Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 2: Diarrhea Vision Quest, with Ed Currie

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Brief aside before this week’s rankings (yes, I realize that these posts are like 90% brief asides, but go with me here): a few of you readers have asked me if I have seen or will be ranking America’s Culinary Cup, Padma Lakshmi’s new Top Chef competitor program on CBS. I hadn’t seen it prior to this week, but I finally watched the first two episodes.

My verdict?

Honestly, part of me was hoping this show would suck just so that I wouldn’t have to watch two cooking shows every week. Sadly… I was kind of into it. Which is probably no surprise, since it is, in basically all the ways I can divine, a studious recreation of Top Chef — albeit with a slightly different rule set, settings, and judges. The kitchen set even looks the same (minus the Grand Central Station leaderboard). Not to mention, of course, that it has Top Chef’s former host and two former Top Chef competitors.

Anyway, I don’t know whether I’ll have the bandwidth for two cooking show recaps every week, but… well, we’ll figure something out.

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Okay, back to Top Chef. Hey, did everyone else note the “Carolina” part of “Carolina Reaper,” or was I the only one who kind of spaced on that? If you’d asked me where Carolina Reapers came from before this week I probably would’ve stared at you blankly and said “I dunno… Asia?”

That’s right, this week on this season’s Carolinas-set season of Top Chef, it was hot pepper week. That meant the gang trekked out to a pepper farm, sampled some chili peppers, and cooked a progressively-spicier seven-course meal, all under the guidance of guest judge Ed Currie, the inventor of the Carolina Reaper, proprietor of “Puckerbutt Farms,” and basically the human embodiment of that UweBollocks tweet about rednecks loving hot sauce.

Yes, Ed Currie is that kind of redneck. He showed up in cargo shorts, preached the gospel of the chili, and absolutely delighted in every fiery morsel, consequences be damned. This guy rules, I wish he could guest-judge every week.

At one point, he said “As I like to say, if it doesn’t make your butthole pucker, it’s not a Puckerbutt Farms chili,” at which Tom Colicchio visibly winced. This man absolutely loves having diarrhea.

In fact, this week’s episode was basically diarrhea-themed from start to finish.

Even before all the buttholes began to pucker, the show opened with a Quickfire Challenge based around spon-con for Talenti Gelato. That might not sound very diarrhea-y, but Kristen Kish choose to introduce it by declaring “it’s time to loosen things up!” Seconds later, she was asking whether anyone was lactose intolerant.

It turned out, only Chef Oscar Diaz raised his hand, declaring that he was lactose intolerant. And also, ironically, the child of dairy farmers.

“So, what would happen to you?” Kish asked.

Hell yeah, dude, we want details. Give us the play-by-play of your lactose intolerance. This woman loves talking about dumps so much she might be a member of my family.

The whole thing reminded me of a work mixer I attended with a stoned friend years ago. A very professional woman had mentioned that she was gluten intolerant at some point. The conversation sort of moved on from there but my stoned friend was still dwelling on it, and slowly interrupted to ask, “So, does it just, like, make you fart?”

Anyway, the Quickfire continued with a gelato-pairing challenge and various paeans to Talenti, who, we learned, are “Committed to elevating the gelato experience.”

After that, the gang packed off to Puckerbutt Farms for the Ed Currie Diarrhea Experience, where everyone ate so many chilis that they were basically hallucinating. “Does anyone have a pepper high?” asked Ed Currie, halfway through sampling the world’s hottest chili peppers. Almost everyone raised their hands.

I love that this guy is like a Redneck Ayahuasca Shaman for shitting your pants.

Eventually Kristen Kish (and Mei Lin, another solid guest judge) returned to introduce the next competition. The challenge? Split into teams of two and cook a progressively-spicier, seven-course meal, incorporating the chilis from Puckerbutt Farms.

That’s 14 separate chili pepper bombs the judges had to sample, for those of you keeping track at home! Let it never be said that they don’t suffer for our entertainment. It did seem as though the judges were uncomfortable at first, and then about halfway through they just sort of gave in to the experience and seemed, indeed, like they were a little high. More justification for the Ed Currie worldview? The Diarrhea Man Abides.

My biggest criticism was after all that diarrhea talk, there wasn’t a single follow-up to how everyone felt in the hours following the meal. That meal would’ve had me glued to the toilet for four hours the next day, guaranteed. I would’ve known that going in and I still would’ve chosen to eat it. You don’t truly love food unless you’re willing to knowingly give yourself diarrhea on occasion.

Cheers for the chili challenge, jeers for the lack of diarrhea cam. Ah well, maybe it’ll be a plot point next episode.

RESULTS

Quickfire Top:

Oscar. Laurence*. Nana.

Quickfire Bottom:

Brittany. Sieger. Duyen.

Elimination Winning Team:

Anthony, Brittany, Jennifer, Jonathan, Oscar, Rhoda*, Sieger.

Elimination Bottom:

Justin, Jassi**, Nana.

(*Winner, **Eliminated)

Power Rankings (change from last week)

14. (-4) ((Eliminated)) Jassi

AKA: Punjabi Simon. Sikh and Destroy.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Braised lamb vindaloo with flaky paratha.

Reviews: “It didn’t cook for me.” “The lamb was a little dry, it was like a complete miss for me.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Eliminated.

A spice challenge seemed like it would’ve been right up the Punjabi chef’s alley. Unfortunately, as Jassi revealed during chili tasting, he actually doesn’t like spice all that much. “My spice tolerance is like a two out of ten,” he said during a confessional.

He nonetheless somewhat inexplicably chose to take the spiciest place in the progressive dinner, seventh, and cooked up a vindaloo that basically everyone agreed wasn’t spicy enough. “This probably isn’t even going to make me shit my pants,” I imagined Ed Currie thinking to himself morosely.

In the end it wasn’t even the spice level that doomed Jassi (though it certainly didn’t help) so much as it was his dry lamb. I didn’t even know it was possible to braise lamb in a heavy gravy and have it come out dry, but Tom pretended this was a classic mistake. “You don’t braise leg of lamb, you roast it!”

Oh sure, of course, well knew that.

Kind of a bummer that Jassi didn’t get more time to show off his food, which did mostly look good other than in this challenge, but at least there wasn’t any doubt about who was going home.

13. (+1) Brittany

AKA: Mumbles McGillicutty. Biff.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Charred corn and grilled shrimp salad.

Reviews: “The pickled cayenne was amazing.” “For me it was a little boring.”

Results: R1 bottom, R2 winning team member.

Mumbles technically wasn’t in the bottom three in the elimination challenge this week, but outside of that she has been in the bottom of every challenge, and seemed to have the least-loved dish of anyone on her team. This after nearly burning her pork tenderloin in the quickfire challenge (one of three chefs cooking pork tenderloin that round), which also had her in the bottom three.

It’s still early enough in the competition for Mumbles to turn things around, and part of me hopes she does, because it’s kind of a fun game trying to figure out what she’s saying.

12. (+1) Nana

AKA: Meemaw. Crash. Brass. Nana from Ghana.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Shito marinated red snapper with fish light soup, fufu espuma and okra salsa.

Reviews: “I really loved the texture from the soup, I think it’s a stunner.” “Woof. Something’s weird with Nana’s snapper, it’s really raw. I’m not liking Nana’s dish at all.”

Results: R1 top three, R2 winning team.

Last week I nicknamed Nana Crash on account of her near-panic attack crashout, but this week I’m updating it to Brass for the having the most outspoken personality. Hard not to like Nana. A great nickname hasn’t quite crystallized out of it yet, but hopefully we’ll get there while she’s still in the competition.

Last week a couple people said I should have Nana higher, on account of managing to stay the competition despite serving messy bowls of collard greens with half the components missing. That was certainly one way to read that situation, though the other way was to interpret it as a harbinger of timing issues (it should be noted that Top Chef challenges are absurdly timed, basically as a rule).

This week Nana did sort of have timing issues once again (her fish ended up undercooked), though it seemed less an issue of timing than an issue of trying to sous vide fish when she should’ve just cooked it regular-style. One of the twins had the same issue trying to sous vide a pork loin during the quickfire, so she probably should’ve known better. Sous vide is more of a set-it-and-forget-it kind of a solution than a time-saver. Is the water circulator the new risotto curse on Top Chef?

Anyway, my heart says that Nana will be okay once she stops trying to cook her food in plastic bags, because her dishes at least look interesting, but I can’t rank her much higher yet based on what we’ve seen.

11. (-3) Sieger

AKA: The Silver Bullet. Starsky. Reliable Spike Mendelsohn. Anchorman.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Kumamoto oyster with jalapeño grenita.

Reviews: “Delicious, but aggressively spiced, I thought.”

Results: R1 Bottom, R2 Winning Team.

Anyone else notice that Sieger Bayer loves to overpronounce his espanish ingrrredients? He reminds me of a 90s news anchor — hence the new nickname, Anchorman. I’m also calling him “Starsky” on account of “Sieger Bayer” kind of sounding like a 70s pimp name.

Anyway, The Silver Bullet had a mostly solid performance in the elimination challenge this week (albeit with a raw dish), but I have to downgrade him for his quickfire dish: “Strawberry snapper with cracked coconut and uni.”

Jesus Christ, man, fruit and sea urchin? That sounds terrible. And you can’t even tell from the name that the sauce had actual gelato in it. Gelato, strawberries, and uni. And it looked almost as bad as it sounds:

Sorry, I’m gonna play the Uni Reverse card and make you eat that one for me, Hoss.

10. Justin (+2)

AKA: Dangle. Panthro. Crazylegs. Wife Guy. Quad City. Yoga Jack Black.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Shrimp stuffed chicken wings with spicy greens.

Reviews: “I thought it could’ve used a bit more cooking on the other side, it was just flabby.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Bottom Three.

Chef Justin was lucky not to go home this week, for reasons that were fairly predictable pretty early on in prep. He planned to make stuffed chicken wings, then let his team talk him out of buying enough chicken wings so that they could stay under budget, and then, fairly late in the cook, he worried that his portions were too small and opted to grill his wings rather than fry them. He also bought little party wings with all the ends trimmed off rather than the full-sized ones you might normally use for a stuffed chicken wing, which is probably on him.

Still, I appreciate his commitment to short shorts and bigging up his wife, er, life partner, Jennifer. I suspect Justin has more in him than he has shown so far, and he brings an offbeat beta energy that’s keeping the show interesting.

9. (+2) Jennifer

AKA: Hi Y’all. Bon Voyage. Husband Gal.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pepper crab with grits and seafood gravy.

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Winning Team.

Hi Y’all had arguably the best sounding dish of the competition this week, with her pepper crab with grits and seafood gravy. The judges liked it too, though she was ultimately overshadowed by a few of her teammates. Jennifer seems solidly high-middle at this stage, though the trailers for future episodes keep teasing some sort of medical issue that might keep her out of the competition. Drama! I hope she doesn’t come down with a debilitating case of risotto shoulder, that could take months to heal.

8. (-3) Johnathan

AKA: Beef Twin. Thicc Twin. Meat. Brawnathan.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pan-seared snapper with cara cara orange and kumquat slaw.

Reviews: “Jonathan’s dish is very good, it’s just next to Laurence’s.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Losing Team.

Last week I thought I had it, but this week I was back to not being able to tell the twins apart again. One of them should have to wear a feather or something. I get the sense that the Dearden brothers are both extremely camera-ready, so it was kind of funny to see the cargo short diarrhea shaman suck up all their screen time this week. Have you guys tried shitting yourselves? That sounds like good YouTube content. I mean, it worked for Blippi.

7. (-4) Brandon Dearden

AKA: Broccoli Twin. Slim. B-Train.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Tuna tartare with tomato jalapeño jelly.

Reviews: “The texture, that was just an amazing play in my mouth, I felt like I was having fun.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Losing Team.

Brandon made the diarrhea man’s mouth happy with his playful tomato jelly!

I don’t really know what else to say about Brandon this week. I mean, he made a tuna tartare. The jelly made out of a tomato water was a pretty neat trick, I suppose. In the quickfire, he was one of three contestants to attempt a pork tenderloin, and tried to sous vide his. Which in my house is one of the few justifications for owning sous vide equipment (it does pork tenderloin really well, I swear!), but I’ve also never tried to do one in 30 minutes. B-Train’s tenderlizzy (sorry) ended up raw in the middle and so he had to “pivot to medallions,” which actually worked out better for him than for anyone since Flavor Flav as he was the only tenderloin jockey not to land in the bottom three. And yes, I almost pulled a hammy typing that sentence.

Brandon had a sub-par week and easily stayed out of the bottom bracket, which seems to suggest that he’s still a favorite.

6. (-2) Duyen Ha

AKA: Banh Amelie. Bondle.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pork laab salad with jalapeños and rice crackers.

Reviews: “This was really nice.”

Results: R1 Bottom, R2 Losing Team.

It wasn’t a great week for Banh Amelie, the proprietrix of BONDLE, in terms of either screen time or the competition. The third tenderloin attempter in the quickfire round, she didn’t try to sous vide hers, but the result was the same: raw center, pivoting to medallions. Now that I think about it, there was one grilled pork tenderloin (Brittany), one oven baked (Duyen), and one sous vide, and everyone’s ended up basically the same. Hey, how about no more pork tenderloins?

At least in the elimination challenge BONDLE made a dish that all the judges seemed to enjoy, even if they couldn’t come together on whether it was “laab” or larb. I think Jerry Seinfeld drove a Laab.

5. (+4) Sherry

AKA: Sleepy.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Chilled seafood chowder.

Reviews: “It hit the spot perfectly.” “Fantastic dish.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Losing Team.

Sherry gave us the closest thing we got to DRAMA this week when she tasted Brandon’s jalapeño dish and got super pissed when she realized that it was pretty spicy, even though he had the slot before her and his dish wasn’t supposed to be spicier than hers. Brandon made what I thought was a pretty good point when he reiterated that it probably tasted spicier than it would turn out to be on account of she was only tasting the jalapeño part. Sherry was not to be consoled (“it’s frustrating, it’s disrespectful…”) and so she banged around the kitchen muttering for a while. Hey, Sherry, why don’t you make like your seafood chowder and chill out?

Mostly that was all forgotten by the time the judges tasted it though, since they loved Sherry’s dish. Also, her polenta-crusted grouper in the quickfire looked notably bomb. Go off, spicy lady!

4. (-2) Anthony

AKA: The Ringer.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Jerk lamb, hoe cake, maafe, pikliz.

Reviews: “I think it’s a successful dish.”

Result: R1 Middle, R2 Winning Team.

Anthony’s star seemed to dim a little this week, with no winning dishes. He also wasn’t beating the nerd-of-the-group allegations when the diarrhea man asked if anyone had a pepper high and Anthony responded “…I can’t drive.”

Just like an 80s movie when the school geek has his first beer!

Anyway, Anthony may not have won anything this week, but that jerk lamb did look especially delicious. And if you’re going to bet on any demo in this competition, the nerds are probably up there.

3. (+4) Oscar Diaz

AKA: Twice In Legal Minute. DJ Buenos Dias. Milky. 311.

Notable Quote(s): “We just went through dairy, and now we’re doing puckerbutt?”

Elimination Challenge Dish: Blue corn masa huarache with al pastor.

Reviews: “I love all the different textures and flavors going on.”

Results: R1 Top, R2 Winning Team.

I thought Oscar’s food looked better than his finishes would seem to indicate last week, and this week my suspicions were confirmed with two top-bracket results. His quickfire cachapa with a cheese crust on top looked amazing, and then he was a man after my Central Valley heart with his al pastor and blue corn masa boat and two kinds of salsas. Hell yeah, man, that’s a dish worth getting diarrhea for.

He also got lots of screentime this week, revealing not only that he is the lactose intolerant son of dairy farmers (“I would start hallucinating”) but also that he used to be a DJ who went by “DJ Buenos Dias.” (Buenos Diaz?)

I’m calling Oscar 311 because he looks like a guy who listened to a lot of 311. Of course I could be projecting a bit, Oscar reminds me strongly of at least five different guys I went to high school with.

Anyway, Oscar seems like he’s cruising right now. He has a strong point of view, his food looks amazing, and I’d probably have him ranked even higher if DJs weren’t so inherently unreliable.

2. (+4) Laurence

AKA: Punch Out. Larry Louie. LL. L Train. The Boxer.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Carolina-style yuxiang eggplant three ways.

Reviews: “Damn that’s good.”

Results: R1 Winner, R2 Losing Team.

Laurence LL Louie, my favorite Mike Tyson’s Punch Out character come to life, had a huge week. Right away, a Chinese-American guy who cooked Turkish food seemed like a combination of things I never knew I needed, but he didn’t do so hot last week. He turned it around this week, with an absolutely drool-inducing lamb borek in the quickfire round. Gotta figure the crossover between the Chinese-Turkish venn diagram is bomb-ass dumplings. My brief experience with Uighur food suggests this is true.

It seemed like Punch Out might’ve come away with the double win this week, if only he hadn’t been on the losing team during the elimination challenge. In any case, I can’t wait to see more savory pastry concoctions. If Laurence doesn’t make it to the final five, we riot.

1. Rhoda (even)

AKA: Boss Baby.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pepper braised short rib, chili pickled pearl onions, and blistered cayenne.

Reviews: “This sauce did it.” “This was the flavor explosion I’ve been looking for.”

Results: R1 Middle, R2 Winner.

I wasn’t sure if it was presumptuous ranking Rhoda number one last week just because she won the first elimination challenge, but she confirmed I made the right choice and then some, taking home her second win in a row even though she had immunity. I nicknamed her Wallflower last week, on account of she seemed small and quiet and didn’t get much screen time, but this week gave us a little more of her bossy personality. She confirmed as much, outing herself as the oldest of four girls who has always loved delegating. I’m rechristening Rhoda Boss Baby, for obvious reasons (she likes to boss, and looks like a baby).

Her pepper-braised short rib with blistered chilis wowed the judges and sent the chili shaman to diarrhea heaven.