It's getting hot in here: Top Chef comes to NYC

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[Note: Spoilers Ahead! Spoilers Ahead! Spoilers Ahead!]

Behold! The powerful gods of glossy reality television have, yet again, bestowed upon us Top Chef. Set in one of the food capitals of the world, New York City, we can already tell judging by the not one, but two, elimination challenges to appear on Wednesday's premiere episode that the seventeen remaining contestants are in for a hellish time. You know the drill -- one day you're in, and the next day you're... Whoops, Bravo-catchphrase-jumble!

Adding salience to the aura of "making it in the Big Apple," hosts Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio -- with respective arm scar and bald head aglow -- had readied an apple peeling quickfire competition before the cheftestants were allowed to move into their Williamsburg loft. The loser of the challenge, Lauren from Jag’s Seafood and Steak in Cincinnati, was immediately sent home, leaving cute, young -- but perhaps too inexperienced -- CIA student Patrick to fill the last spot of the Top Chef Brooklyn kennel.

Safe in their new home, for the moment, the cheftestants mingled, ate salad, drank wine, and compared strange technical cooking terms together. Overlooking McCarren Park, the show's gays, Patrick, Richard, and Jamie, lounged on their patio furniture, dubbing themselves "Team Rainbow." Jamie is a lesbian locavore from San Francisco who doesn't like being told what to do, and Richard is a wisecracking bear from San Diego who works in a bar called "Pecs" back home. And for that, we love him.

During the elimination challenge -- in which the chefs paired off against each other to create dishes inspired by neighborhoods like Astoria, Queens, and Little Italy -- Richard and Jamie were pitted against each other. But it was in fact Patrick who dulled the colors of Team Rainbow and was sent home for his lackluster Chinatown-inspired dish of gummy rice noodles and bok choy. It's ok! He’s only 21 years old. We wonder if his casting wasn't inevitably ill fated from the start, though...

Also missing from the first episode was regular judge and cultural omnigay Ted Allen. Perhaps he'll swoop in next week to complete the triangle of Team Rainbow that has found itself so suddenly missing an edge.

-- MIKE BERLIN

Previously > Christian Siriano goes to jail > Shear Genius

Comments

[Rich]

No such luck--Ted Allen has left Top Chef because Food Network gave him a show of his own, Food Detectives. Maybe his replacement, Toby Young, is a member of Team Rainbow?