Somebody opened a Water Bar in LA

Just to recap for everyone, in the city of Los Angeles (not that shocked it happened there) there exists a Museum called the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Inside of this Museum exists a high priced restaurant (I know, LA and overpriced, shocking right?) known as Ray's and Stark Bar. Inside this bar exists the 2013 nominee for the biggest douche in the Universe. His name is Martin Riese and he is a German water enthusiast. He has just developed LA's first Water tasting menu. Yes. you read that right. It's a menu. of water. From my research apparently it's been done in Philly and Brooklyn so far, what the hell is wrong with people. 

Now this in itself isn't what qualifies this story as something you shake your head at and wonder why. It's the whole package. You can see the menu for the...waters, on their website HERE. The prices for regular bottled water from around the world can cost up to 20 dollars. Heres a little excerpt from the tasting menu

FIJI water begins as rain falling on the tropical 
island of Viti Levu’s north coast and is drawn 
from an artesian aquifer that lies hundreds of 
feet below the edges of a primitive rainforest. As 
it filters down through layer after layer of ancient 
volcanic rock, the natural filtration process 
introduces the mineral silica which contributes to 
Fiji Water’s distinctly soft, smooth “mouthfeel” 
(a professional tasters’ term that refers to a 
liquid’s taste and texture). That distance and 
isolation is part of what makes FIJI water so pure 
and rich in taste.

Size: 1 Liter
Price: $10

10 dollars. For a Fiji water. That you can buy at any grocery store for the already overpriced 2-3 dollars. All of the waters are more or less in that price range (8-12 dollars) except for one. A bottle of water from California called Beverly Hills 9OH2O that is priced at US$ 16. If you buy this you are a certified asshole. Actually if you go to this place and buy any of these you are an asshole. Airports don't even charge that much for water and people are going to voluntarily go to this place? If you choose to go and partake in this water menu...then I take back what i said about Mr. Riese. Because he's right, he's going to make money and you've just taken his place as the biggest douche in the Universe. 

Top Chef Masters Season 5 Episode 3 Thoughts

And were back. Episode 3 was last night and with it comes a whole new batch of crazy. Just a little recap of how things went down, the quickfire challenge was for the chefs to use the scraps left over from their sous chef competition of sausage making. They had a 30 minute clock to accomplish a dish using these bits of meat that apparently weren't good enough to be put in a sausage and as Curtis said to them, you're masters so we expect your dishes to be amazing.

- They have to be trolling them at this point right? Sometime the challenges are just perfect. Your a world respected chef, here take a bunch of nothing scraps of a surprise meat and turn it into something incredible. You will be judged. I mean how pissed would you be if you were Neal. You have a duck carcass with no meat left on it and 30 minutes to make a world class dish. Then again, how impressive are all the dishes that are made. These guys are masters for a reason

- I love it when they have simple judges. I mean lets be serious, these are 2 people who run a butcher shop. Yes they probably have friends who are chefs and have eaten some incredible food. To say to a Top Chef Master that their pork was a little dry is one thing, but to say the dish was one dimensional takes some serious balls when your a butcher.

So Sang wins the quickfire by doing what scores of chefs have done before him in Top Chef history, keep it simple stupid. He made a simple asian thai lettuce wrap (essentially) with great flavor and it got him the win.
Moving onto the Elimination challenge, the Chefs have to cook for the cast of days of our lives and create a dish based on classic soap plot twists - Greed, Sex, and Murder.

- First of all 12,000 episodes? Who seriously sits around and watches days of our lives? How is that possible? Also, its a little ridiculous to consider a meal to be associated with one of those plot lines. I mean have you ever had a meal at a restaurant and gone wow...yeah...this totally reminds me of murder.

- The only one i can think of is Greed. I would just put like a massive rib eye steak with a giant lobster tail on top covered in caviar and truffle shavings. Maybe cook it in gold flakes. If thats not greed then I don't know what is.

- Isn't it a little unfair for these chefs to just use one of their recipes and call it fair game for a challenge. I know i'm being a little unreasonable, but seriously your supposed to be creative and do something new and different to conform to this challenge. Instead Odette just uses a dish that is famous for being incredible at a restaurant already famous...well for being incredible. Oh yeah it has mushrooms in it, so well just call it poisonous mushrooms. I feel like thats cheating. Even David says it, he knows her from back in her days at that restaurant and that dish is a sure winner.

- Gail is hot. just throwing that out there.

- Poor Sang. His Sous Chef cost him 30 minutes and he couldn't get everything on the plate because of it. For a guy who has won challenges and quickfires this could cost him the whole competition because of a time penalty. Tough luck

So as all the dishes are revealed and graded and tasted, Jennifer wins the competition with her murder interpretation of Duck a l'orange. Honestly I think the right person won. She was the only one who really tried with the theme (had a blood orange sauce and a splattered it on a knife sticking out of her duck) and also managed to make her food taste really good. So congrats Jennifer you nailed this one. The losers of the night were Odette, Lynn and Douglass. Ultimately Odette was eliminated on her Mushroom and Eggyolk dish.

- I truly truly enjoying Lynn getting ripped apart for making the snuggle theme dish for the Sex group. Everyone has had that girl in their lives who is obsessed with snuggling and I think we can all agree its annoying as shit. Snuggling has it's time and place but it shouldn't the first thing you think of when sex is mentioned. Perfect summation is when the judges comment "did you think of maybe doing ANYTHING OTHER than snuggling"

- I think Lynn should be buying her Sous chef dinner because her dish was by far the worst of the three and would have gone home if it wasn't for immunity. She also was one of the worst dishes at the quickfire and im pretty sure that ive seen her in the bottom three in another of the episodes. I would say that she has a short lifespan on this show and well probably see her being sent home sooner than later.

- Odette deserved to go home in my opinion. As the judges said and I stated earlier she mailed this one in. She picked a dish and then worked backwards to figure out how to fit it into the theme. The unexpected nail in her coffin however, was that she was serving a very sophisticated dish to a group of daytime soap actors. They had never seen anything like this dish before and like a group of 6 year olds who are told to taste something different for the first time, did not enjoy it. As the judges said, her pasta was cooked perfectly and her egg was cooked perfectly. That is not something easy to do and only a master chef would be able to accomplish the dish she presented. However, it seems she didn't really season the dish well and it fell short in the flavor department which ended her run in Top Chef Masters.

Well there you have it folks, until next week.

Martha Stewart just made my garlic prep 100x easier

I love garlic. I put it in basically everything I eat and mostly that's because i have an italian background. I was taught by my family from a young age that pretty much every dish starts with good olive oil and chopped garlic. My father always chopped a few heads of garlic at a time and would have a jar in the fridge of minced garlic in olive oil for cooking which is something that I continue to do at my house. Why would you ever buy that processed crap supermarkets sell when once every few weeks you can buy some heads of garlic and do it yourself. Im going to upload a video later of the whole process but the most time consuming part of the process is always peeling the garlic. I was always taught that a quick soft crush with a knife is the easiest way to peel garlic cloves but apparently there exists an even easier way. Martha Stewart thank you.

Top Chef Masters Season 5 Episode 2 Review

So season 5 of Top Chef Masters started a couple weeks ago and since I love all things TC, i've decided that writing down a review of the episodes would make me feel a little better about not being able to cook at the level that these chefs do. I'm not going to be really writing reviews of the episode as much as random thoughts that I have as i watch them on my laptop down here in Chile. Without stalling any further here we go

- Before this episode starts I just want to say that I think its ridiculous how much these chefs are praised. I know they are all award winning chefs who other chefs try and work under for experience and what not, but with all the different culinary schools, restaurants and other ways to explore and learn to cook they sometimes go overboard with the praise of these "master" chefs. Example: you would think a master chef could fry up some oysters really quick and make something of it. Instead he couldn't get it on the plate and go himself sent home right away

- I do really enjoy that the show decided to switch up the format and make a lot of what happens dependent on their individual sous chefs. I think thats a great idea and someone in production deserves a bonus for that one. Also im enjoying that the "master" chefs are getting thrown into the fire right away. Episode 2 quickfire with elimination right off the bat. If your going to be a "master" chef, the challenges are going to be just as advanced it seems. 

- Annnnnnnnnddddd Richards gone. Seemed like he really struggled with that challenge from start to finish. His sous chef didn't help things any by screwing up the prep work and giving his chef a tough start to begin with. But the way Richard was talking about the ingredients I don't think he would have known what to make even with a full 30 minutes. 

-I love when they have these hundred people challenges because we get the regular people reflections. Sometimes the judges can be too pretentious for their own good. It gets a little annoying because at the end of the day its food. If it looks good, tastes good then it's good. Then again on the other hand you get comments like OMG that burger changed my life!! No. No it didn't. It's a burger. 

-Ohhh Kathy Lee. She seems like the pickiest eater in the world. The kind of person that won't eat sushi because she thinks its too fishy. You can just tell she was not excited about having to eat some of the food. Her face when presented with the chicken heart and shrimp heads was fantastic. When she found out Lynn made pulled pork it was a very sincere thank you very much. Almost like...Oh pulled pork! I know that! Thank god! 

- How does a piece of shell make it on your lobster roll Sue? I get it that your sous chef did the prep work but in all of the top chefs over the years you know the judges are coming. They ALWAYS get the best pieces and I know these chefs double check the food. Inexcusable for that to happen. 

- Best moment of the episode so far when james eats the cookies and cream variation. He is so upset when he saw that dish, starts hating on it before even tasting it and then right away on the first bite pulls a 180. "its really really good....shut my mouth" - James

- Suprise! The Asian chef wins the Asian Challenge. I know. I'm shocked too. Although that is now 2 for 2 where the chef with immunity has won the episode challenge. 

- Jen is gone. As a Master Chef how mad would you be for getting sent home for a sandwich? Personally here in Chile they do that all the time where its this massive piece of bread that overpowers the entire sandwich so I understand. But the Chilean street vendor is not a master chef, again no excuse.