Last night's Top Chef episode was too much of a place holder. Although LA's own CJ won something again, which helped him in the "Restaurant Wars" challenge, there was no real drama. As a team leader, CJ seemed to really think about this as a comptetion, from who he picked on his team (Casey, to have "a woman's touch" in decor) to who manned the stoves (Tre). Smart moves all around, but it's TV; it could come back to bite him in the ass. Considering who's on it, April should be the winning team. We'll try to check in with CJ next week to see if it was all brilliant planning or just the luck (or unluck) of the draw.
While the chefs were all in a twitter to cook for guest judge Daniel Boulud, what really has everyone else buzzing today is that The Strong Buzz blogger Andrea Strong was a "secret" judge on the show. First a food blogger gets an "official" critic job at a newspaper (respectable or not, who cares), now bloggers are guest judges on TC? High freakin five! According to Grub Street, a slew of food bloggers were supposed to be on the episode, including Eater NY. Yes, thousands of miles separate us, but no, even we didn't know that (something about a silly non-disclosure agreement or some such nonsense). We see how it is. In the end Top Chef producers went with one blogger, the one who swore she wouldn't write about the show all season. No way Eater could agree to that, especially after this.
While we're talking Top Chef, the LA casting call for season 4 is this weekend at Les Deux, Sunday 8/19, 12pm-4pm. More deets here.
· Andrea Strong and the Secret of Last Night's Episode of Top Chef [Eater]
· Truces and Massage Candles Ruin This Week's Top Chef [Grub Street]
· “The Strong Buzz! Special TOP CHEF edition!” [The Strong Buzz]
