FoodieBuddha.com

As we collectively suffer through one of the worst seasons of Top Chef, I find myself about a week behind on “What Was That Ingredient?”  While you might be expecting a recap of tonight’s show, I’m actually going to write that in a bit … so check back tomorrow. 

Truth be told, my writing time over the past week and change has gone towards some cooking.  So while I’ve been able to jump out to lots of restaurants, I haven’t had time to fill y’all in.  But all that is really just filler for this post.

You see, I just don’t have that much to say.  The contestants are kind of lame and the show is starting to go duller than one of my kitchen knives.  Still, there were a few “ingredients” of note, so let’s not waste any more time.  One potentially superfluous note: I kind of spaced during the episode, so I might have missed an ingredient or two.

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“Restaurant Wars” is almost always the most popular episode during any given season of Top Chef.  Though the bar has been set remarkably low throughout Top Chef DC, I’m pretty sure that last night’s episode scored the highest ratings to date.  Honestly, it’s been a crapfest of a season … but I watch anyway.  I guess no Top Chef is worse than crappy Top Chef.

So yeah, Restaurant Wars was last night.  Former NYT food critic Frank Bruni added some teeth to the judges panel, but he didn’t bark as much as I had hoped.  The creativity was in the pits and as such, my list for “What Was That Ingredient?” is particularly short and unimpressive.  However, my mom taught me to persevere, so here I am!

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Last night’s Top Chef: DC episode was filled up from the floor up with ingredients of mystery.  Entitled “Foreign Affairs,” it started with Ethiopian food and resolved itself around several different types of cuisine.  Though the guest judges included Marcus Samulsson and José Andrés, I’m not so sure the participants are worth the duo’s attention.  I guess now is as good a time as any to remind you that we have a plethora of Ethiopian restaurants here in Atlanta.  The leader of the pack? One Desta Ethiopian Kitchen … check it out!

Hopefully, this post will supplement the cursory explanation Samulsson gave of some Ethiopian dishes.  Okay dookie, sit back and enjoy this spoiler free recap.

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In case you missed it, I started a little series on here to try and cover all the strange and funky terms that seem to surface during Top Chef episodes.  Last night’s episode of Top Chef: DC was pretty straightforward.  Entitled “Power Lunch,” it focused on dishes one might find during a business lunch.  It was hosted by the Palm Restaurant in DC … so yeah, whatever.

As very few of the people given face time had any clue whatsoever about food, terms like “good” and “salt” were in abundance. But yeah, we don’t want to get into the spoiler game … so let’s just leave it like that.  Meanwhile, let’s chat about the ingredients … shall we?

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Every week, I get the feeling that somewhere, someone is watching Top Chef and asking themselves: “What the hell is ___?”  Heck, sometimes I even find myself right there with those people.  No matter how much I’d like to think I know … there always seems to be something that makes me go “huh?”  So I thought it’d be a good idea to do a little "glossary of terms.”  In this case, it’ll focus on those mysterious food terms that pop into our lexicon after showing up in an episode of Top Chef.  Like my Poppy always used to say: “You learn something new everyday.”  So consider this my civic duty for the week!

Oh yeah, for those of you who have a habit of DVRing the episodes, I’ll do my best not to put in any significant spoilers.   Feel free to read ahead!

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Nestled amongst Atlanta’s stretch of tasseled "thingies” and institutional eateries is one of the best examples of contemporary American cuisine this side of the Mason-Dixon.  Chef Kevin Gillespie, still shy of 30-years-old, has taken Woodfire Grill from the brink of EXtinction to the point of DIStinction.  If Atlanta’s hopes of international culinary fame are to ever come to fruition, Woodfire Grill will be one of the handful of establishments dragging our restaurant scene into that arena.

Some two-years ago, the highly regarded Michael Tuohy departed the helm of Woodfire.  When that happened, Gillespie took over the Cheshire Bridge hideaway and continued Woodfire’s thematic direction.  In the 20 plus months since, the restaurant has exploded and our favorite Yukon Cornelius impersonator has made the place distinctly his own.  With that in mind, and motivated by a truly inspirational family event, four of us set out this past Friday looking for a little peace in the midst of our chaos.

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On the last season of Bravo TV’s Top Chef, Atlanta made some real headway.  We were fortunate enough to have three local chefs make it on to the hit reality TV show.  Since then, the city hasn’t stopped buzzing.  Many moons ago, Kevin Gillespie, pork tats and all, was kind enough to make an appearance on our weekly series, Inside The Chef’s Kitchen.  Now, thanks to Hector Santiago of Pura Vida, we welcome the second of those three chefs.

Stupidly exiled from Top Chef after a French themed challenge (in which the one French chef on the show represented suck-tastic), Hector is back in our city and doing his thing.  Puerto Rican through and through, you can find him slinging pans most any night at his tapas restaurant in Virginia Highlands.  Appropriately located just off Ponce De Leon Ave (Ponce de León himself played an important role in Puerto Rico’s history … he brought them rum amongst other things), Pura Vida is one of the long standing Latin restaurants in the city.

What better way to end this beautiful week with a mojito and some light reading.  And with that, welcome to ITCK!

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Top Chef Masters, a spinoff of Bravo TV’s popular Top Chef, is scheduled to premier its second season on April 7, 2010.  As these things come and go, networks try to make a big deal of announcing the cast for any upcoming season of a reality TV show.

After several months of rumors, the lid was popped on this can just a short while ago.  For comedic relief, I’ve included a little screen shot of a search I did on the topic.  Notice how the first four search results all said “Exclusive.”  HA!  Okay, useless eye candy shot and all that good stuff after the jump!

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When the host of Bravo TV’s Inside the Actor’s Studio heard that the highly regarded Foodie Buddha was doing a food series inspired by his TV show … he jumped at the opportunity to participate.  Thankfully, we were able to catch it on film and needless to say, it’s scrumptulesent (spelling?)

Back later with another one

Yesterday, I mentioned how online media portal Hulu.com added Martin Yan’s Hong Kong to their repertoire.  Today, I figured that I might as well expand on that post just a bit.  If you don’t spend a lot of time on the computer, and/or don’t try and stay plugged in to the “what’s happening at an internet near you,” it is quite possible that the name Hulu is nothing more than a head-scratcher.

The joint-venture startup launched just shy of three-years ago and currently houses thousands upon thousands of hours of television.  Unlike some of those other sites offering free television programming, Hulu has several major advantages.  Most notably, it’s legit … so everything is super duper high quality.

The site offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from TV stations like NBC, Fox, ABC and many other networks and studios.  Of particular interest to ya’ll is the website’s Food & Leisure channel.  There you’ll find all shows from the likes of Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsey (who doesn’t love to see Gordo go ape all over some moronic excuse for a restaurateur – aka Kitchen Nightmares).  Meanwhile, Bravo TV shows like Top Chef are available for your viewing pleasure, as is the Food Network’s Good Eats with Atlantan Alton Brown, and the PBS show Diary of a Foodie.

Even if food related television isn’t your favorite, Hulu is definitely worth a visit.  The site is just loaded with great stuff.  Alright folks, until we eat again.  Meanwhile, any of you who actually have employees working under you – make a beeline for your IT Department and ask them to block the website … otherwise, you’re gonna have some ravenously unproductive people in your office in about 30-minutes.