Knives at Dawn (13 page)

It was her love of precision that had landed Adina Guest at The French Laundry in the first place.

When she was a student at Kapi'olani Community College in Hawaii, Per Se's chef de cuisine, Jonathan Benno, performed a cooking demo there, and Guest was the only student who volunteered to assist him. Among the dishes he demonstrated were Keller's signature salmon cornets, which the chef famously conceived (originally with tuna tartare) at a Baskin-Robbins years ago. Guest was charged with folding napkins around the little cones. She spent thirty minutes on the assignment, an intricate chore that she treated with painstaking attention.

“I had known about The French Laundry for a long time and it had been my dream to even eat there and I was super psyched to be helping him out,” she said.

Benno remembers Guest well. “I have been doing this long enough, I can see most of the time someone who is going to be really, really good and she was one of those people.”

After the demo, she approached Chef Benno and asked if there was a possibility of doing a stage at The French Laundry. Impressed with her, he instructed her to e-mail him her resumé.

She didn't hear anything for two months and had pretty much written off the idea, at least for the time being. But one day, just after winning a student cooking competition in Idaho, she was in her hotel room checking her e-mail and performed a routine check of her spam folder. Among the unmentionable advertisements was an e-mail from the human resources department of The French Laundry, congratulating her on being accepted for a stage.

Following on the emotional release of competing, the news was overwhelming: she burst into tears.

D
AY 2 OF THE
competition had begun much as the previous day had, with the chefs congregating in the hotel lobby. Absent was Hung Hyunh. Given his casual preparation for the weekend, one might naturally have wondered if he had overslept, but when the other teams arrived at the Showplace, he was already there, having driven over with Pelka.

Hyunh and his commis, Girair (Jerry) Goumroian, a Culinary Institute of America student who met Hyunh while working at Guy Savoy in Las Vegas, occupied the same kitchen as Rosendale had the day before. Powell and Kyle Fiasconaro, a French Culinary Institute student who just a year earlier had been cooking at a Red Lobster on Long Island, were in Kitchen 2. In Kitchen 3 were Hollingsworth and Guest, and in Kitchen 4 were Rellah and Forchelli.

Hyunh and Hollingsworth had their eye on each other because they had something in common: Thomas Keller, and each presumed the other to be the favorite for the weekend.

The presence of Hyunh evokes unavoidable comparisons between American television cooking competitions like
Top Chef
and the Bocuse d'Or. But despite surface similarities, the two are actually quite different. Where the Bocuse d'Or follows the same format contest after contest, a great deal of the drama of
Top Chef
is conjured by pulling the rug out from under the cheftestants in weekly challenges, sometimes altering the rules midstream. For example, on one episode in the winter 2009 season, the competitors were charged with cooking a recipe out of the
Top Chef
cookbook. Midway through their frantic improvisation, Grant Achatz, the red-hot chef of Alinea restaurant in Chicago and a former Thomas Keller disciple, emerged in the kitchen along with cohost Padma Lakshmi. “We've changed our minds,” said Lakshmi, whereupon Achatz smirked maliciously into the camera and announced, “We want soup.” The competitors
then had to take what they'd prepared to that point, change gears, and fashion a soup with it, using Swanson's broth. (One thing the Bocuse d'Or and
Top Chef
have in common is unapologetic product placement; the first thing that greets visitors to the Bocuse d'Or Web site is a shot of outer space from which an Eau de Perrier logo rushes up from the distance and explodes like the Death Star.)

After his experience, Hyunh would offer this comparison of the Bocuse d'Or and
Top Chef
: “Bocuse is more like a three-star Michelin [restaurant]. The dishes are perfected before you even do it. You are satisfied, the restaurant is satisfied, and your execution had better be perfect.
Top Chef
is more like when a customer comes in, they are ninety years old and they want this [a special request]
now
. They both reflect reality … in
Top Chef
you have to be creative and think on your feet and work fast. Do or die. In Bocuse, you have no excuses because you have time to train.”

The morning did not go exactly as planned for Hyunh, but he didn't know that: almost as soon as they started cooking, his commis sliced his finger. Badly. But he bandaged himself up and continued without the chef taking note. As the morning progressed, Hyunh's lack of preparation began to show: his kitchen was cluttered, leftover ingredients were left strewn about, and he violated many tenets of Cooking Competition 101, such as reusing a tasting spoon without cleaning it. Watching him from outside the kitchen's glass wall, one of the proctors shook his head mournfully and muttered, “All day long,” as he made a note on his score sheet. (By contrast, Rosendale had gone through more than 100 spoons the day before.)

Hyunh also had a bit of a run-in with A. J. Schaller, who was tasked with making sure the candidates got whatever they needed in the kitchen. When he reached for corn that wasn't where he remembered leaving it during his set up, Hyunh waved Schaller over and accusatorially asked her where it was.

“Nobody touched your corn,” she said.

“It was right here,” he replied, sounding a bit heated.

“Well, I'm telling you—”

“Never mind,” he said, waving his arms. “If it's not here, I won't use it. That's fine.”

Roland Henin happened on the scene, watched for a moment, then stepped in. He fished a few ears of corn from a supply box and stuffed them into Hyunh's hands.

“And I don't want to hear nothing more about it,” he said, and stormed away.

“There's some hot-tempered chefs in here,” said Handke.

“I didn't appreciate the temper,” said Henin. “But if you give the benefit of the doubt, there's no excuses.”

Asked why he gave the corn to Hyunh, Henin replied, “If there's a problem with him, it will show up in another way before the time is up.”

But here was the thing with Hyunh: despite the inefficiencies in his kitchen, his food
looked
delicious; vibrant colors, such as the fiery orange of butternut squash puree or the bright green of creamed spinach, promised big flavors. As the cliché goes, if you eat with your eyes before your mouth, then people would be predisposed to liking his food.

Henin strolled along the windows. In Kitchen 2, Rogers Powell was scraping a fluffy white puree out of a Robot Coupe food processor with a rubber spatula. Perhaps it's a fish mousse, thought Henin. “It will be interesting to see if he makes a test quenelle,” he said. That's the thing to do when you make a mousse—quick-cook a small quenelle in simmering water to see how it will taste when finished; then you can adjust the seasoning before it's too late. This should be standard operating procedure in any kitchen, but a lot of cooks don't follow the conventional wisdom. Not spotting a pot of water on Kitchen 2's stove, Henin wasn't optimistic.

Outside Kitchen 3, passersby were focused on how clean Hollings-worth and Guest were working. At any given time, it looked like they had just gotten there; as soon as a piece of equipment was used, it was stashed. But it was nearly impossible to get a sense of what the food would actually taste like as components were neatly assembled, then whisked away to the refrigerator or freezer until the time for service arrived. A number of the
chef-judges also took note of a piece of equipment that Guest employed to slice potatoes, a Japanese turning vegetable slicer: the vegetable is impaled on a rod, which is snapped into place at the rear of the device. When the hand crank is operated, the vegetable is spun against a blade, producing long slices that roll out of the front of the mechanism like paper out of a fax machine.

Among the observers was David Wong of Canada, who had been selected almost two years earlier to be the 2009 candidate for his country. Wong was such an earnest soul that while he must have been there sizing up his competition, he seemed as if he were just along for the camaraderie. Wong had been sent to the Bocuse d'Or in 2007 to observe, and had many opinions on how to go about winning: “Every year, there's a half dozen clowns who imitate previous years' France platter,” he said. “If you're not yourself in Bocuse d'Or, you lose.”

As with so much about the Bocuse d'Or, perceived reality changes from person to person. One past champion who agreed with Wong was 2005 champion Vieira, who had once said,
“You have to pursue
your own ideas, do what you feel is right, and give it 100 percent during the preparation and the big day, so that you have no regrets.” Then again, he
was
the French candidate, so being himself hardly seemed a risky proposition.

When the platters were paraded and tasted, Hyunh and Hollingsworth were the two who most impressed the judges. Neither of their presentations rose to the competition-style heights of Rosendale's, but Hung's seafood leaned that way, headlined by olive oil–poached cod topped with overlapping circles of scallop coins and black truffles. His Hawaiian prawn crêpe with leeks, chanterelles, and prawn reduction was bound up by a Chinese chive, and his ratatouille was deconstructed and topped with zucchini rounds, a peeled cherry tomato, and pepper. (The ratatouille was
not
an homage to Keller's contribution to the Disney-Pixar movie. “That movie actually scared me,” laughed Hyunh. “I don't like rats.”)

The platter met with approval from many judges. “Good harmony,
overall flavors and textures were very good,” wrote Kaysen, while Jean-Georges Vongerichten proclaimed the seasoning “perfect.” On the other hand, Daniel Humm was underwhelmed, noting that the “execution could be better,” and a number of judges commented that the cod was leaching liquid onto the platter.

As Hollingsworth plated his fish, seemingly deaf to the crowd, the emcees were impressed with his preternatural calm. “It's a known fact he's air-dried,” said Besh, who was joined on Day Two by television personality Al Roker, who exhibited the ironic delivery that is his hallmark on
Today
. Of Hollingsworth's even keel, Roker exclaimed, “He had his sweat glands surgically removed.”

Hollingsworth's fish platter was love-it-or-leave-it straightforward cooking. A sausage-like coil of grilled cod belly occupied the center of the platter. In the corner were browned diagonal cuts of
barigoule
bread pudding (made by pureeing a classic braised artichoke preparation, adding cream, combining with ground bread, baking, and slicing it) topped with San Marzano (a variety of plum tomato) marmalade. The platter also featured an artichoke gratin topped wtih Hawaiian blue prawns, piment d'Espelette, and Niçoise olives. Society garlic blossoms, an edible, faintly purple flower, were strewn about the tray.

The results were, for the most part, unqualified raves. Patrick O'Connell loved it: “Somewhat sleek and elegant in comparison to many of the overwrought presentations of the other contestants,” he wrote on his score sheet. Some chefs differed on the same elements; for example, Daniel Humm found the fish “rubbery” and the bread pudding “dry” while Jean-Georges Vongerichten noted “great texture, all cooked perfectly.”

In Hyunh's kitchen, order had been sacrificed in favor of getting the job done, but he was really pushing it: where some kitchens looked as though one could eat off the floor, Hung actually had food underfoot. A lone potato had been left to dry out there, along with a spoon and a spider (strainer). By day's end, to nobody's surprise, Hyunh would have accumulated the lowest kitchen score.

As the audience counted down from five to one in anticipation of Hyunh's deadline, he and Goumroian set the meat platter in their window, continuing the slugfest: a potato-encrusted beef tenderloin, the tawny color of a giant knish, sliced open to reveal a mouthwatering, rare-red tint and rings of Swiss chard, braised beef cheeks, and foie gras between the meat and the potatoes. Roasted butternut squash disks were filled with pureed squash and topped with sage toast. The platter was completed with oil-poached potatoes and a creamed spinach tart.

“As chaotic as Hung's kitchen was, who would have thought he could produce such beautiful food?” said Besh.

“Obviously he did,” replied Roker as he watched Hyunh jump up and down and punch the air in a manner familiar to
Top Chef
viewers.

Hyunh wasn't winning the same approval from the meat judges that he had with the fish jury: “Very mediocre” wrote Laurent Tourondel in the “sophistication and subtlety” line on his score sheet.

Hollingsworth's beef platter exhibited more showmanship than his fish had, headlined by a rectangular slab of beef tenderloin seemingly upholstered on top with bacon. The unnatural shape of the meat—significantly wider than tenderloin naturally is—was a quietly spectacular touch he achieved by using Activa, a brand-name transglutaminase, to “glue” two pieces of beef together. The Activa also fused the bacon to the beef, even when sliced. The beef was accompanied by bias (diagonal) cuts of potato
mille-feuille;
the name means “thousand sheets” and classically refers to a dessert with many layers of puff pastry. Here it referred to an escalloped potato composition layered with black truffle. The mille-feuille were topped with braised beef cheek balls wrapped in Swiss chard and Tokyo turnips. Little cigars of port wine–braised oxtail in
feuille de bric
(a light, crispy dough) were set directly on the platter, halved Violette figs propped against them, along with a scallion salad.

The judges were blown away: “
Très grand plat
,” wrote Georges Perrier. Tourondel wrote “the best of 4 dish” (sic) on his form, but also noted, “need to be more competition and less restaurant.”