While I really enjoyed this season of Top Chef, I have to take issue with the choice of winner.
Spoilers after the jump.
It’s not because Hung is obnoxious. He’s clearly talented and enthusiastic and he’s got amazing skills. It’s just that, if one of your dishes for the final competition is a molten chocolate cake, which looks like something you can order at any Applebees, you should take a serious, serious hit in evaluation from the judges.
I think a failed dish that shows imagination and ambition should be ranked significantly higher than an only slightly higher-end version of something that any home cook in America can make in about 10 minutes of prep time. (I love making them because they’re impressive, the ingredients are cheap and fairly common pantry staples, and they’re really, really easy.)
But Tom Colicchio was just determined that Hung would win, as he has been since practically the beginning. It’s not a horrible miscarriage of reality show justice, because I do think Hung and Dale were pretty much neck and neck, but seriously… molten chocolate cake… total disqualifier, in my opinion.
In other chocolate news, this development doesn’t surprise me at all. I hate white chocolate.