Catching Up with Top Chef

With some time off recently, I got the chance to catch up with Season 3 of Bravo’s Top Chef. I completely missed Season 2 of the series where chefs go through various, entertaining, and tough challenges to be named Top Chef.

Season 3 is only 5 episodes in so if you haven’t watched before, it’s easy to catch up. I got no cooking skills whatsoever except to nuke some Sapporo Ichiban in the microwave, but I still like watching this show. Maybe it’s because of the interesting challenges. Maybe I’m amazed at the all the things the chefs can do with food in a short time. The stuff they make look great, sound great, and I guess tastes great (most of the time). Maybe I like the fancy culinary phrases thrown around the show – ceviche, yuca, blood oranges, and my favorite, amuse bouche. I mean, who wouldn’t want to amuse your bouche?

I still haven’t gotten a good feel for this year’s chefs, but for some reason I like brotherman Tre. He’s got a smooth style about him. Hung is giving the Asian stereotype a bad rap even though he’s talented.

Some other comments. Head Judge Tom Colicchio looks like he’s been eating a little too well. It’s good to see Lee Anne Wong from Season 1 contributing to the show. From what little I’ve read on her Top Chef blog, she’s one of the show’s producers and is responsible for setting up the challenges. Also good to hear from Season 1 winner, Harold Dieterle, who also blogs about each Top Chef episode and still shows Lee Anne some love sending shout outs.

Bravo’s Top Chef web site is impressive if not overwhelming. There’s so much content from episode recaps, blogs, message boards, pictures, recipes, videos, and more. Where to begin?!

Anyways, it’s Wednesday and a new episode airs tonight.