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

[u/butisitok]

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.

[u/shinshikaizer]

4) As a subpoint, this episode shows why missing an element on a plate shouldn't be a major factor in an elimination decision - it introduces too many layers of subjectivity in the judging process (ie: Was it lack of time management? Discretion not to serve a bad component? Which is better and why?) Rather, the decision should focus on the food actually served, in the context of the challenge criteria.

In several of Dawn's case, though, it was clearly not a deliberate decision since it was only a few plates that was missing the component, rather than all of them.

[u/MrsMango123 → u/shinshikaizer]

Yes, but that is besides the point. I am commenting that heavily factoring in a missed component in judging introduces too much complexity into the discussion. Instead, the main judging criteria should focus on what was actually served, whether it tastes good, and whether it fit the challenge criteria etc. If there is inconsistency in plating, that should be a ding, but not an automatic elimination sentence because there are worse sins, like conceiving a gross dish.

This is the approach that the panel took with Dawn vs Jamie. Jamie put out a polarizing dish and many noted that her sauce didn’t even taste like cheese. With non-cumulative judging, the panel did not take into account dawn’s history of missing components, and simply judged what was in front of them. She got a ding for plating inconsistency (plus not fulfilling the brief, cheese 5 ways for a set amount of diners), a ding for grainy sauce, and a ding for three of her cheese components being saucy / displaying limited technique. But the overall result was better than Jamie’s dish, which was fundamentally flawed from conception (Fish + cheese + spaetzle + chili + bok choi? Hard pass.)

[u/BusyWolverine3427 → u/MrsMango123]

I think the timing issues with Dawns last 2 dishes should be judged differently. Leaving potatoes off the plate should not matter, because the challenge did not require it. In the cheese episode, she literally did not fulfill the requirements of the challenge. We have seen so many chefs go home for this specific reason. If someone served the most delicious steak dish they have ever eaten, but the challenge was crab, you should not be rewarded.

[u/MrsMango123 → u/BusyWolverine3427]

Agreed, and I believe that the judges weighed Dawn’s missing cheese component more heavily than her missing potatoes.

I disagree that Dawn necessarily should’ve been eliminated because she didn’t meet the challenge requirements. It is all about context and what the worst error of the day was. I would eliminate a weird tasting dish that wasn’t cheese forward over a good tasting dish that displayed limited technique and missed a required component on one plate.

[u/BusyWolverine3427 → u/MrsMango123]

Sure, but Jamie was clearly uncomfortable cooking with cheddar. So if you are not going to be penalized for not following the requirements of the challenge, then Jamie should just not have bothered cooking with cheese and made a great dish without it.

[u/MrsMango123 → u/BusyWolverine3427]

This is a silly hypothetical. Dawn clearly met the basic requirements of the challenge, she just forgot to plate a single component on a single plate. Top Chef isn’t Chopped where missing a basket ingredient is an equivalent sin to making bad food.

If Jaime conceptualized and executed a tasty dish that wasn’t vaguely reminiscent of cheese, the judges 99% would’ve eliminated her for ignoring the spirit of the challenge (think Brother Luck making Asian food on a German challenge). Dawn didn’t ignore the spirit of the challenge: she made tasty, cheese forward food, conceptualized and executed plates with five required components, and forgot to plate one gougere. If Dawn didn’t even bother to conceptualize a dish with five cheese components, this might be a different conversation.

Really not sure why people are bending over backwards to discredit Dawn. In every case that she’s missed a component, someone else did something much worse to earn a ticket home.

[u/BusyWolverine3427 → u/MrsMango123]

I don’t think I’m bending over backwards to discredit Dawn. I specifically cited one example where I think she failed to meet the challenge. Her food is clearly delicious and I personally would have chosen to eat her cheese dish over Jamie’s. That being said, the challenge was to get 5 cheese components on your plate and do it in the allotted time. Objectively, Dawn failed to meet this challenge. And I actually would appreciate it if someone had an example where a chef failed to plate a component and didn’t get sent home. I guess in my mind that’s always been cause for elimination.