Top Chef Week 1

Utensils down! Hands up! It's time for another season of Bravo's addicting reality food face-off, Top Chef. The fifth season of the culinary hit is finally taking place in one of the most celebrated food cities in the world, New York. There are 17 contestants vying for the prize of $100,000. I will not be posting who wins/loses the Elimination Challenge in these recaps because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The first Quickfire Challenge of the new season was, according to Padma, "survival of the fittest, Big Apple style," as the chefs competed in a three-round apple contest. The twist - one of them would be eliminated at the end of the challenge! Round 1 consisted of the chefs peeling 15 apples with a knife (not a peeler). Stefan, a Swiss born chef, finished first and because of that received immunity during the Elimination Challenge. The first nine chefs whose technique was given the OK by Tom were safe. The next eight had to stay and compete in round 2, which had them fine dicing the apple. Four who passed the test were safe. The final four had to cook a dish with their chopped apples in 20 minutes and the dish Tom considered the weakest was eliminated. Patrick, a CIA student, made an apple slaw with yogurt dressing. His dish was the winner and it was a bittersweet victory. His competitor, Lauren, was actually his friend from cooking school. She went home for her spinach salad with apples and bacon.

As for the Elimination Challenge, the ethnic surroundings of NYC provided the inspiration. The chefs drew knives to determine teams of two. Each of the eight teams represented an area of the city that was home to a certain ethnic group. The teams had to shop in those neighborhoods for ingredients and they had two hours to cook. Then the teammates would compete head-to-head as the judges tasted their dishes. The losing chefs would be up for elimination.

At Judges' Table were the usual suspects: head judge chef Tom Colicchio (owner of NYC restaurants Craft and Gramercy Tavern), host/model/cookbook author Padma Lakshmi, and Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine. The guest judge was world-renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Some of the standouts:

First up was Team Long Island City (Middle East). Ariane made a farro risotto with cous cous encrusted lamb while Stefan made a tabouli salad and a cinnamon spiced beef skewer. Gail called Ariane's risotto undercooked, while Padma raved over Stefan's choice of cinnamon.

Team Astoria (Greek) had not only dueling dishes, but also a crush served on Tom. Richard called Tom a "cutie" and said he would buy him a drink. He made a Greek-inspired slider with an orzo and feta pasta salad. Jamie created a deconstructed Greek salad. Tom called his crusher's lamb dry, thus Jamie won that round.

Fabian and Jeff were on Team Ozone Park (Latin). Fabian served a mango-jalapeno demi-glace pork, while Miami chef Jeff made a Cuban coffee seared pork. Jeff suffered from plating problems, but still won.

Patrick and Daniel of Team Chinatown both received criticism of their dishes. Tom dubbed Patrick's seared salmon with black rice noodles "one note" and Daniel's poached chicken salad was called "wet" by Jean-Georges. Yet, Daniel scored the victory by having more flavor in his dish.

After the tasting, Tom said that if this was the kind of food to be served this season, the judges were in for a "nice ride" and nothing was "God-awful."

I hope Tom is right. There is already trouble brewing in the house. European chefs Stefan and Fabian are fierce competitors and their attitudes are just as nasty. Daniel, who hails from Long Island, called them "immature." Delicious drama and dishes? Let the battle begin.