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This week on the Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show, our old pal (and Top Chef virgin) comedian Joey Avery is joining us on the cast. We're talking Top Chef season one, episode nine, "Napa's Finest," in which the final four chefs (Harold, Lee Anne, Tiffani, and Dave) get trimmed to three before the finale in Las Vegas. First the chefs competed to see who could elevate junk food classics, and then they packed off to Napa to try to pair fancy truffles with fancy wine -- a challenge that seemed like a giant F-you to Stephen, specifically, who would've killed to be a part of this, but kicked off last episode. Meanwhile, Lee Anne seems to really hate Tiffani, which didn't seem to be a storyline before this episode? Fun!
Joey, Joey, and I Monday Morning Quarterback the dishes, reminisce about the hottest food trends of 2006, and play overhated/underhated, in which we name which food/restaurant trends that get hated unfairly, and which ones don't get hated enough. That's right, we're coming for you, hot chicken.
Don't forget to checkout Roundball Rock, The Joey Show, Joey Avery on tour, but ESPECIALLY our sponsor, BlackwoodDistilling. In fact, here's a drink recipe for all the good piggies:
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What is the cruelest Top Chef challenge of all time? After this week’s episode of the Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show, we humbly submit Top Chef season 1, episode 8, “Wedding Bell Blues.”
In this week’s Top Chef season 1 rewind, the five remaining competitors (season one had only 12 chefs, as opposed to later seasons which usually had 15) were challenged to cater a 100-person wedding. That sounds challenging, perhaps, but not necessarily cruel.
Ah, but that’s not all: the chefs were told to prepare a cold prawn canapé, sketch a cake, and pitch a menu for the couple about to be married, who would then choose the pitch they liked best, and the contestants would then work together to cater the wedding based on the winning menu. Again, challenging, but not mean. It was only after all the chefs had whipped up their best prawn w****s deserve’s (do not correct my French) and pitched their most pie-in-the-sky catering concepts that Tom Colicchio introduced the big twist: Oh yeah, the wedding to be catered is tomorrow.
At which point the chefs had to do their best to reproduce a speculative concept, pitched under partially false pretenses, using ingredients sourced from a regular grocery store, and prepped over the course of a single night. Wedding food is inevitably disappointing even under ideal circumstances, let alone this. And so this was essentially an impossible-to-succeed task, guaranteed to disappoint the two newlyweds who so helpfully allowed a production crew to shoot an episode of a reality show they’d never heard of on their most special day (I’m sure they saved a bundle on it, but still). This challenge was cruel to just about everyone!
Especially our beautiful big-tie knotted boy Stephen Asprinio, who ended up (spoiler alert) getting kicked off, despite preparing nowhere near the worst food of the episode and being the undisputed ratings MVP Top Chef season 1. Zero chance this show makes it to its soon-to-be-released 22nd season without Stephen Asprinio. How’s that for gratitude? I tell ya.
Helping Joey Devine (of the Roundball Rock NBA podcast) and I discuss Top Chef S1E8 is Jordan Mattox, of the Fresno’s Best Podcast.
Recording this week’s episode was made slightly more difficult on account of Peacock having summarily removed seasons 1-7 of Top Chef from the channel between the recording of our last episode and this one. You can now find it (with ads) on the Bravo app (if you have a cable subscription), or buy episodes on Prime Video. Remember when we thought “the internet is forever?” Ha! We were so naive. Can’t wait until corporations can decide to no longer offer software updates on our pacemakers or whatever.
Please share, comment, enjoy, and ENGAGE. Don’t forget to visit our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling, at Bourbon Outfitter (get it delivered!). ork together to cater the wedding based on the winning menu. Again, challenging, but not mean. It was only after all the chefs had whipped up their best prawn w****s deserve’s (do not correct my French) and pitched their most pie-in-the-sky catering concepts that Tom Colicchio introduced the big twist: Oh yeah, the wedding to be catered is tomorrow.
At which point the chefs had to do their best to reproduce a speculative concept, pitched under partially false pretenses, using ingredients sourced from a regular grocery store, and prepped over the course of a single night. Wedding food is inevitably disappointing even under ideal circumstances, let alone this. And so this was essentially an impossible-to-succeed task, guaranteed to disappoint the two newlyweds who so helpfully allowed a production crew to shoot an episode of a reality show they’d never heard of on their most special day (I’m sure they saved a bundle on it, but still). This challenge was cruel to just about everyone!
Especially our beautiful big-tie knotted boy Stephen Asprinio, who ended up (spoiler alert) getting kicked off, despite preparing nowhere near the worst food of the episode and being the undisputed ratings MVP Top Chef season 1. Zero chance this show makes it to its soon-to-be-released 22nd season without Stephen Asprinio. How’s that for gratitude? I tell ya.
Helping Joey Devine (of the Roundball Rock NBA podcast) and I discuss Top Chef S1E8 is Jordan Mattox, of the Fresno’s Best Podcast.
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This week we’re going all the way back to April 19th, 2006 to recap Top Chef’s very first Restaurant War. This was an epic battle in which one team wanted to showcase American Classics (one of which included tuna tartare on a pita bread?) in order to take down the other team, who had invoked that brand new, red hot restaurant concept that had only just reached American shores in 2006, “Spanish.”
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[This is the podcast section of The #Content Report. It’s different than the regular section. You put it in your ears.]
David J. Roth from Defector and The Distraction joins Vince and Joey this week to discuss season 1, episode 6 of Top Chef, "Guess Who's Coming for Dinner," with guest judge Ted Allen!
This episode could've been alternately titled "Miguel's Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" as it started with Miguel feeling like the whole world was against him, then he put Palmolive in the dishwasher, and then he put salt instead of sugar in his dessert, and then he ended up at judge's table, and finally he finished things off by calling Tiffani "A snake. SSSSSS" one of the all-time most memorable Top Chef trailer clips.
Dave cried red-faced into his wine glass and lots of other stuff happened too, but the important thing is that Andrea is finally gone. My God, it feels like it took forever, didn't it? it seemed like someone else was about to get sent home, but Andrea, who thought she was above this competition all along, basically decided to fall on her sword instead, making up some dumb b******t about green onions on her way out. Much like Joe Biden, the best thing she did was to leave the stage. Good riddance, Andrea! Have fun pooping!
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Welcome to The #Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since I started FilmDrunk in 2007. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real.
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[This is a podcast episode newsletter. They’re different than the regular ones.]
The guest? Rachel Fisher from Hollywood Crime Scene. The show? The Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show. This week, all-star guest Rachel is helping me and Joey break down episode five of the first season of Top Chef (it premiered back in 2006!). Rachel was a Top Chef virgin before we asked her on the show, but she has since seen the first five episodes and now she’s hooked. Let that be a lesson to any of you non-Top Chef-watching #Content Report subscribers (PS, I love you!).
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Seriously though, this show was watchable as hell straight from the get-go and nothing has driven that home like watching these old-ass episodes. This week’s episode is “Blind Confusion,” which debuted the now de rigeur “Blind Taste Test” quickfire challenge. Which in this case was unfortunately won by Andrea, one of my all-time least favorite contestants. OH MY GOD, WHY IS SHE STILL HERE?!?
She got kicked off in episode two (which was already a gift! she should’ve been gone in week one!), then got brought back when Sylvia dropped out to take care of her dead father, and then she somehow landed in the top three last episode. This episode, she managed to win immunity in a blind taste test challenge (aka a non-cooking challenge!) and so we’re stuck with her for yet another episode. This even though she doesn’t seem particularly interested in the challenges, this competition, or even food in general. She strikes all of us as a “food is fuel”-style person, and as food TV enthusiasts, we hate those people.
Luckily there’s also Stephen, one of the all-time great reality show characters, plus human cartoon character Miguel and constantly-flustered Dave. We love this gang. In this episode, they make fusion Latin-American food in San Francisco’s Mission District. Asian ingredients on a taco?! Can they DO that??
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Sean Keane from the Roundball Rock podcast joins us this week to discuss Top Chef season 1, episode 4 -- "Food on the Fly." This episode challenged the chefs first to get all their quickfire ingredients from a convenience store and then to prepare an entree that could be reheated in a microwave. These days David Chang and all the hip chefs brag about all the things they cook in a microwave, but back in 2006 that was tantamount to telling one of these fancy chefs to shoot their dog.
"I haven't used one of these in 10 years," says chef Andrea, who is inexplicably still on the show. That is the “Oh, I don’t watch TV” of food.
Yet cutting the chefs down to size a bit seemed to all be part of the (producers’) plan. To get them to drop all the fancy talk and try to relate to some normal people. I guess we thought that's what foodies needed back then, to stop talkin’ so fancy all the time and just throw some normal slop in the microwave from time to time and give the piggies what they want (to cavort, mostly). They weren't entirely wrong. It was good TV, anyway.
This episode also featured possibly the meanest Top Chef guest judge ever, in Jefferson Hill — then the executive chef at the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus, yet another San Francisco location that doesn't exist anymore (we will stop reminiscing about these one week, but not this week). These days Jefferson Hill is... well, no one really knows! He seems to have disappeared from the internet record. Maybe he faked his own death, or lives in a really nice barn somewhere with a dog.
Other drama includes: Miguel stealing Tiffani's idea for Krispy Kreme bread pudding (which sounds disgusting, even though I like both Krispy Kreme and bread pudding), Miguel trying to get Stephen to understand that not everyone is a snob, and Dave being upset that Harold and Stephen clowned his lasagna. Can you believe they’d stoop that low, to ridicule a man’s lasagna? That’s low, boys.
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Candice ends up going home, and it feels like the producers were setting up a character arc for her that never quite panned out. The presumption was that she might be more than she first appears, but if so we never found out.
Then we try to figure out which classic Real World tropes each Top Chef contestant was cast based on, argue over who is the most successful Real World castmember, and try to imagine a season of Top Chef cast with ex-Real World people. Good times were had. Food was watched. Pack your knives, and also your headphones.
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More movie and culture stuff coming soon (as well as a new Frotcast, with Alice Fraser, in which we attempt to get to the bottom of the Australian breakdancer madness, which should be up in a day or so).
In the meantime, here’s a great Yaphet Kotto story about Robert Mitchum. Nothing like old character actors telling stories.
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Joey and I are back talking about season 1 of Top Chef. This week we're talking about season one, episode 3 (103), "Nasty Delights," which really is a fantastic Top Chef episode and quite possibly a big reason we still have this show 21 seasons later. Stephen Asprinio deserves his place in the Top Chef hall of fame. And maybe the Giant Tie Knot Hall of Fame. All-time great reality show character.
This episode, the chefs had to make octopus, which apparently sounded weird and gross to everyone in 2006, even chefs. And then they had to make monkfish for little kids. Crazy how this episode turned out, because some people who went on to become food TV royalty probably should've gone home this episode. Justice for Brian! (Or, maybe not, maybe he deserved it).
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At the risk of overposting, here’s an audio interview with Rasika from Top Chef.
With all due respect to Danny and Dan, I felt like this season of Top Chef was a little anti-climactic, and arguably slightly lower in general entertainment value than previous seasons, especially the most recent ones. Joey has wondered if we’ve reached “peak James Beard Award.” That’s a subject we could debate, but I would also argue that some of this season’s most engaging characters got kicked off too early — Michelle, Soo, and certainly Rasika, who ended up finishing 11th.
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I thought she should’ve gone much further! Well, there’s always at least one raw deal (to go with all the ceviches and crudos). Rasika Venkatesa, a Chennai-born chef recently of Mourad in San Francisco, isn’t letting that get her down. She recently moved to New York to start her own pop-up restaurant business, Mythily, with which she hopes to reinvent Tamil cuisine. Sounds good to me.
She was also kind enough to sit down for a chat, about her time on the show, future plans, what the show means to the restaurant industry these days, and all other manner of chef-type stuff. We’re cookin’ up a conversation!! (I’m sorry). Anyway, hope you enjoy this bonus #Content. Joey and I will be back with a regular Top Chef Frotcast Post Show in a day or two.
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Top Chef Wisconsin (aka Top Chef Season 21) may be over, but the Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show isn’t. This week we welcome Top Chef season 13 finalist and season 20 fan favorite Amar Santana, chef/owner of Broadway and Vaca, both in Orange County, California. Amar is great interview and actually seems to enjoy talking to us for whatever reason, which I hope won’t get him into any professional trouble. Years ago I tasted Jamón Iberico for the first time thanks to Amar, which is one of those things you never forget.
We get all the Top Chef inside info from Amar, including what his casting process was like, how much editors manipulate the show, and whether Top Chef winners still dream of opening new restaurants. He takes us back to when he first heard about the show, working alongside Ilan Hall (who went onto win Top Chef season 2) as line cooks for Charlie Palmer, and why he decided to be on it. He talks about the moment Top Chef stopped feeling like a reality show and started feeling like a legit cooking competition (it involved the Voltaggio Brothers), as well as the auditioning process, the psych evaluation, and more.
Finally, we made Amar go back and watch the first episode of the first season of Top Chef, and we discuss all the things that make it kind of hilarious to watch now, from Katie Lee being the host instead of Padma, to Tom Colicchio’s soul patch, to that crazy Irish guy who got kicked off for putting his finger in Hubert Keller’s sauce (Ken Lee). Uh, that’s DJ Hubert Keller to you.
As always, thank you to our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling Co. (Yes, the show has a sponsor, that’s why it’s free on all platforms).
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We’re baaaa-aaack. This week, part one of Top Chef’s season 21 finale took the chefs to the Caribbean nation of Curacao, where the final four competed in a battle to combine gouda and lionfish, and then in an eight-course fish tasting menu on a Holland America Cruise Line with fresh fish ambassador, Morimoto! As promised last week, host of the Roundball Rock podcast and Top Chef superfan, comedian Joey Devine is helping me, Vince Mancini from The #Content Report/Frotcast, break down the latest Top Chef ‘sode. Enjoy, share, subscribe, and check out our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling.
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It's the Frotcast Top Chef Post-Show and we're discussing every episode. In this first episode of the Frotcast Top Chef Post-Show, Vince Mancini from the Frotcast/The #Content Report and Joey Devine from the Roundball Rock podcast are discuss Top Chef episode 12 of season 21, the one where the chefs are cut down to four. There's a blind taste test, then a challenge based on "personal growth." Which chefs do we love? Which do we hate? What is better or worse about this season? Give her a listen.
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