Top Chef Texas-Restaurants, Grilling Meat, Women vs. Men

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So okay we've had the Top Chef Texas contenders cooking elk and rabbits, grilling meats now most recently we had them open up their own restaurant-men versus the women. We'd taken a closer look at the contenders early on when I'd daringly said to keep eye on Ty-Lor but this promising chef was sent home after the restaurant challenge, now I must reconsider a new prediction.



As of the episode aired on 1/12/12, the remaining contenders are:

Grayson Schmitz-NY,28,catering
Paul Qui-Austin,31,exec chef
Edward Lee-Louisville,39,exec chef
Beverly Kim-32,chicago,chef de cuisine
Sarah Gruenberg-Chicago, 30,exec chef
Chris Jones-chicago,30, chef de cuisine
Lindsay Autry-29, Palm Beach,exec chef

I am very surprised by the elimination of Ty-Lor Boring in that he shone like the star of Bethlehem on the episode aired 1/5/12. He won that episode's Quickfire challenge which had the author of a cookbook on "modernist" cuisine, which I'm thinking does not include elk or rabbit, judging their entries. And while not on the winning team for the elimination challenge that had the contenders doing what Texans do best-grilling meat-Ty-Lor's team did do very well even though teammate Sarah had to be taken to the hospital and only two were left of the team of three to prepare their dishes for a crowd of 300.

The meat grilling challenge was most interesting in that this is Texas and Texans loves their grilled meat. The site of this elimination challenge was a place called the Salt Lick. It looked like a fairly typical Texas BBQ joint and face it, these restaurants and cookbook authors must have to contribute something to the production of this series for the subtle advertising.

At any rate the challenge was for three teams of three to prepare three types of BBQ meat: chicken, pork and beef, along with two sides.. The teams consisted of Sarah, Ty-Lor, and Edward; Beverly, Chris C, Chris J, and Grayson, Paul and Lindsay. Sarah fainted from the Texas heat and her team mates had to carry on most of the challenge time without her help. The food offered included homemade picks, something called beer-can chicken and watermelon salad.

The winner of the BBQ challenge was Paul, a contender who hails from Texas and it would have been very shameful had Paul not made a stellar presentation.

As for opening the restaurant, indeed this was a most intriguing challenge. First intrigue, the notion of the females against the males. For the females do have issues with each other on Top Chef Texas. Beverly seems to be quite a good chef but she seems to get no respect from her female colleagues. Sarah is a bit difficult to get along with, she being very bossy and not all that diplomatic.


The contenders had five hours to set up their restaurants, were given $7,500 for the design and were charged with creating a three course meal menu. There were issues, as there often are even amongst the experienced in this sort of thing. The females got totally behind and Sarah, as usual, wanted things done her way. Lindsay was in charge of the front of the female eatery, called "Half Bushel". The orders slowed down greatly coming out of the kitchen and Lindsay didn't do all that well under pressure.

Ty-Lor, second from left, lines up before being given his marching orders.

The males too had problems but their biggest problem was, horror of horrors, THE FOOD! However it was the men who created a dessert that I'd dig in to in a minute, called an Almond Joy cake. The judges had problems with this presentation in that the promised coconut within simply could not be tasted. By me it looked great, damn the coconut.

This is when Ty-lor got the boot, had to pack his knives, and went home. Ty-lor made some sort of Thai fish dish with, of all things, a caramel fish sauce. It was deemed bland and evidently not Top Chef worthy.

As for my new winner prediction....BEVERLY!

Top Chef Texas airs on Bravo on Thursday nights at 9pm/c.