IMHO "The Chopping Block": Week One

As a total culinary geek, a new cooking show like NBC's new The Chopping Block is pretty likely to get my attention. The ideal cooking competition for me is one that gives me a chance to treat cooking like sports, to yell, "You're combining yuzu and shiso? What are you thinking?!" at the TV the way a baseball fan would yell at the coach for not sending in a relief pitcher sooner. The last season of Top Chef was a major letdown for me, so I was hoping that The Chopping Block would make up for that disappointment.

Unfortunately, The Chopping Block's first outing wasn't very promising, despite the inclusion of a Team Gay.

For the details of why I'm giving it the down arrow, you'll have to wade through the pan-seared SPOILERS below.

I went in not knowing what to expect out of this show. On paper, The Chopping Block sounds a lot like BBC America's compelling Last Restaurant Standing since both shows focus on two-person teams trying to run a restaurant. On the other hand, the show is hosted by Marco Pierre White, who hosts the UK edition of Hell's Kitchen which slashed my optimism, despite his talk about how shouting and swearing is "not his game".

What kind of reality TV chef is Marco Pierre White?

I'm not at all familiar with White's cooking and The Chopping Block tries to impress with interviews from contestants about how awestruck they are to meet him. Kelsey says that "It's like he invented food, almost." We don't hear why exactly she would say that. Did he change how people look at ingredients like Alice Waters or devise new techniques the way Ferran Adria did? I guess I'll have to ask Wikipedia if it knows what makes his cooking such a big deal.

White's comments aren't very helpful, either. When he takes his first taste of the competitors' cooking, it sounds like he can offer insightful comments about food: his snark helps me imagine what the dishes are like but we don't see him say anything that tells me anything about the flavors. It's like the producers got Anthony Bourdain when they really wanted a Gordon Ramsey clone, and tried to edit out the parts that seemed too smart. He also saves his best comments for when he's by himself in his smoking room.

Marco's smoking lounge of deliberation

As for the competitors, a few make an immediate impression. Both Team Gay's Mikey and Team Bro's Zan are caught chatting with customers, telling stories about themselves while the food they should be serving gets cold. While Mikey is embarrassed to find one of the chefs doing his job for him, Zan insists that customers would much rather hear stories about their waiter's awesomeness than have their food served hot.

Angela of Team Philly, meanwhile, comes off as the tough, unflappable taskmaster. She calls the kitchen to order when the equipment starts falling apart and the power goes out. My immediate favorite is Team Asian. I have no idea if Khoa is gay or not but his humor and quick manner of speech calls to mind the fun of watching Ross Mathews.

Team Gay, Team Bro, Team Philly and Team Asian

It turns out that each week, a restaurant critic will visit each restaurant incognito (or as incognito as you can get if you've regularly been on Iron Chef America as a restaurant critic) and decide which restaurant wins for the week and which on loses. Both restaurants disappoint with their food, with the Black Restaurant (run by Team Bro's annoyingly nicknamed Than, short for Nathan) serving chicken that was both cold and undercooked. Team Gay's Chad, meanwhile, is called out for making an underwhelming dessert with his over-chilled truffles. Things aren't looking good for either Team Gay or Team Bro, who are doing badly on both sides of running a restaurant.

Unfortunately, when the Black Restaurant is declared the loser Khoa offers to quit rather than watch his teammates fight. Sigh, just as Marco is set to give the irritating Team Bro the boot, too.

Oh Khoa, I so empathize with that sense of disappointment

So, unfortunately, my favorite team is the first one out and while Team Gay seems likable, they're not off to the strongest start. More frustratingly, while this show doesn't satisfy my desire for a good show about cooking it's got enough snark material that I'm not ready to give it up. What did you think?