Top Chef: Don't Mess With BBQ

April 3, 2022 10:31 PM - Season 19, Episode 5

The chefs spend the episode at J Bar M Barbecue, where they go straight into the Elimination Challenge -- they are given 12 hours to smoke a beef brisket to incorporate into a dish, to be served to twenty of Houston's finest pitmasters, including guest judge Greg Gatlin. In a Top Chef first, the chefs are surprised that while their briskets are barbecuing, they will get to compete in a Quickfire challenge cooking for Tom and Brooke Williamson, themed around Texas Toast.

No Bravo information available, which seems odd. So the episode summary is mine.

posted by Superilla (5 comments total)

I was really glad that the home town gal won with a curry. Also, we ate there yesterday for lunch. I had brisket and the Glee Gal had ribs. Food was flavorful, and the staff was friendly. I'll probably be having leftovers for lunch today.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:52 AM on April 4, 2022

Yes, the unconventional brisket dishes coming out on top made me happy. And she seems sweet.
posted by praemunire at 9:11 AM on April 4, 2022

Another really interesting, enjoyable challenge— you’re not making brisket, you’re using brisket smoked under a watchful eye and incorporating it into a new dish so you’re not going to screw up the cook too badly. That said, underseasoning is a big yikes but almost certainly could have been rectified a little better.

I’m glad grinding worked out. That curry base did look amazing. I was surprised to not see a pho-like soup with a burnt ends pressure cooked broth or something.
posted by supercres at 3:24 PM on April 4, 2022

I was so happy they gave them enough time to actually smoke a brisket. Too often these shows tend towards the really quick and dirty versions, which I get for time constraints, but isn't always as interesting. I was surprised at how big the brisket was in her soup. I thought that it sounded like such a good idea too. Bummer what happened to Leia though in LCK, she seemed to be on a roll cooking great food.
posted by Carillon at 7:14 PM on April 4, 2022

I was so happy they gave them enough time to actually smoke a brisket.
I agree - The second worst thing that cooking shows do (after making the people fight rather than be friends) is to give them grossly inadequate equipment or time so that the chefs are set up to fail. Challenging them is fun, screwing them over is not.

Also, Metafilter's own Linda Holmes had a nice tweet series about the show a little while ago:
It’s all subjective and nothing is perfect, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen as good an evolution towards a show being its best self, particularly so far into its history, as TOP CHEF has had the last few seasons. [link to thread]


On LCK, Sarah's personality has really shone - I love her dry wit. The two-part challenge that went up after this episode was an interesting one; the first part was great -- I'm saddened that Leia made such a basic mistake which doomed her (and it's understandable; salt is just so omnipresent that I understand how you'd forget about it, but it's still a mistake).

But the second part really annoyed me; the two chefs had taken such different paths through the shopping -- getting stuff for a specific composed dish vs. getting stuff to cover a variety of bases and allow improvisation -- that Sarah was really at a disadvantage no matter how much they edited in dirty station comments. Like the occasional stupid Quickfire, at least the stakes weren't lose and you go home.
posted by Superilla at 2:55 PM on April 7, 2022