"Top Chef" is Lowdown

Top Chef producers and judges, I just have one bone to pick--that's right I have a beef. You people are all chicken. (cramming in as many food idioms as I can): The "Restaurant Wars" episode this season (3) was not good. Here's why:

1. There's no such thing as a "do-over." Yes, both teams equally sucked on the first go around. Dale screwed up on the scented candles, Howie made disgusting risotto. So judge them on that!!! You've only been saying all season, "We have to judge them based on what they've done tonight." Instead, on this one episode, you put that rule aside immediately and gave them another go-around.

2. You gave them a crappy designer and sicced the winner of the QuickFire with Steven from last season. Master sommelier or not, that dude is 100% hindrance. He was that way on his own season. You really think it helped by having him run his yap again... to the point that Dale had to tell him to shut it. It was like baby-sitting a guy with a free-run of the wine cellar.

3. Tre got the boot. This is my biggest annoyance. He was a great chef and to have Howie and Casey standing there while Tre goes home...please. Somebody step in and do something. At the end of the show, there's a disclaimer that reads that contestants are eliminated based on the judges' decisions in consultation with the producers. When you kick a guy off like Tre (Padma, are you listening?) it makes it easy to enact the Conspiracy Theory offensive. Is there a coincidence that Howie, who's made questionable food and been up for elimination many times, also happens to make great television while Tre, who's been solid since day one, happens to be a little less, shall we say, "televisonally appealing." (Buddy Tre is totally boring...that's the problem). Casey who's all homespun and everything (the only chef not formally trained (Tre was the other...hmmm)...as was evidenced in the Chopping Onions Debacle of '07 on Wednesday) gets a huge amount of screen time. Why? Her cooking ability? I think not...she's a cute girl with an unfortunate hair-do (in my humble opinion) from Texas (perhaps also unfortunate)...that's why. C'mon.

4. Executive Chef's get all the blame. Another problem. While I understand leadership skills are important, in this case Tre and Sara Mair took the "heat" for whatever went right or wrong in their kitchen. (And Sara did deserve all the credit she got for dealing with Howie who is an ass...lovable maybe but still a complete, utter ass.) However, the problem with just holding them accountable is that it's allowed slackers like Casey and even CJ (who I love) to 'skate' through to this level. Other "team leaders" who were much more talented (from what I could see) were kicked off much earlier in the competition while their team members almost got a free pass because they weren't in charge. This is how we have Casey, who can't chop onions, still here.

I love this show. It is good tv. But let 'em cook and judge 'em fair. If the whole disaster that was the "first" Restaurant Wars challenge got another chance, then Tre should get one too.