America, the new Top Chef is Hung. Yay! His technical skills were always highly praised throughout this season, but he was often criticized for not putting enough "soul" into his food. Dale was smiled upon beatifically for saying you should be able to tell in the taste of the food whether the chef got laid the night before. Um. I don't know about you but I don't really want to be eating my entree and thinking about that. Then I'd wonder about hand-washing and all sorts of other distractions. (Dale also said he gets high marks for his "sauce". )
Last night the text-messaging viewers voted Hung in last place, giving him a mere 18% of the vote, so I'm guessing there are some pissed off TC fans today. Casey had a complete meltdown, failing to really show up for the competition. Based on past performance, though, viewers gave her 58%* of the vote. Had she decided to cook and not whimper about the elevation, she would have deserved to win, having put in a very respectable season. Still, folks. Dale ahead of Hung? Dale was less talented than several chefs who got knocked out earlier. Like Tre.
Last season was a travesty from start to finish. The final test in Hawaii did not showcase the chefs' talents and was really nothing more than another elimination challenge. So I was happy to see that they went back to allowing the chefs a little more leeway this time around. Still, how fair is it to have each chef prepare a four-course meal and then have to serve it alongside two other entrees? If the chef is developing a theme there's a hell of a lot of interference to distract from what he's developing. The first season had the best finale. No bullshit, just let the cooks shop, chop and roll. Hopefully they'll go back to that.
So now that Chef is over I would like to thank the programming folks at Bravo who are giving us more than a month between Chef and Project Runway.
*or something like that. I'm not sure. There was wine. You're just lucky I didn't decide to vlog along with the show like Althouse and her 4 Bucks Box o' Wine.
