Around the World in 80 Plates: Barcelona

80 plates relocates to Barcelona, Spain this week and all I could think is that it’s a good thing Sai is gone. She would have been so disappointed that they were not yet en route to Asia and she would have had a serious meltdown–like every other week. I think she got confused and thought she signed up for “Around the continent of Asia in 80 plates.” But Sai is gone and we are left with plenty of other cheftestants Cheven for our entertainment.

I am still quite confused as to what role Cat Cora and Curtis Stone have in the context of this show. Like, they’re supposed to be our world traveling Padma and Tom but they don’t judge the food themselves and don’t have any power to send anyone home. Bravo could have used Mary Kate Olsen and Kobe Bryant and nothing would be different. The format would be the same but an Olsen twin and Kobe Bryant would be wayyyyy more fun to watch.

ANYWAY. The chefs, Curtis and Cat are now in Spain and the teams are again changed which is becoming really confusing. It’s all of the girls and Nookie versus the boys: Cheven, Chaz, Gary freakin’ Walker (I love this guy’s name and I like to say it with added gusto) and everyone else whose names I can’t remember.

The Nookie team is stronger by far even though they lose this challenge to the red team. Nookie once lived in Barcelona and can cut up a fish like no one’s business and he could have single handily won “The Course” challenge for his team…if the rest of his team did better, that is. The course wasn’t that entertaining to watch. They cut up some fish, they all got inked from the ink squid, Nookie got pissed and the black team won the exceptional ingredient: gama roja. Oooooooh, red prawns. Why doesn’t this same that exceptional to me?

Jenna is crazy fluent in Spanish and able to ask for samples of every ingredient at the market with no problem. Oh, and she got some the items the team needed to build the menu. (It’s OK, Jenna. I like samples, too.)

The black team really has their shit together unlike the red team which is just an epic disaster. Cheven is trying to visualize the menu at the market which apparently he shouldn’t be doing yet according to his other teammates. Chaz is wearing the lowest V-neck shirt I have EVER seen on a man and standing around with his hands on his hips pissed off at dear old Cheven. We will call it the “Chaz stance” moving forward.

This week for “The Takeover,” both teams are cooking out of the same restaurant which also happens to have an open kitchen to the dining room so the Spanish diners can enjoy some entertainment in watching the chefs all fight and cry and ruin flan while they eat. That’s the kind of dinner service I would like to have.

The black team is insane. Cheven is supposed to be front of the house but he apparently has some phobia of leaving the kitchen. Everyone hates him for it and everyone tells the camera that they are plotting to send him home.

The red team is cooking away while Jenna runs around with a notebook and pen trying to write the menu. Everyone hates Jenna. But they should LOVE her. Say what you want about her but she is a front-of-the-house queen and her team should be bowing down before her for schmoozing the Spaniards. You know, the people who ultimately hold the team’s fate in their hands. C’mon guys!

Then everyone hates Liz because she starts crying over her flan that she can’t brûlée. They instead brûlée figs to serve with the flan but it doesn’t match what’s on Jenna’s beloved menu she created. Cue Jenna blowing a fuse in her brain. She’s pisssseddddd.

Chef extraordinaire José Andrés joins Cat, Curtis and the restaurant owners to discuss the food, which of course has no bearings on who will actually win or lose. They are smitten with the black team’s tapas but hate Chaz’s fish. They also are liking Liz’s flan, so she can stop crying now.

The black team wins and Nookie is the MVP. Duh.

The red team makes the BIGGEST MISTAKE OF THEIR LIVES and sends home the best thing about this show, Cheven! Ok, that’s slightly dramatic but I will miss his sideburns, his anger, and his comments like “It’s like a fish holocaust over there. I take that very personally considering I’m Jewish.”

I will try to recap again next week. Hopefully someone else will step up to the plate and show at least an eighth of the personality Keven “Cheven” Lee had. We’ll miss you Chevs!

Around the World in 80 Plates: French Gefilte Fish

Another week, another country, another hour of Cheven’s proclamations that he is the best in every area of the culinary arts. Following last week’s premiere episode (recapped here), the cheftestants take the train to Lyon, France. The black team is riding in style in first class while the red team is standing in crowded, sad coach.

Last week’s MVP Chaz got to pick his teammates this week as a part of his prize, so the black team has been reassembled to include an all-star cast of personalities. He chose the great Cheven, the devious Nookie, red-headed Avery, and for good measure, Gary freakin’ Walker (because he can speak French and because he can speak French, only).

This left the red team with Sai, who still can’t read a map, the self-appointed leader/annoying chihuahua, Jenna and everyone else. Obviously the black team is the stronger team because they have more personality in Gary Walker’s little pinky then the whole red team put together.

So the story begins with the teams arriving in Lyon and driving off to the first location of “The Course.” I guess it would have been too easy for Bravo to put the entire team in one vehicle…and more environmentally friendly. So for our entertainment, each team splits into two cars. On the black team, Cheven leads the way. Then he misses the exit. Chaz is about to lose is F’in mind, a reoccurring theme of this episode and I assume the whole season.

Meanwhile, the red team, who was lagging behind arrives at the destination first where they are met by Jean-Marc, a humble Lyonesse cheesemonger who is smiling and animated and wearing a red bandanna tied around his neck. The challenge: identify which six of the plethora of cheeses that sit in before them are sheep cheese. This takes for-ev-er and the although the black team swoops in and looks like they might beat Jenna and her minions out, the red team gets the most enthusiastic “OK” from Jean-Marc and move onto the second challenge.

The challenge: herd sheep. Because this is a cooking show, after all. The red team is struggglingggg. I mean, it was painful to watch. Jenna’s power has clearly gotten to her head as she continues to bark orders at the herding chefs. But she keeps saying “please” after each demand, which I love. Because she is a true sweetheart. A barking, extremely irritating sweetheart.

The black team links hands and like THAT the sheep are practically all herded. That is, until guard dog Cheven gets lax and the sheep all escape. So the chefs do it again and then beat the red team and move onto the wine pairing challenge.

This goes without saying, but Cheven regales us with his sommelier skills so he takes the lead on this one, ahhhh-gain. Nookie doesn’t even have to taste the wine because he declares that it’s just about math (WTF?) but somehow it works and they win the whole thing.

The exceptional ingredient isn’t really an ingredient but it does turn out to exceptional because for the “takeover challenge” they have to make a traditional Lyonesse menu and on that menu must be the dreaded quenelle. No one has much experience with it but not to worry, the winning team gets a personal lesson from the M.O.F. chef Joseph Viola! He’s very important apparently because he is a M.O.F. which Gary Walker kindly translates for the viewers: the best worker in all of France.

So they learn all about quenelle and Chef Viola flirts with Avery which just pisses Chaz off because he wishes chef Viola would rub his leg under the table, too  they need focus, for crying out loud! Cheven tells us that quenelle is just like oh-so appetizing gefitle fish, pike or carp fish that sits in a jar of fish jelly and is a staple at every Jew’s Passover sedar table (mine included).

The red team’s punishment for losing is that they must roam the streets of Lyon and figure out how to make quenelle the scrappy way. They decide to eat it at a restaurant so they can decipher the ingredients. Personally, I would have just ASKED someone because someone somewhere has to speak a little English and have a notion on how to make it. But their way works too.

But actually, no, it really doesn’t. They end up creating a dumpling instead of a traditional quenelle and the French diners are horrified.  They like the salad, however. And they like the brownie for dessert that Jenna made. Very French.

But the red team has major kitchen drama. Sai is taking 10 years to plate a  4-ingredient salad, the other chick loses count of her fish, Jenna is annoying everyone and ughhh, it’s a hot mess.

The black team is equally as crazy. Chaz is plating ENORMOUS portions of chicken, Gary Walker is giving the diners all of the courses at once, but Avery saves the day. She cuts Chaz’s portions down, cooks up a perfect quenelle that impresses Chef Viola and wins MVP! The black team won this challenge without a fight.

The elimination isn’t as fun this week though. They all collectively decide that Sai sucked it up and give her the boot. She’s sad. No one else is. The End. Fin.

Around the World in 80 Plates

I have to admit that I am just as much of a Bravo junkie as I am a food lover. And I LOVE anything cooking competition related, especially when it’s on my beloved Bravo. The only reason I chose to blog about food and not the likes of Andy Cohen and the housewives is that I am trying not to encourage such bad habits (i.e. watching too much reality tv).

However, the new show Around the World in 80 Plates premiered last night and I feel it is my duty to recap the first episode since the show is about food and so is this blog.

First of all–why does Curtis Stone have to host every other cooking show on Bravo besides Top Chef? Do viewers really like him that much? I remember watching him on Take Home Chef on TLC a few years ago and mostly being annoyed. I suppose when paired with Cat Cora, who I love, I can deal with him.

I would love to be a fly on the wall while they were casting this show. Where do they find these people? There’s a pseudo porn star, an exec chef for the Boston Red Sox and the dude who was on Top Chef Texas for a hot second. OH, and during their opening bragging sessions mini-biographies, we learn that they’ve all cooked for presidents, celebrities and the freaking Queen of England. Shut. Up.

And then there’s the star of the show, at least in my eyes, Cheven. He’s named Keven, but he’s a chef so obviously he needs to be called Cheven. WHAT THE F? We learn through the course of the episode that Cheven is an interesting character who may or may not need psychological counseling.

It all begins in London town where we meet the cheftestants and they learn the first challenge dubbed “The Course.” They break off into teams, red and black and then have to go on a pub crawl through the city. I for one love the challenge. Who doesn’t want to watch a bunch of chefs attempt to read a map, stuff their face with fish and chips, chug yards of ale and then RUN from place to place!? The big Boston guy, Nookie is drenched in sweat and still somehow alive and running. The chick from the army, Sai can’t read a map. Those Mickey Mouse buns on her head are cutting off circulation to her brain.

The red team wins! They have Nookie, who could easily out-eat anyone on the show, so they win.

Then Curtis and Cat explain the elimination challenge: serve a menu of British favorites. The rub is that the losers can’t use potatoes which means they have to make chips with something else. Chaz, the guy who tried and failed to make it onto Top Chef Texas, looks like he is about to puke out the pudding hash he threw down his throat earlier.

Each team pow-wows to plan out their menu.  On the black team, Cheven tell us he can make a bangin dessert and although his idea isn’t all that well received, his team gives him the green light to cook up some bread pudding. Chef Jenna all but gets down on her knees and begs the red team to let her make dessert but it’s to no avail. Some crazy person on her team says that no one wants to eat sweet food at a gastropub–they only want salty. Well I have NO idea who would ever think that. I want sweet food almost always immediately following a savory dish. He should have been sent home for being a dumbass.

The next day the black team cooks at one pub they visited the day before, and the red team at another during the challenged called “The Takeover.” Chaz emerges as the leader of the black team, much to the disdain of good ol’ Cheven. Chaz is the expediter and he is kicking ass and taking names in his conquest to be number one so he can see the world! Cheven is making bread pudding and sulking because his fellow chefs aren’t recognizing him as the food god that he is.

Over at the Draper’s Arms, er I mean British Love, American Pride, the red team prepares their menu. Yes, the team changed the name of the restaurant they were at! If they were going to change it, they could have at least chosen a GOOD name. And the best part is the guy (I think it was Gary Walker) who announces it to freakin NIGELLA LAWSON is all proud of it but she and the other judges/hosts look absolutely horrified. The owner of the restaurant wants to know if what he did is even legal!

Sidenote: Gary owns his own company which is aptly named Cheflove. I wonder who on the red team decided to commandeer a recognized British pub and embarrass it by re-naming it British Love, American Pride. I wish Gary was going home tonight, but he’s here to stay and will continue to make me want to throw things at the TV whenever he comes on.

So the teams serve their menus. Sai is the front of the house for the black team and she is like a tween with braces and a training bra meeting Justin Bieber for the first time when she greets Nigella Lawson during service. It was a little endearing, but mostly creepy. The diners like the dishes for the most part but aren’t particularly fond of Cheven’s bread pudding that he insisted would knock everyone’s socks off because he is Cheven and the best chef/pastry chef in America and now in the UK.

Next up is the red team. Nookie, who has also assured us he is better than everyone else, makes the worst dish of the night: a bad, bad-looking kidney pie. Nigella is horrified once again and insulted because the kind of food he served is what gives British cuisine a bad reputation. No one really liked Nicole’s dish either. But then we learn Nookie is scheming and strategizing to ensure his victory which doesn’t have to be earned by cooking.

So the diners vote on the winner and choose the black team as the victor. Apparently the “judges” are just there for decoration and  Nigella was just hanging out with Cat and Curtis for fun because they have no say in anything.

Then the best thing EVER happens as the judges are praising the black team for serving dessert. The viewers know the dessert idea was all Cheven but then like a beam of light coming down from heaven, Chaz takes all the credit! If I had a DVR, I would have watched Cheven’s reaction to this over and over again. It was amazing. And THEN Cat tells Chaz that he won MVP and has immunity. Now Cheven is really about to lose it. OMG, this is good television.

The losing team now has to vote off one of its own member which happens in a very Survivor-esque way, minus the tiki torches and pukka shells. Nookie knows his kidney pie sucked worse than anything but he is determined to send home a chef named Clara anyway. I don’t even understand how he did it but he somehow convinces enough people that she should be sent home. C-ya, Clara!

This is no Top Chef but I’m intrigued. I’ll at least watch until Cheven is sent home, unless some other cheftestants step up and act as ridiculous and entertaining as he does.