Top Chef: Season 9, Episode 14: Mentors

…And the beat goes on… If you watched the last Last Chance Kitchen, the edit lead you to believe that Grayson was the winner, which is why it was utterly unsurprising to see Beverly return at the start of the episode. The Magical Elves seem to have a love of ham handed misdirection. The quickfire [...]

What Experience Design can learn from this week’s Top Chef

No spoilers for the first four paragraphs. This week’s episode of Top Chef was likely the best of the season, and definitely featured the most inspired and, according to the judges, delicious cooking so far. Chef Tom even said it was among the best single meals ever served on nine seasons of the show. How [...]

Top Chef: Season 9, Episode 10: Restaurant Wars

This episode was indicative of the season as a whole: meh. I had thought that the first episode premise of whittling 29 chefs down to 16 was going to deliver us a higher caliber of contestant. However, this crew is decidedly middling, and is providing for some uninspired television. This week gave us every TC [...]

Top Chef, Season 9 Episode 9: BBQ Pit Wars

Remember: there will be spoilers. Oh, I did enjoy this episode. Good cooking, some drama, and another win for Paul’s Wonder Palate. A month ago, I tweeted: Every time I hear Nathan Myhrvold speak (this time on Freakonomics podcast), I want to punch him in the face. December 7, 2011 9:12 am via Twitter for [...]

Top Chef, Season 9, Episode 8: Tribute Dinner

Reminder: there will be spoilers. Let’s cut to the chase: thankfully, Heather is gone. And not just because she’s a bossy, mean, bitch who got caught retweeting naughties and so had to protect her Twitter feed. But because, as she demonstrated last week in her own commentary, she’s a simple-minded chef, who says she has [...]

Top Chef, Season 9, Episode 7: Game On

I found this a resoundly disappointing episode. I’m dismayed that the chefs aren’t bringing it. They’re not goading one another to do amazing things. There aren’t enough super chefs blowing people away that everyone feels like they have to raise their game. I’m definitely pining for season 6, when the Voltaggio brothers, Kevin, and Jennifer [...]

Top Chef: Season 9, Episode 6: Higher Steaks

(remember: there will be spoilers.) This episode didn’t excite as much response from me as last week’s. The Quickfire was a good, basic, technique-driven exercise. I couldn’t stand guest judge Dean Fearing, and his condescending style. I was happy to see Grayson win. She’s a dark horse, and probably won’t go super far, but she’s [...]

Managing Experience Design Lessons from Top Chef‘s “Restaurant Wars”

OK. So I actually have two shows of which I’m an utter fanboy — BSG and Top Chef. Last night’s Top Chef was every season’s most anticipated episode, “Restaurant Wars.” The set-up is that you have two teams of 4 chefs, and they have 24 hours to come up with a restaurant concept, menu (with [...]

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