Strategic Blunders on Top Chef

Synopsis: Honesty appears to be the lesser policy to strategic misrepresentation as the judges send off the last chef before the final.

(Spoiler warning for those who may care - discusses the judge's panel from the 2 Dec episode.)

Fans of Bravo's Top Chef will recognize the typical blunders made which lead to a chef 'packing his knives' to go: working with unfamiliar ingredients, using techniques or styles they are not familiar with or are beyond their technical ability, being uninspired or careless, or clashing with colleagues with whom they are meant to be collaborating.  Sometimes the flaws in a chef's dish are fairly obvious, which make the trip to judge's table a mere formality.  Other situations, such as in last night's episode, where the judges are merely picking over the fine points of a number of contestant's otherwise fairly well-executed fare, reveal the strategic dimensions of an episode's final stage - the judgment.

Last night, all four chefs executed reasonably well and received generally positive feedback from judges and other tasters alike.  However, only three chefs could walk away and join the final round of the competition.  Each chef prepared one vegetarian and one 'protein' dish for an outdoor event in Napa valley.  Whose dish had the most flaws?  That wasn't clear from the judges' preliminary discussions, so for me, this episode came down to the chefs' own comments at the judge's table.

Kevin had a very well-received vegetarian dish but his meat, a beef brisket, had only cooked for five hours and was thus still a little tough and stringy.   Jen had prepared two good dishes, but her vegetarian one was a bit too salty.  The judges had commented during tasting how much they enjoyed the 'duckiness' of her meat (duck) dish.  However, at the judge's table she made the fatal error of disclosing that instead of preparing the duck as confit she had wanted to grill it, but had lost focus during preparation and let the coals die down.  Kevin, on the other hand, made the strategic misrepresentation (otherwise known as a lie, a white lie in this case) that he was happy with the stringy brisket and intended it that way so that his overall dish wouldn't be mushy, because he was serving the beef with obviously mushy polenta.

You could see the judges' reactions to Jen's ill-advised disclosure.  Now instead of thinking about her duck dish's nice flavor, they doubted her focus and execution, and she was sent packing.  Kevin's brisket - more flawed perhaps than either of Jen's two offerings - was not seen to indicate a lack of focus or skill, and he lives to fight for the honor of Top Chef.