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Top Chef<\/a><\/p>\n The Ultimate Dinner Party<\/p>\n \n Season 23<\/p>\n Episode 9\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Back-to-back Quickfire and Elimination challenges test the eight remaining contestants, including the Last Chance Kitchen winner. Jonathan! So close this episode yet so far. He was clearly missing his brother, Brandon, who went home for good last week<\/a>. I felt for Jonathan as he did one-sided banter, the kind of chummy joshing the twins used to engage in together, while cooking at Soby\u2019s. I know the twins had some detractors, and I also understand the argument that they gave each other a level of emotional support that the other contestants might not have had. But even as Jonathan was very gracious when Rhoda came back instead of Brandon, he seemed lonely, right? I\u2019m happy he did well by the end of the episode \u2014 he was a runner-up in both the Quickfire and the Elimination challenges \u2014 and I could see him getting to the semifinals. It\u2019ll be hard to get past Laurence, Anthony, and Sherry, who seem as though they\u2019re gaining more momentum each week, but I\u2019m also rooting for Jonathan at this point. (I think I\u2019m rooting for everyone, actually. There\u2019s not an unlikable person in this mix right now!)<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ultimate Dinner Party\u201d is exactly as described. The chefs travel to Greenville, South Carolina, and when they get there, they have to cook dishes for a dinner party with prominent industry locals. I really like how this episode structured its challenges: with the chefs cooking back-to-back between the Quickfire and the Elimination as well as having to work together to plan a menu that would work as a staggered progressive meal. Was there too much Duke\u2019s product placement? Absolutely. We are primarily a Duke\u2019s household, and I am now considering buying more Kewpie Mayo, just on principle. Primarily pushing the chefs with timing and budget, though, felt way less gimmicky than some of this season\u2019s previous challenges and was a legitimate hardship given that the chefs were just coming off Restaurant Wars. This whole episode felt like Top Chef asking its competitors \u201cHow hard can you grind?,\u201d and the chefs really varied in their reactions. Some did well during the Quickfire and poorly during the Elimination, some did the opposite, and some were a little mid all the way through.<\/p>\n The chefs are hanging out in the stew room when Kristen, Gail, and season-22 finalist Shuai Wang<\/a> (a South Carolina local and one of this week\u2019s guest judges) arrive to explain that they\u2019re going to Greenville. For the Quickfire, they\u2019re each responsible for one appetizer to be served at the predinner cocktail party. Each appetizer needs to prominently feature Duke\u2019s mayonnaise; the winner gets $10,000. They all need to sign up for appetizers right then and there, with Duyen, as the winner of Restaurant Wars, going first. There\u2019s then a schoolyard pick with each chef picking the person who will go after them. Here\u2019s what they all pick:<\/p>\n Duyen: Croquettes Kristen then reverses the chefs\u2019 order so they can sign up for courses for the Elimination Challenge. There will be eight courses, organized into four rounds. The raw and salad dishes will be served at 5 p.m.; soup and seafood at 5:30 p.m.; grain, poultry, and red meat at 6 p.m.; and dessert at 6:30 p.m. So each grouping gains 30 minutes of cooking time, meaning the raw and salad dishes get the least time and the dessert the most. And finally, the group budget is $1,200 for all eight chefs, for both the Quickfire and Elimination dishes. Here\u2019s how they choose:<\/p>\n Sieger: Poultry, 6 p.m. And that winner of Last Chance Kitchen: Rhoda! Duyen gives her a big hug, Sherry notes that Rhoda is going to be tough competition, and Rhoda says to her fellow chefs that having to do dessert is \u201cfucked. Thank you.\u201d But the chefs have a theme for their dinner \u2014 Sunday supper \u2014 that guides their choices as they shop at Whole Foods, each with $150 to spend. Dividing up the $1,200 equally was the most fair approach, and I loved seeing both the chefs do math as they shopped (something very familiar to me, a person always trying to stack coupons at the grocery store) and how Laurence kept everyone on budget during checkout. They spent $1,199.98! Incredible.<\/p>\n At Soby\u2019s<\/a> (owned by second guest judge and restaurateur Carl Sobocinski), the chefs all get an hour for their appetizers, and they all hope to use some of that time for their entr\u00e9es, too. First, though, how much mayo to use in their apps? Duyen is really going for it with two mayo-based sauces and mayo as a binder for her croquette. Jonathan and Sieger are both doing deviled eggs with Jonathan using southern flavors and Sieger going more French with his gribiche. And Anthony and Jonathan both run into a little trouble: Anthony\u2019s hand-wrapped crab dumplings are taking a lot of time, and Jonathan burns part of his bacon jam and has to pick through it. They both course-correct, though, and deliver dishes the judges love. Here are the appetizers and the judges\u2019 reactions:<\/p>\n Jonathan: BLT deviled egg with bacon jam and pimento. People appreciate the bacon jam and call the flavors \u201cspot-on.\u201d The chefs don\u2019t get any feedback in the moment. They pass out their apps and then hustle back to the kitchen, where they\u2019re again on the clock. As they cook, we see a lot of family photos (including some wonderful pics of young Laurence and his father) because many of their \u201cSunday supper\u201d dishes are inspired by homey favorites. That\u2019s really cute! Not so cute is that a couple of chefs run into irreversible issues. Oscar starts second-guessing himself, dumps turmeric onto his short ribs, then decides on a whim to cook rice and add it to his dish as a side. But I have some sympathy toward Oscar for panicking, whereas I\u2019m still confused by the actions of our beloved Rhoda. Rhoda, what were you doing with all your time? Cooking janky meringues and cutting fruit? That\u2019s not enough!<\/p>\n I\u2019m surprised by all of Rhoda\u2019s choices for her Elimination dish. First, she decided to make Eton mess, which would feature meringue \u2014 and we\u2019ve already seen someone fail at making meringue this season. Brandon tried to make meringue back in \u201cCut and Dry\u201d<\/a> (the episode in which Rhoda was eliminated), and even with a full day in a dehydrator, his meringues were too soft and we saw him pivot and bake a cupcake instead. Why did Rhoda think she could pull off meringues in a fraction of that time? And when the meringues failed, why not try something else? It wasn\u2019t entirely clear how much time was on the clock when Rhoda realized her meringues resembled undercooked pancakes, and I understand she was out of certain ingredients by that point. But she could have blitzed the meringues into smaller pieces, sweetened the cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche, and instead made a trifle; she could have spoken up and asked if other chefs had leftover ingredients and tried to brainstorm. We saw Sherry give her leftover bread to Brandon to make a second round of crostinis after his first batch failed, and we later learned that she had leftover eggs, too. I think Rhoda could have rallied by asking other chefs what they had left over, and because all the other chefs were done by the time she had a final 30 minutes, I really believe they would have helped her out. Instead, she froze.<\/p>\n Here are the dinner dishes:<\/p>\n Jonathan, raw: Steak tartare, egg-yolk emulsion, cornichon chimichurri, crispy shallots, and toasted baguette. At Judges\u2019 Table, only the three top Quickfires are discussed \u2014 Anthony, Oscar, and Jonathan \u2014 and although Kristen says to Jonathan that his deviled egg was \u201cperfectly mayonnaised,\u201d he doesn\u2019t win. That glory goes to Anthony, who pockets $10,000. (I was a little surprised that Duyen didn\u2019t get singled out for making a dish that seemed to actively disgust some diners.) Then it\u2019s time to talk about the Elimination dishes, and it\u2019s pretty clear to us as viewers who did well and who did poorly since the chefs got immediate feedback after they served their dishes. That\u2019s why my heart cracked open a little bit when Jonathan \u2014 called forward with Laurence, Rhoda, and Oscar \u2014 launches into a defense of himself. He plated the dish in the walk-in to keep the tartare cold! He loved the flavors! Soon enough, Kristen puts him out of his misery by saying that his and Laurence\u2019s were their favorite dishes. Yet where Jonathan\u2019s dish had the great cornichon chimichurri, Laurence\u2019s dish had everything going for it, and he unanimously wins and gains an unspecified challenge in next week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n Then it\u2019s time to talk to Oscar and Rhoda. Technical mistakes dragged both down. Oscar\u2019s short rib was poorly seasoned, and his rice was bland, overcooked, and unnecessary. Rhoda\u2019s meringue was limp, and the other things she served with it were incredibly simplistic. If I were Rhoda, Kristen asking me, \u201cYou had four hours, no?\u201d would have made me collapse. Given the intensity of Kristen\u2019s reaction to Rhoda\u2019s dessert and the fact that Oscar succeeded in the Quickfire while Rhoda\u2019s dish was criticized for being overly salty, I thought Rhoda would go home. But instead, it\u2019s Oscar, and, yes, I think Tom threw this elimination a little bit. He was offended by Oscar\u2019s rice from the moment that dish came out, criticizing it as somehow deviating from Oscar\u2019s red-meat directive, and I think he couldn\u2019t let it go (like he couldn\u2019t get over Oscar\u2019s broken whipped cream back in \u201cDesserts Fit for a Queen\u201d<\/a>). It\u2019s sort of funny because you would think, based on Tom\u2019s critique of the rice not being needed for a red-meat dish, that he would also say Sherry\u2019s chicken thighs, peppers, and corn deviated from her seafood dish, but \u2026 I guess not! Anyway, Oscar goes home for good, and Rhoda survives Last Chance Kitchen and her first week back in Top Chef proper. Next week, we finally get the mise en place race we\u2019ve all been waiting for, and it looks like a spin on the Top Chef: Charleston episode<\/a> in which the chefs went shrimping with Tom and then had to cook him a dish on the docks with that freshly caught shrimp. This time, the chefs seem to be heading out in boats to catch the fish they\u2019ll be butchering for the mise en place. I hope Kristen gives them some boating tips from her time<\/a> on The Traitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: all of the apps except for Duyen\u2019s, Sieger\u2019s, and Rhoda\u2019s; from the dinner dishes, Laurence\u2019s soup and Duyen\u2019s rice.<\/p>\n \u2022 I gave this episode four out of five stars because I think the challenges were well conceived, but I seriously thought about taking off a star because of how egregious and incessant the Duke\u2019s product placement was. Shuai having a Duke\u2019s tattoo and showing it off for the camera, fine. Contestants asking one another about how much they like Duke\u2019s, coupled with numerous stand-alone shots of the tub of mayo? We get it! They gave Top Chef money! We\u2019re not going to forget about Duke\u2019s!<\/p>\n \u2022 I can\u2019t get over how aghast Kristen\u2019s tone was when describing Rhoda\u2019s work in the Elimination Challenge: \u201cI still can\u2019t figure out what she did for four hours. Four hours!\u201d Brutal.<\/p>\n \u2022 Maybe it\u2019s because we have been spending so much time in the Top Chef kitchen, but my sense of timing for this season is skewed. Is anyone else surprised we still have seven contestants left?<\/p>\n \u2022 Shout-out to the Whole Foods fishmonger who reminded Anthony that he was on a budget when he was tempted by the king crab for his salad. Forty-three dollars a pound is madness.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Housewives Institute Bulletin<\/p>\n Dame Brian Moylan breaks down all the gossip and drama, on- and off-screen, for dedicated students of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Paul Cheney\/Bravo\n <\/p>\n
\n Laurence: Shrimp toast (which Anthony wanted)
\n Anthony: Crab dumplings
\n Sherry: Twice-baked potato
\n Oscar: Pimento-cheese tostone
\n Jonathan: BLT
\n Sieger: Crab gribiche (a French sauce that\u2019s made with cooked egg yolks)
\n Eighth spot: Left open for the winner of Last Chance Kitchen\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Jonathan: Raw, 5 p.m.
\n Oscar: Red meat, 6 p.m.
\n Sherry: Seafood, 5:30 p.m.
\n Anthony: Salad, 5 p.m.
\n Laurence: Soup, 5:30 p.m.
\n Duyen: Grain, 6 p.m.
\n Left open for the winner of Last Chance Kitchen: Dessert, 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
\n Anthony: Crab dumpling with chile crunch and mayo. Kristen says his dish \u201cspoke to my heart.\u201d
\n Sherry: Twice-baked potato with a\u00efoli, steak tartare, crispy potato. The dish is criticized for not having enough mayo and not being particularly memorable.
\n Laurence: Shrimp toast with shrimp salad. The toast is praised for not being greasy and having a lot of shrimp.
\n Oscar: Pimento-cheese tostone. People love the texture of both the pimento cheese and the tostones and praise the salt level.
\n Duyen: Pancetta croquette with \u201cCarolina Gold\u201d a\u00efoli and horseradish-lemon a\u00efoli. There\u2019s too much mayo! Kristen is disgusted!
\n Sieger: Deviled-egg crab gribiche with fried capers. Tom seems to loathe this, and others call it super-salty and grainy.
\n Rhoda: Oyster cracker with trout dip, cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche, mayo, and cornichons. Also dinged as too salty.<\/p>\n
\n Anthony, salad: Heirloom tomatoes, watermelon, pickled watermelon rind, and Dungeness crab.
\n Laurence, soup: \u201cLong\u2019s t\u0101ng\u201d soup inspired by his Chinese name and the Mandarin word for soup, an egg-drop soup with chicken, marinated bok choy, and grilled corn.
\n Sherry, seafood: Stuffed peppers with lobster mousseline, corn ragout, and salsa verde.
\n Duyen: Seafood rice with herb salad and dashi beurre mont\u00e9.
\n Sieger: Chicken Vesuvio<\/a>, pea-and-Parmesan pur\u00e9e, chicken jus, and potatoes.
\n Oscar: Short-rib sancocho<\/a> with yucca, butternut squash, carrots, and rice.
\n Rhoda: Eton mess with whipped cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche, berries, lemon pith, and \u201csoft meringue\u201d (I\u2019m quoting Rhoda here).<\/p>\n