95 replies to this topic

[TWoP Nikita]

From Zap2it:

The chefs need to create breakfast, lunch and dinner for the cast of "The Biggest Loser'' without exceeding 1,200 calories total.

Edited by TWoP Nikita, Apr 24, 2011 @ 3:29 PM.

[Lamb18]

Enjoyable episode except for Suvir's preaching. It was fun seeing the Biggest Loser people in a different setting plus interesting to see how the chefs could keep the total calories under 1500.

[Chrysaor]

I'd all but checked out of TCM, but at least we had an immensely satisfying elimination. Suck it, Suvir.

[Agnes Bean]

So, has Suvir never heard of meat that isn't red meat? If he really feels that strongly about being anti-beef, he could have done a Turkey burger (or maybe even a chicken or pork burger -- I've never seen those, but they could be interesting).

Edited by Agnes Bean, Apr 27, 2011 @ 10:07 PM.

[Holliday]

Color me surprised. I thought for sure Mary Sue was toast.

None of that food looked good to me.

[DoleWhip]

I've watched the past two weeks of Masters, and I never once understand how they decide who to eliminate. I thought Suvir's dish was the best of the bottom 3.

I'm glad he's gone though. Didn't like seeing him do that to his teammate.

*ETA: Realized Hugh wasn't his teammate.

Edited by DoleWhip, Apr 27, 2011 @ 10:48 PM.

[Parrish122]

I think they let Irene speak more on this show than in the whole Biggest Loser season! But I tend to agree they picked the right one for elimination, though I wonder if how much his preaching worked against him and how much was the dish.

[ironwolf]

The Indian chef on America's Next...blah blah blah Restaurant also seems to go on a lot of "American's love meat and that's horrible" screeds too. Also I'm pretty sure the whole America is the fattest nation thing is no longer true isn't it? I believe Australia (I think) and a couple European countries have passed us in that regard...I might be wrong though. Oh and the show cross-promoting and trying to make Curtis Stone "happen" by putting him on EVERYTHING is starting to grow really tiresome.

Edited by ironwolf, Apr 27, 2011 @ 10:13 PM.

[kiki1234]

Color me surprised. I thought for sure Mary Sue was toast.

None of that food looked good to me.

I thought she was too. She's been on the bottom so much I thought maybe they'd put her out of her misery. I thought the first group of food looked good and George's pizza. This EC reminded me of the one from season 2 where they cooked for the kids at the camp. I think the pizza was a big hit then too.

I'm glad he's gone though. Didn't like seeing him do that to his teammate.

What did he do to his teammate?

[Delirium64]

So once again, they discuss how horrible Tio's dish was ("It made me want salt and fat" was one of the comments), but she skates by again. It really sounded like hers was the worst dish, but apparently not. It was commented that Mary Sue's hash tasted good, but looked horrible. Hash doesn't EVER look attractive to me! And as far as poached eggs go, how one likes them is a very personal thing. I like my eggs runny, Mr Del likes his eggs harder. It's personal taste.

That said, the right person went home. The idea was to cook for the "client" and give them a satisfying flavor profile. Suvir failed to do that as stepping off his soapbox long enough to do so apparently wasn't an option.

[swankie]

I'm glad Mr. "So what if it tastes like crap on a cracker, I'm going to force you to eat it and don't care if you like it or not" went home packing his vegetable cutting knives. What a pushy holier than thou attitude he has. I think the veggie burger that looks like cat food that he swore his wouldn't be probably tastes better than that gray looking furball he had in that pita. Buh-bye!

[vb68]

I'm so glad Suvir and his self-righteousness are gone. Regardless of his beliefs, he was quite rude and out of line. I could understand why Hugh took offense.

[sassykat1963]

For this episode, there were some dishes I really would have loved to try. The french toast looked amazing, and the meatball looked good too.

Goodbye Suvir, I won't miss you, because I didn't really care to get to know you. Don't know how long I can hang in with this show.

ironwolf

Oh and the show cross-promoting and trying to make Curtis Stone "happen" by putting him on EVERYTHING is starting to grow really tiresome.

Channeling Regina George?

Edited by TWoP Nikita, Apr 28, 2011 @ 12:57 AM.
off-topic

[jes004]

I think Suvir missed the whole point - to take a flavor profile the diner loves and make a satisfying substitute. By virtue of that, he needed to go home.

PS: I adore Traci, with Mary Sue a close second.

Edited by jes004, Apr 27, 2011 @ 10:41 PM.

[DoleWhip]

What did he do to his teammate?

Ok never mind, I just realized they weren't on the same team. But they served together, so I got confused. Hugh couldn't say much after that, but Suvir still told Hugh he went too far for saying he doesn't think meat is as sinister as described.

It's like when Ilan in S2 of regular TC, during the seven deadly sins challenge, announced right after Marcel served a lust dish that cherries decrease your sex drive. And I don't even like Marcel. I guess Marcel couldn't say anything at the time in response, but this was much lengthier and more thorough putdown.

Edited by DoleWhip, Apr 27, 2011 @ 10:47 PM.

[vb68]

Color me surprised. I thought for sure Mary Sue was toast.

I knew it was Suvir when one of the judges called it "a lecture on a plate."

[MerBear]

I thought Hugh's dinner looked delicious and so did Floyd's. I would love some of these recipes. Suvir was inappropriate in his overly long, self-righteous lecture, though I'm sure he meant to convey a message to the Losers. What's interesting is he's kinda chunky so whatever he's eating has given him a bit of a belly. Suvir really missed the point of the challenge by avoiding the meat that the Loser really liked and wanted to continue eating.

[heebiejeebie]

I'm Suvir got the heave but a part of me regrets that it happened in a manner that I suspect gave him all the self-righteous martyr material he obviously craved. Still he didn't even try to actually make a veggie burger. I love that he was so pompous and prating his (incorrect) facts concerning meat whole the cameras almost seemed to make sure we saw the gut he throws around the kitchen. He's nowhere near obsese. But this six-pack sporting meat loving guy would take his anti-meat stance a little more seriously from a chef that doesn't look like he could spend ten minutes in the gym with me an hour after I ate a nice steak. Espousing a healthy diet is all well and good. Riding in on a high horse that is swaybacked and buckling under your weight? Not so much.

And it is too bad since I would have liked to see someone finally sell a non-meat veggie alternative that actually would solve the burger craving and not look like it tastes like dirt or involve cooking a large piece of fungus.

I do think Hugh was a little melodramatic about it. Especially since he not only handled his own presentation with a nice dry slightly self-deprecating pomposity puncturing followup to Suvir's chicken little , I mean tofu little routine, but also it was already pretty clear that the crowd was in his corner when it comes to love of meat.

[SpeciousLogic]

I'm way past oversaturated with the "cook light/eliminate red meat/cut fat" shows and dishes we're getting bombarded with all the time, from entire shows (biggest loser, Jamie Olliver) to almost-daily segments on GMA, to challenges like this. Almost none of those dishes looked very interesting to me. Maybe it's because I need to eat calorie-dense foods to survive (I'm underweight enough that I can't get cheap insurance -- apparently it's worse to be underweight than overweight according to insurance standards), and all of these "everyone needs to be cutting down on high-calorie foods" messages that are constantly getting sent out just underscore that nobody is catering to people like me.

Of course I was very glad that Suvir and his blanket preachiness against meat were shown the door. Maybe red meat is bad for some people, but you get the feeling he'd eliminate it from the entire world's diet if he could.

[biakbiak]

Color me surprised. I thought for sure Mary Sue was toast.

Really? It seemed the only reason she was even up for elimination was because they went with teams. I mean the two criticisms of her dish at judge's table was the egg wasn't runny enough for a few people, Curtis said his was cooked perfectly when eating it, and then Allison and the contestants felt it was under, so yes since she isn't cooking to order she isn't going to cook to everyone's liking! And the other criticism was that maybe there should be a finer dice on her hash, it literally seemed like there was no way in hell she was going home.

[SpeciousLogic]

I knew it was Suvir when one of the judges called it "a lecture on a plate."

Memo to Suvir: When it comes to cooking, the message is never more important than the medium.

[nannerbadnanner]

Espousing a healthy diet is all well and good. Riding in on a high horse that is swaybacked and buckling under your weight? Not so much.

Hilarious and so true!

I thought the pizza, meatball sub, and flank steak all looked amazing. I was glad that the contestants took this challenge seriously as opposed to some of the previous contestants from Top Chef when dealing with a similar challenge (like sneaking extra sugar in the cookies).

I did think that Naomi sounded a bit condescending when she kept calling the contestants "these people" although I am certain she didn't mean to come across that way. Of course, nobody could out-condescend Suvir.

Whoever coined the phrase "Hughnibrow" was spot on, but I do kind of love him so it's all good.

[Durazo]

HA! So glad Suvir went home, although I was enjoying his personality up until this episode. Loved Curtis slapping him down at critics' table too. These people have lost probably a thousand pounds between them. They don't need Suvir's help to figure out what they should be eating.

[Venee]

I love that he was so pompous and prating his (incorrect) facts concerning meat whole the cameras almost seemed to make sure we saw the gut he throws around the kitchen. He's nowhere near obsese. But this six-pack sporting meat loving guy would take his anti-meat stance a little more seriously from a chef that doesn't look like he could spend ten minutes in the gym with me an hour after I ate a nice steak. Espousing a healthy diet is all well and good. Riding in on a high horse that is swaybacked and buckling under your weight? Not so much.

Have to agree with you here. The whole time he was talking I was wondering where his weight came from since he wasn't eating Red Meat. If you are not fit as a fiddle you'd better not be talking about how fat anyone is.

HA! So glad Suvir went home, although I was enjoying his personality up until this episode. Loved Curtis slapping him down at critics' table too. These people have lost probably a thousand pounds between them. They don't need Suvir's help to figure out what they should be eating.

Although I agree with you, the hardest part of weight loss is not the initial loss it's keeping it off. There are so many former "Biggest Loser" contestants who have gained much of the weight back. Without being secluded on a ranch and forced to workout 6 hours a day, I think quite a few of them really don't know what they should do in the real world.

[SunShine Gal]

I'm not familiar with the guest QuickFire judge, Norbert of Beverly Hills, but I found the whole thing amusing. He doesn't like cheese with his eggs. Then we see Hugh watching the judging say something like "you've never had an omelet?". Norbert says one dish tastes too much like onion. George says "it's an onion gratin". Norbert criticized Floyd's dish saying it had too much spice on it, but Floyd says it's a proper authentic Mexican dish. Traci was worried about her dish of carpaccio and cheese being too simple and yet Norbert picks it as the winner. I don't doubt that Norbert knows his cheese, but I laughed so hard at the cheftestants WTF-is-this-guy-talking-about musings.

I liked the Elimination Challenge they had. I expected the chefs to be excited about it, too, since this type of challenge is classic Top Chef fair. Take an existing comfort food dish and update it with less fat and calories. This should have been something these chefs dream about getting IMHO. I didn't understand Alex's concern with fried chicken and creamed corn. I make a very low-cal oven fried chicken and a flavorful fresh creamed corn dish w/bacon. I was surprised Alex was having any sort of angst about it.

Then there's Suvir. For someone to be sooo against red meat, shouldn't he already have an expansive mental recipe file for just this type of challenge? If anyone should have been prepared for this type of challenge, it should have been him. I don't know why Suvir came on this show. What if he'd been asked to cook the best steak, what was he going to do then? For this challenge fine if he didn't want to cook with beef, but he didn't even come up with a good alternative to wow even a vegetarian's taste. I've had protein substitutes that have been quite good, but Suvir wasn't prepared to make one of those either. I'm so glad he's gone. His off-putting personality and hypocritical preaching isn't conducive to people taking him seriously. He wasn't even close to being a Top Chef Master.

When Suvir was leaving, what was he taking with him? They usually pack their knives and go, but it looked like Suvir was taking a bin of produce and other kitchen supplies. Seemed odd to me.

Edited by SunShine Gal, Apr 28, 2011 @ 2:09 AM.

[lillybee]

I think if you want to make a healthy burger, you could use portabella mushrooms or eggplant and doctor it up to make it tasty.

[bobbyjoe]

I'm calling a bit of editing trickery and conflict construction here, typical of the problems this season, and I think it defies what Top Chef Masters is supposed to be about. I don't like seeing this show sink more and more into the "storylines," villainization and editing shenanigans often seen on the other Top Chefs. Is that really what Top Chef: Masters ought to be?

Our brief images of the other contestants reactions to Suvir leaving at the end of the episode suggest that they didn't see him as the pompous, self-righteous "villain" that he was finally fully cast as this episode. Nor do many of the scenes we see in previous episodes of their interactions with him where there's usually a laughing camaraderie. But if we buy the editing tonight, it strongly suggests that Suvir was deviously trying to sabotage Hugh. Suvir makes his speech, then we immediately cut away to Hugh "ohmigod, Suvir Has.crossed. a line." and so on, much like the "conflict and villain" scenarios that have previously plagued the other incarnations of TC but not so much Top Chef: Masters.

But agree or disagree with Suvir's point (which is a pretty common argument about red meat and obesity that I think most people have heard many times before), it was his time before skeptical judges; when else was he going to state why he did what he did? Couldn't it have been as easy to read what he said as an attempt at self-preservation and justification by someone who suspected his meal would be a hard-sell as it was to immediately cast it as some sort of devious sabotage? Maybe even a lot more easy, unless the idea here was just trying to make someone seem nasty (particularly when it's stretching things a bit to think anyone would be focusing on sabotaging Hugh, of all people, who was previously booted off the show). Hugh, in fact, laughs it off to the crowd when he comes up to speak after Suvir and if memory serves me, Suvir laughs, too.

Consider how the editing tonight makes a difference, as these shows edit what contestants say all the time. Let's say we, instead, see just enough of Suvir's "anti-red meat" statements to briefly make his point (again, agree or disagree), followed by judges and diners reaction to his food. Hugh steps up, makes his quick joke about Suvir, introduces his food and we see judge's and diner's reaction to the food. Then we move on with the competition.

In the case we saw, we have the typical Top Chef brand villain/sabotage style storyline. In the second case I suggest, the focus is moved back to the food, and it lives or dies by its quality. Suvir is eliminated, fair enough. But I've always thought that Top Chef Masters was better than what we're seeing in an episode like tonight's; that it was a show where it was interesting enough to see masterful chefs make masterful (or not always so masterful) food, and that we're presented with a friendly competitiveness, not playing up this kind of "you're trying to sabotage me" or "eek, this person's a pompous creep" personality conflicts likely egged on by the producers and editing monkeys.

Tonight's episode is yet another example of why this show is in a sad, not-so-slow, decline this season.

[pjamma]

To make satisfying bacon cheeseburger substitute you really have to go the portion control route. The sample was huge. You can cut out more then half the calories by using a smaller patty, leaner cut of beef, one piece of bacon crumbled shreaded cheese and one of those orawheat thin buns. If you want a bacon cheeseburger, veggie, chicken or turkey burgers w/mushrooms and turkey bacon will not do it. Bake some sweet potato fries and serve with a yogurt based dipping sauce. Once Suvir decided to drasticly change the meal I knew he was a goner.

Edited by pjamma, Apr 28, 2011 @ 3:09 AM.

[Paws]

Although I agree with you, the hardest part of weight loss is not the initial loss it's keeping it off. There are so many former "Biggest Loser" contestants who have gained much of the weight back. Without being secluded on a ranch and forced to workout 6 hours a day, I think quite a few of them really don't know what they should do in the real world.

This is going to sound awful, but did you notice how they all ate all the food--even the stuff that wasn't very good? And the one woman also ate another diner's plate of meat since she didn't get to satisfy her meat craving with her selected dish. It seems that most of the contestants that we saw had issues that made them overeat no matter how good or bad the food is. Which that is pretty representative of most overweight people, I suppose, but I couldn't help but notice it. And I cringed when James Oseland said "ooh look! He's a member of the clean plate club!" They all are! That's why they went on Biggest Loser!

Edited by Paws, Apr 28, 2011 @ 6:23 AM.

[Borpoh]

Quote of the night: "... juicy succulence that we crave..."

I'm getting the unsettling feeling that Monobrow Tom Cruise might win this whole competition if he can reach Operating Thetan Level 5.