Top Chef: Battle of the Wellingtons

June 4, 2023 10:31 PM - Season 20, Episode 11

Coming into the final stretch before the finale. It's full steam ahead as the remaining six chefs are tasked with creating a steamed dish for their Quickfire Challenge. In one of the hardest Elimination Challenges yet, the chefs are put in teams of two and must create not one, not two, but three different Wellingtons to serve 20 diners, along with Padma, Tom and Gail. The two chefs from the losing team will pack their knives.

Text from IMDB.

The quickfire involves the chefs steaming dishes using... only a small amount of water that they must share. Sara just dishes out the same amount of water to everyone, and there's no real drama beyond Amar's inability to steam a dish. Buddha wins the quickfire with a fish dish.

The main challenge involves the the cheftestants being paired up, and cooking three wellingtons per team; one seafood, one meat and one dessert. And it's double elimination. Oof.

Buddha and Gabri win with a well cooked classic beef wellington, and a home run peach melba wellington.

Amar and Sara pack their knives after their meat course lamb wellington was just undercooked even if it was delicious. If only Sara had overruled Amar on that one.

posted by Superilla (7 comments total)

Sometimes you root against the top dog because there's something enjoyable in watching them stumble and fall.

For whatever reason I will never ever feel that way about Buddha. He's so good. I love it. I want him to smash it all.
posted by kbanas at 11:35 AM on June 5, 2023

I didn't care for Buddha in his first season. (last season?) He seemed stuck up then. I've liked him this season, and I think that he's the one to beat this season.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:23 PM on June 5, 2023

Dude cares and it really comes through he's not doing this because it's cool or whatever, but because it's his passion. I really love the cats and craft he shows.
posted by Carillon at 1:27 PM on June 5, 2023

I agree about Buddha. He and I seem to have different tastes in everything, but I appreciate his passion.

I like when they do challenges that are supposed to make them think about ethics. It's kind of funny that this one fell so flat because they all did a pretty good job and no drama occurred. Although my partner did rewind to make sure I saw how much water Sara wasted when she filled the jug.
posted by tofu_crouton at 3:13 PM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

He's always rubbed me the wrong way. To me, he seems more like a pimp for "luxe" than a passionate chef--I mean, dude runs a "caviar bar" in NYC. But that doesn't mean he's not very talented. He obviously is.
posted by praemunire at 5:00 PM on June 5, 2023

Yes, Buddha is very impressive and I think he tries very hard not to be a snob who knows exactly how good he is. He has obviously done so much research on this show, that came through his first season especially.

But at this point it is a bit boring for him to just keep winning... I don't care about all the molds! Enough with molds! I feel like he doesn't deserve my irritation but nonetheless I wish things would balance out and someone would outdo him.
posted by Emmy Rae at 3:01 PM on June 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm actually kind of annoyed about the molds. It's one thing to allow one "special ingredient" brought from home or whatever, as it's a way to let chefs from less common cuisines have a chance to show off some of their specialty knowledge in the context of a challenge that might otherwise not allow for it, quite another to have someone show up with thousands of dollars' worth of non-knife tools that just so happen to be useful for a particular challenge. Do I blame Buddha for this? No, he doesn't write the rules. But it rubs me the wrong way. Chefs' success or failure should not depend on the extra resources they can bring to the competition.
posted by praemunire at 5:48 PM on June 7, 2023 [1 favorite]