It was Restaurant Wars last week in Top Chef: Las Vegas, and finally this season, things got interesting. Now I've never been a fan of Top Chef when the show focuses on the extracurricular antics of the cheftestants — the head shaving incidents of Season 2 and the hidden-camera canoodling of Season 5 come to mind — but when the tempers flare during the heat of competition, like what transpired between Robin and Michael Voltaggio on this episode, now that's entertainment! And then there's the most amazing thing I've seen the entire season: the stoic, Zen-master coolness of his brother Brian amidst all this.
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But the real news about Top Chef wasn't about the show currently airing, it was about its sister series, Top Chef Masters, which is getting picked up for a second season. Kelly Choi will return with her raccoon-eye makeup, as well as Gail Greene and her two judging co-horts. No news yet on who will be competing, but my vote? Get both of the Voltaggio brothers on that show for an encore performance!
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.