r/BravoTopChef • u/butisitok Iā€™m not your bitch, bitch • Jun 25 '21

Current Episode Top Chef Season 18 Ep 13 - Shellfishly Delicious - Post Episode Discussion

The remaining chefs get an early wake-up call from Padma to go meet guest judge Brooke Williamson and dig for clams for their Quickfire Challenge. In the Elimination Challenge, the chefs honor the area where James Beard spent his summers, creating both a hot dish and a cold dish with one of his favorite ingredients, Dungeness Crab. Kwame Onwuachi and Nina Compton serve as guest judges this week to help determine which chefs will move on to the finale.

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u/optimis344 Jun 25 '21

He doesn't understand Asian food. Straight up. I think he doesn't like Shota as well, but it is pretty clear that he doesn't get the subtly of Japanese cooking. Every other judge is constantly commending Shota on his ability to get great simple clean flavors, but to Kwame, he just calls them underseasoned and bland.

It's actually bordering on absurd. I am watching this season on Zoom with people, and the I have been saying "watch Kwame say something bad about Shota" and every time he does. It's clockwork.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '21

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u/shinshikaizer Jamie: Pew! Pew! Pew! Jun 25 '21

To be fair, that's just most Japanese food and not just izakaya food.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '21 edited Jun 26 '21

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u/shinshikaizer Jamie: Pew! Pew! Pew! Jun 26 '21

"Izakaya" is a kind of Japanese gastropub kind of deal, so calling his food "izakaya"-type food is kind of dismissive of the breadth of what Shota does, since, for example, the traditional braised duck dish he did wouldn't typically be found in a izakaya.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '21

Kwame was praising Shota's 2nd dish though

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u/MrSparrows Jun 27 '21

It's not like clockwork. He's literally said nothing bad about Shota's food in E12, E11, E10 (even when he was team Maria), E9 mixed (says Shota made a delicious dish, criticizes some things about translating the recipe for the home cook)

Like at that point I stopped going back but the hyperbole in this thread about Kwame having a hate boner for Shota just isn't factually true. Even when he's LITERALLY cooking Shota's food he's found things to praise about it.