Hail to the Chef: In the French Style

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Express' Karmah Elmusa breaks down an evening of tres classical cooking.

BONJOUR, FAITHFUL READERS and bon vivants.

This week, "Top Chef: Las Vegas" took a metaphorical trip to Paris with an entirely French-themed show. All the important elements were present: snails, a gaggle of graying French chefs and butter-based sauces.

There was also a serious amount of pressure on our cheftestants to deliver, as Michael V. says, "the meal of our lives."

Not to worry, kids ... you're only cooking for the "chef of the century."

Read on to see how they fared.

QUICKFIRE CHALLENGE

Padma is absent for this quickfire, and sends in her stead one head judge, Tom Colicchio, and one guest judge, Daniel Boulud. Boulud has restaurants in Vegas, Miami, Beijing and a slew of other cities, but perhaps you've heard of his flagship restaurant in New York: Daniel. It's a pretty big deal, and so, by extension, is he. Nerves are already on the rise.

Next, Tom adds to the stress by announcing that this week's quickfire is to cook a dish starring escargots! That's snails, for all you Ameri-kans out there. To some, they are akin to slimy aliens; to the French, they're a delicacy, and to the cheftestants, they mean life or death. Because the next thing Tom says is that this is a "high stakes quickfire." The winner gets immunity, and the loser ... goes home! Oh, SNAP! A double elimination episode, out of the blue — way to shake it up, Bravo.

The palpably panicked chefs commence cooking their snails, and then present in groups of three to Colicchio and Boulud. They like Jennifer's sauteed snails with ramps and a brown butter sauce. They also enjoy Mike I's escargots-a-la-Crete, as he calls them — a potato and garlic situation that looks pretty tasty from this side of the screen. Finally, they are fans of Kevin's escargots fricassee with a candied bacon jam. Bacon = success: Kevin takes the win, and earns not only immunity in the final challenge, but is exempt from cooking. Instead, he will be eating his fellow-cheftestants' creations right alongside the judges. It's good to be Kevin.

Tom's least favorite escargots dishes belong to Jesse, Ashley and Robin. So one of them is going home, right? Well, yes, but not before they prepare an amuse bouche in 20 minutes — Daniel-Tom's least favorite among THOSE will be sent packing. I'm exhausted, we're 15 minutes in and drowning in twists. Long story short: Jesse makes a tuna tartare topped with a quail egg that loses out to Robin's avocado soup and Ashely's fois gras and pineapple. It's been a long time comin' — auf Wiedersehen, Jesse.

ELMINATION CHALLENGE

And then there were 13. And one of them (Kevin), isn't participating, so there are only 12 cooking in this elimination challenge. Tom brings out ye old knife block, and six of the chefs draw common French proteins, and six draw traditional French sauces. The challenge: Working in teams of two, cook six classical French dishes by pairing the sauces with the proteins. THEN, serve said dishes to what I'm going to call The League of Extraordinary French Chefs. They are, in no particular order: Hubert Keller, Daniel Boulud, Laurent Tourondel, Jean Joho and finally, the piece de resistance: Joel Robuchon. Robuchon is that chef of the century I referred to earlier. The mention of his name puts glee in the chefs eyes as it puts creases of worry in their foreheads. Like I said, PRESSURE.

After some consideration, the chefs come up with the following pairings based on who drew what knife (and in some cases, who's buds with who):

Ron and Robin: Frog legs and a sauce Meuniere served with arugula salad.

Mike I. and Bryan: Cured trout and a deconstructed sauce Bernaise.

Eli and Laurine: Lobster paired with sauce Americaine.

Ashley and Mattin: Young chicken paired with sauce Veloute. Served with ravioli and aspargus.

Jennifer and Mike V.: Pastry wrapped rabbit served with sauce Chasseur.

Hector and Ash: Chateaubriand au poivre. Aka, filet mignon served with peppercorn sauce.

The chefs are instructed to work on their dishes in Joel Robuchon's Vegas restaurant, where they will serve The League of Extraordinary French Chefs (TLOEFC) along with The Comparatively Lowly Bunch consisting of Tom, Padma, Gail and Kevin.

As far as pairings go, Team Trout (Mike I. and Bryan) and Team Rabbit (Jennifer and Michael V.) seemed to have formed a "We're the best" clique. The Voltaggio brothers and their partners make it look easy, and frankly, it's pretty obnoxious. Meanwhile, back at the frog leg station, Ron is growing tired of Robin's constant prattling about fennel fronds. Ashley put all her young chickens in the "My partner Mattin is French, this should be easy" basket ... and now, said young chickens are looking dry, overcooked and covered in bacon sauce. Hector and Ash's beef refuses to roast in a timely manner. Will the cheftestants pull this off, or embarrass themselves in front of TLOEFC?

As Bravo's luck would have it, they pull it off. Dinner is a delight, Chef Robuchon is very impressed, according to his translator (he doesn't speak a drop of English, he'll have you know). There are high moments (the deconstructed bernaise) and low moments (Gail hates her filet mignon and is not afraid to say it) ... but all in all, TLOEFC are encouraged to see that the future of American cooking is in good hands.

JUDGES TABLE

I, for one, am pretty upset about what happened here, so I'll try to keep it brief. The "We're the best" clique proves they're the best by being named the top two teams. Jennifer and Michael V. are praised for their rabbit and chasseur sauce, and do an awful lot of praising of each other. Are those googly eyes I see? Are we making a "Top Chef" love connection? Bryan and Mike I. also get excessive props for their trout and deconstructed bernaise. In the end, Bryan, who was responsible for cooking the trout, is announced the winner. He gets to spend a week in Chef Robuchon's kitchen as his prize.

On to the injustice. The bottom two teams are Mattin and Ashley, and Hector and Ash. The beef Hector made didn't cook fast enough, didn't get to rest, etc. It was a mess, and he knows it, and he's sorry, dammit!

Meanwhile, Mattin is giving some explanation about how he "hasn't made a veloute in a long time." Um, OK ... but you're French. So you should do really well in this challenge, no?

Apparently, the judges don't think so. They send Hector packing, and it's pretty darn sad.

Don't send the Puerto Rican man home for cooking bad French food! Send the Frenchman home for cooking bad French food! Sigh, c'est la vie. Hector, we know you had more to offer, and also, your accent was ever so pleasant to listen to.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

» Jennifer: "I think that whoever thought a snail looked good to eat must've been really fucking hungry."
» Mattin: "I'm from France; escargots is my whole youth."
» Jesse: "The thing I want people to know about me is ... I don't suck this bad."
» Eli (on meeting Joel Robuchon): "I was under the impression that he didn't exist, or was a unicorn or something."