Jaunted

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Laurine Wickett Of 'Top Chef' Gives Left Coast Some Market-Fresh Options

This week's cheftestant profile involves travel to you, rather than a self-initiated jaunt to a cast member's restaurant. Laurine Wickett, whose tenure on Top Chef effectively ended after what is arguably the show's most difficult challenge, "Restaurant Wars," has since returned to San Francisco where she runs Left Coast Catering.

New York born, but Northern California bred—at least in the culinary sense—Laurine incorporates the Bay Area's various cultural influences into market-fresh menus for her clients. Whether left coast parents planning a Bat Mitzvah or bride-to-be hosting a dessert reception, Laurine will provide you with options galore. We perused some of her sample menus online, which reflect a flavorful Californian approach to cooking while turning to other regions of the world for inspiration. She does everything from sushi stations to steak and french fries, on the same menu if you'd like guests to have multiple options. Her ill-fated Pork Rillette (or, as Dana Cowin punishingly put it, "cat food") made no appearance on any of the menus we saw.

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Ash Fulk Cooks Up Friendly Swiss Fare at Trestle on Tenth, But Maybe Not For Padma

Northern California native Ash Fulk didn't have it easy during his run on Top Chef. He didn't win one challenge on the show, and was eventually asked to pack his knives and head back to New York City, where he serves as a Sous Chef at Trestle on Tenth. The Swiss-French-American restaurant is a neighborhood-y locale open for breakfast, brunch (on weekends), lunch and dinner, making it a go-to spot for Chelsea diners looking for elevated comfort food. And schnitzel.

Trestle's menus aren't intimidating in the way that many contemporary, haute cuisine restaurants tend to be. Here you'll find familiar dishes with a Swiss-French influence that makes them just different enough to be memorable, without being too perplexing or stomach-turning. We're still wondering why fellow TC contestant Hector would dare include Tofu Ceviche on his menu. No, Trestle is where you'll find a Signature House Burger, Cobb Salad, Roasted Chicken with Seasonal Vegetables in Consommè, and Coriander Hanger Steak.

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Get Cozy With Top Chef's Mattin In San Francisco

As we uphold our weekly tradition of highlighting ex-cheftestants, giving due attention to the poor souls that didn't make it to the Final Three, we arrive at sprightly French chef Mattin Noblia. With a million-watt smile and red neckerchief that we hope he was wearing ironically, Noblia stole our hearts for being so disarmingly sweet...or maybe it was the accent. Either way, Padma and Co. bid Mattin au revoir after he presented a disastrous ceviche that Tom Colicchio found so offensive he actually spit it out. Tragic.

When he's not flashing his boyish grin on national television, Mattin can be found at Iluna Basque, his San Francisco restaurant. As you can guess from its name, the cuisine is inspired by the Basque region, served up on small plates that diners are encouraged to share.

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Former Top Chef Hopeful Cooks 'With Heart and Balls' in Atlanta

Axed Top Chef contestant Hector Santiago may be large in stature, but what he serves are small dishes—tapas, to be exact. Tapas, for the unfamiliar, are small plates meant to be shared among many and are traditional in Spanish cuisine. At his Atlanta restaurant, Pura Vida ("Pure Life"), Santiago has taken the communal style of eating and practices a "no-rules approach" to cooking. For him that means melding unusual flavors and eschewing tradition to come up with dishes like...Tofu "Ceviche." Oh, boy. Memories of Jennifer's seitan-stuffed peppers from Episode One are coming to mind.

A few questionable choices aside (Trout Ceviche with jelly, canchita corn and milk, anyone? We didn't think so.), many of these cross-cultural menu items are appealing precisely because they're unusual. We're dying to know more about his take on Duck Confit, which comes with caramelized plantains, and Chicken Picadillo Empanadas with a chile-sugar cane vinegar "pique." And, you can't go wrong with Button Mushrooms Pinchos in chipolte garlic butter, Santiago's take on Spanish champiñones.

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Top Chef's Eve Aronoff Brings The World To Your Plate In Ann Arbor

Even though Eve Aronoff's hopes of being named the next "Top Chef" were dashed on Episode Two, owing to a sub-par shrimp and avocado ceviche, the Ann Arbor chef still boasts an impressive résumé. A graduate of Paris' Le Cordon Bleu program, restauranteur in her own right, and cookbook author, she's known for bringing the world to the plate by fusing traditional French methods with exotic flavors.

Her restaurant, the appropriately named eve, opened in 2003 and reflects her worldly approach to cooking. Everything is seasonal and Slow Food Movement-approved, so expect ingredients to be sourced from the area's best farmers though her influences come from far flung corners of the world, including Africa, Cuba, and various Asian countries.

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Get Your Foodie Fix at Chicago Gourmet

Stars like Top Chef Master Rick Bayless, Top Chef contestants Radhika Desa and Fabio Viviani, and season four winner Stephanie Izard will convene in the Windy City for the Chicago Gourmet, an upscale version of the city's famous Taste of Chicago food fest, set for September 26 from 11 am to 6 pm and September 27 from 11 am to 5 pm in Millennium Park.

Luckily, it's not only TV chefs who are invited to the second annual event. Chicago Gourmet organizers want serious foodies to bring their exacting palates to high-end food and wine tastings, cooking demonstrations, educational seminars and celeb chef appearances. And though the roster of attendees reads like a Top Chef reunion, a number of notable chefs, sommeliers and food experts will be there as well. Ted Allen, host of Food Detectives and Chopped; Graham Elliot Bowles, a Top Chef Masters contestant and owner of graham elliot; Paul Kahan, of Blackbird and The Publican; Bill Kim, of Urban Belly; Martial Noguier, of Café des Architectes; and Alpana Singh, master sommelier and host of locally loved TV show Check, Please! are among more than 50 event participants.

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Ex-Top Chef Contestant Heats Things Up in Philly, No Seitan in Sight

Pierced and tattooed to the nines, recently booted Top Chef contestant Jennifer Zavala claimed to have a fiery temper on the first episode of this season, but her dish—a disastrous seitan-stuffed pepper—was anything but hot and enticing. It looked and apparently tasted like a mealy, flavorless mess, which ultimately confused the judges and sent her packing.

But Zavala, like many other Top Chef hopefuls, isn't a culinary novice and won't be crying over her Santoku knife now that she's returned to Philadelphia. Hot like fire Zavala, whose cooking, we hope, doesn't always go the way of bland vegan fare, is a sous chef at Philly's Xochitl. Say it with us: so-cheet. There she helps whip up new Mexican cuisine that's familiar, but with a modern, elevated twist.

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Experience A 'Top Chef Masters' Meal At Rick Bayless's Chicago Restaurants

If you tried re-creating Rick Bayless' delish queso fundido burger with the trio of guacamole from Bravo's Top Chef Masters at home, but it ended up looking more like Hamburger Helper, head to Chicago for your Bayless fix. It's the only place you can get a triple dose of the newly crowned Top Chef Master's upscale Mexican eats, and one of the few spots in the country that offers Mexican fine dining.

Sample the dishes you drooled over while watching TV at the two-time James Beard Award winner's three Chicago restaurants:

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Top Chef Whips Up a Surprise, But Can He Break the Top Chef Curse?

For the most part, Top Chef's "surprises" got pretty weak in season five—cook with alligator! Cook with oatmeal! cook with Dr. Pepper! Cook with your eyes closed—but we have to say they got us in the finale.

After cocky Stefan dominated most of the season and spunky Carla took over late in the game, Padma and Co. went ahead and gave the crown to Hosea, who until now was mostly known for kissing Leah a couple of episodes back (and kissing Leah again in the closing scene of the finale! What's up with that?)

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Top Chef Gets Its Gumbo On

Top Chef left New York this week to hold their two-part finale in foodie-fave New Orleans, and suddenly everything's upside down: unfunny judge Toby Young is gone while Gail Simmons is magically back, the last three axed chef'testants get a surprise chance to cook their way back into the game, and after representing New York's diversity by spending all their time in a Williamsburg condo and Whole Foods aisles, the show is now out and about all over New Orleans.

All improvements, we'd say, especially the last one.

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Leah Cooks Her Last Supper

Top Chef was down to the final five this week, and each chef'testant had to prepare a last supper chosen by a culinary god. Fabio aced it cooking roast chicken for Lydia Bastianich, Carla wowed Jacques Pepin with her perfect peas, but Leah couldn't impress Wylie Dufresne and was asked to pack her knives and leave.

We thought Leah's poached eggs and bacon looked pretty tasty, so we're wondering, what exactly did Wylie have in mind? So we checked out the menu at his molecular gastronomy super-kitchen, WD-50 on Clinton Street in New York and it looks like Leah just wasn't thinking small enough.

Yes, the photo above is Dufresne' version of eggs Benedict. Fried hollandaise cubes battered with English muffin crumbs, gelled egg yolk, and Canadian ham crisps. Come on Leah, how hard would that have been to do?

Seriously, have you readers dined at WD-50? Let us know if it is worth the hype because it sure doesn't look like it would fill us up.

Related Stories:
· WD-50 [Official Site]
· Checking In At Jamie's Place [Jaunted]

Photo: [Kent Wang]

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Chef'Testants are No Match for Eric Ripert

The Top Chef'testants had a particularly tough time with this week's challenge--reproducing a dish from guest judge Eric Ripert's legendary seafood restaurant Le Bernardin. We were a little disappointed with the chefs' output (especially Leah, how did she not go home?!), but the episode certainly did get us salivating to try the real deal--Ripert's classic French dishes like black bass tartare, poached escolar, and pan-roasted monkfish.

So we're wondering--just how hard is it to get into Le Bernardin nowadays? Reservations are notoriously difficult to come by (on the first business day of every month, they become available for the month after that, and their phone lines get busy quickly), but it turns out you can get around that if you're willing to eat super-late. We just did an OpenTable search and found tables for two available tonight at 10pm, and Friday and Saturday at 11. Not so hard after all!

Of course, you still have to be willing to pay for all that fishy goodness. The lunch prix fixe is $68, dinner is $109, while the extravagant chef's tasting menu is $185 a head.

Oh, and bonus news for all you Ripert-heads: Looks like he's enjoying this TV thing. Ripert will get his own show, "Avec Eric," coming to PBS this fall.

· Le Bernardin [Official Site]
· Checking In At Jamie's Place [Jaunted]

Photo: [Bravo]