Season 5 is back in NYC…well, Brooklyn and I am looking forward to the personalities, challenges and attitude…not only from our cheftestants, but our judges as well.  It is funny, last season I was beginning to become bored with the whole idea, but I think because of all the seriousness surrounding the world right now I am looking forward to some plain ol’e entertainment, foodie style.

Don’t forget.  The Top Chef Season 5 premiere is Wednesday, November 12 at 10pm EST on Bravo.

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Top Chef Premieres on November 12

The DC Health Inspector has cited the eatery with several violations and some of them don’t sound very appetizing.  Some of the violations include allegedly storing meat in the alley, not having hand-washing facilities for employees and not correctly sanitizing prep areas and cutting boards.

Spike initially denied that the eatery was cited but then stated that the food in the alley had recently been delivered and was only out there for about 7 minutes.  He also stated that he would never have unsanitary stations and spoke to WTOP news radio, “”I know how to run a restaurant, and I know how to keep it clean.  You can come right here and you can eat off the floor. I don’t run anything unhealthy.”

The health department says that they make notations if food is out due to recent delivery and no notations were placed on the citations. 

Spike has been smart about it though by poking a little fun at the health department controversy by adding a new menu item, the Back Alley Burger.

You can read the whole story on E! on-line.

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Top Chef’s Good Stuff Eatery Hit By Health Department

According to Hall he has a sous chef, general manager and the all important menu.  Just one small technicality…no space.  He is looking around the art district in downtown LA.  He feels that the area is emerging and being revitalized and sees this as an opportunity.  He believes that he will have is opened by New Year’s of this year…I find that hard to fathom.

Ilan Hall has a lot of controversy swirling around him as well.  According to published reports, he was in the midst of working out a deal to become the executive chef for Pase, a Spanish inspired eatery and lounge in Chelsea.  The deal was allegedly between him and restaurateur J.E. Englebert and needless to say he has made a few enemies.  The story is a he said-he said mess.  I read it as Englebert initially wanted Hall, but then possibly dabbled with the idea of using another chef…annoying Hall’s sensibilities, he in-turn took off for LA acted like the incident was never close to becoming a reality and left Englebert scrambling for a well-known chef to open his new venture by December.

Englebert told Page Six:

 ”Hall and I exchanged numerous e-mails and traded phone calls. He agreed to be the executive chef for which he would get a weekly salary and points in the place in return for a nominal investment. I thought we had a done deal – the food sections of New York magazine and Time Out New York even ran stories.”

Hall may have seen this as a possibly stifling venture and longed to open things his way.  Sadly, I think that he is naive to think that he can just up and do it.  It is rare for even the best chefs to have success as experienced by previous winner Harold Dieterle.

Hopefully, Hall has truly come to enjoy LA, because something tells me NYC won’t be coming to call.

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Top Chef Winner Ilan Hall to Open Gorbles

Some may be surprised, some may secretly be giggling because he was so hated.  I never understood the hatred, but I am not surprised.  If you have read Kitchen Confidential you know that chefs and kitchen workers are notorious for poor judgement when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

Read more of the story on E! Online.

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Season 2 Top Chef Finalist Charged with DUI

Read more from Talbot on love, food and surfing.

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Top Chef Sam Engaged

 image:  www.freeimages.co.uk

Top Chef has been a big hit for Bravo for the past four years.  I have had fun watching the cheftestants have to deal with seemingly impossible odds within a minimal amount of time.  I have often wondered what would happen when the true great chefs of the world were put to the challenge, or rather, challenges.

I guess that I am not the only one to wonder this, because Bravo has created a Top Chef spin-off, Top Chef:  Masters.  Each week master chefs will compete against each other through a series of challenges.  There doesn’t seem to be any more details, so I am not sure what they are competing for…charity or just plain bragging rights.

World Screen has the scoop as well as some information regarding other scheduled shows coming to Bravo.

The shirts at Top Chef aren’t stopping at the Masters Spin-off.  Let’s see, we have the amateur cheftestants who want to make a name for themselves, we are going to have those already with a name for themselves duking it out…what is missing?  An offspring of sorts, Top Chef:  Junior.

TV Week spread that news.  This will be an 8 episode season for aspiring teenagers.

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Top Chef Spin Off

Here is the scoop from Allison Waldman from the TV Squad:

BROOKLYN! No, I’m not kidding. The new season of Top Chef will reportedly be set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — hometown of Barbra Streisand. (She grew up at the corner of Newkirk and Nostrand Avenue, if you want to be precise.) Also Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Seriously, this isn’t as bizarre as you might think. Brooklyn is New York. It’s one of the five boroughs and it’s quite trendy and gentrified, as they say in NYC.

According to Allison there are a lot of great chefs and restaurants int he Metropolitan area of Brooklyn.  It will be interesting to see what kinds of challenges they offer up during this season.  Any ideas?

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Season 5 Top Chef Location

 image:  www.freeimages.co.uk

I love technology….I suppose that is obvious while I sit here surfing and pounding out on my computer while my kids watch DVRd shows and I listen to my iTunes.  I admit there are some inventions I think lame, but the iPhone…a device I yearn as my own…is an incredible invention with amazing possibilities.

I am impressed with marketers who come up with great technology applications, and those at Bravo and Top Chef have embraced one smart idea.

You will soon be able to access Top Chef recipes on your iPhone.  From the PR News Channel: 

Viewers will be able to browse by key ingredients, their favorite chef’testant or even by specific episodes to find the recipes they want. Fans can also easily access shopping lists at the supermarket or browse recipes and bookmark them for a later date.

How great would it be to simply access a shopping list and recipes while you are in the store?  For fans of the show, whose demographics are young and wireless, this is a great application.  Learn more about this iPhone feature from their site.

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Top Chef and Your iPhone

July 15th, 16th and 17th Richard Blais will be at the Garrett’s Popcorn Flagship store (that is 5th Ave. in NYC) to meet fans and share his food creation, the Popcornsicle.  He combines Garrett’s CaramelCrisp and CheeseCorn into golf size balls, puts them on wooden sticks and then dips them into liquid nitrogen.

If you don’t have your own liquid nitrogen hanging around the house, go visit Blais on 5th Ave.  The Popcornsicles are free.  Wish him well, he is a new daddy and his restaurant Home in Atlanta just received 4 stars.

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Richard Blais, Garrett’s Popcorn and Liquid Nitrogen

Today Show contributor Gina Pace shared a recent experience with the Top Chef bus and Top Chefs Spike and Nikki sharing food and tips to the crowd.  Spike redeemed himself from the Farmer’s Market Challenge where he made a dish similar to dog food.  He was teased by his family when he got home and was reminded about a family dish using eggplant…duh?

Cheftestants from the various seasons will be particpating including winners Hung and Stephanie as well as Richard Blais and Dale Talde.  They have not announced which chefs will be in which cities, but if you are a fan, that won’t matter much.

Read more about the tour and get a listing of dates and cities where the Top Chef Tour Bus will drive into this Summer.

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Top Chef the Tour