buddha-canned

SPOILER
AHEAD
TOP CHEF
Restaurant Wars
Episode 11 Season 4

I am angry. Sad, bummed, disappointed and in his own words, bitter. VERY.


It's the end of the road for the fiery tempered and super talented Dale Talde in the Top Chef trip and I will miss him. Le sigh. He was doing so well and produced very consistent food in lieu of some recent occasions but then even I had to cringe at the sound of butterscotch miso scallops and groan at his lack of knowledge or inexperience with a traditional Asian cuisine like laksa. I love my curry laksa rich, super spicy and assam laksa tangy with a slight sour taste from the lime but Lisa's laksa just looked bad and unappetizing with very thin and watery looking soup. Spike was smart to stay out of the kitchen to take care of front of house and let the battle of exec chef Dale and sous chef Lisa war out for the last time.

To make the whole situation for Dale as bad as it could get, Anthony Bourdain, was the guest head judge of the Restaurant Wars episode and I was literally cringing with delight when it came to him seeing 'Mai Buddha' in the kitchen. Like who else but Tony could be the harshest critic of Asian cuisine especially when it is well known that he loves Asian food. It was just not Dale's night to shine when he very well could have shown his skills except that his attitude got the better of him combined with some bad decisions made and sloppy execution, which all just led to his eventual downfall. He did not deal with the stress well enough and everything just crashed and burn right before him in the end.


With that said, I hope he's still doing well at Buddakan but now I've only got two of the remaining top three people whom I really wanted to see at the finals battle it out for the grand prize. I hope Stephanie and Richard at least make it to the final two and kick those other non-deserving cheftestants' asses out. And they know who they are. And to cap Dale's farewell off, the dude cried in the exit interview. All the walls are breaking down to reveal a soft squishy inside which is not such a bad thing after all.

For a better composed, well rounded opinion and written review of this episode and past ones, these sites are great and awesome.