and a trip to Tokyo.Â  Blais wound up in the middle, but heâ€™s still convinced that heâ€™s the best there is.Â  Iâ€™m still baffled by all this shit-talk, but weâ€™ll see how things play out.Â  The worst dishes were Tiffanyâ€™s chicken & dumpings, Daleâ€™s cheesesteak, and Fabioâ€™s â€œboorgor.â€Â  Tiffany made a soup that lacked the comfort of â€œchicken and dumps,â€ Dale oversalted his cheesesteak (insulting me and the rest of Philadelphia) and Fabio, not a cooker of burgers, made something more akin to meatloaf.Â  Typically, the salt police make the arrest, and I thought that Dale was a goner, but Fabioâ€™s dry burger and curdled cheese sauce was the most insulting, and the Italian turtle lover was sent packing.Â  Right now, my moneyâ€™s on Carla, so letâ€™s hope she continues to act like a human-sized chicken for the benefit of her food.Â  Hootie-hoo!