Time for another cooking show season, as Top Chef moves to Texas! There are 29 competitors already, so there’s no real time to bother with most of them … yet.
Right away, the chefs are split into three groups, competing for a spot in the house — and only sixteen spots are available in the house. To judge the Qualifying Challenge is good ol’ Tom Colicchio, and brand new chef judge Emeril Lagasse … whom I mainly know by the parody character Chef Elzar on Futurama. The first challenge is to create a meal out of various cuts of a pig, but they have to divide it up between them somehow… and people will be sent home for mistakes RIGHT NOW!
The chefs either pass through to the main show, go home, or if the judges are undecided, go “on the bubble” for yet another challenge. After several are cut from the first group, it’s time for group #2, where everyone must use the same ingredient. After some arguing and worry, they pick rabbit (okay…) and get to work. But when one cook fails to use rabbit in the dish enough, she’s out. Random Chef #2 Edward doesn’t quite cook his own rabbit enough, so he’s on the bubble too.
Wait, hold on … hour’s up, and only eleven “chef-testants” have been picked? What of Group #3? WHAT OF? I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out … aw, trickery from Top Chef: Texas. I suppose we’ll find out the answer to the riddle eventually: Is everything truly bigger in Texas?
A few standouts:
Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman 
on Nov 03, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
No offense, but this is a pretty lackluster “review”.
If you don’t know Emeril Lagasse as a chef, then perhaps someone who is more knowledgeable about the culinary industry should be reviewing this series. Top Chef is one of the best cooking competitions out there. It needs to be reviewed by someone who can appreciate it for what it is.
Sorry Jeremy, nothing personal.
*POST AUTHOR*
I think you’re being a little harsh – of course I know who Emeril Lagasse is – I was making a joke. There wasn’t really much going on in this first episode, because there are far too many contestants to really talk about each one individually. Once the season starts “for real”, it’s a lot more possible to go beyond an overview.
Hey Jeremy, thanks for the reply.
Sorry my comment sounded harsh. I was mainly reacting to Emeril statement, I guess the joke didn’t translate well. My apologies.
Some additional things worth talking about:
-Seems like a lot of chefs from Chicago area this season.
-Both the Executive chef and his sous chef are competing. That will be an interesting dynamic I think.
-It was very interesting to see some of the egos as they were introducing themselves and their accolades.
-What happened to the chefs “on the bubble” in the stew room? It seemed like it was night time when the 2nd group made it to the house. I wonder how long they had to sit and wait.
Again, apologies for any misunderstanding Jeremy, looking forward to next week.