On Tour With The Top Chef Stars!

Late last week, when I heard that Top Chef superstar Fabio Viviani would be in the neighborhood doing a cooking demonstration for something called Top Chef: The Tour, I knew I had to find a way to see it. The event was booked up, but thanks to the good people at Bravo, they found a way to get me on the list. And boy am I glad that I did. Not only was Fabio there, but so was Top Chef top chef Hosea Rosenberg. Plus, we audience members scored some free food (woot!) and some lovely shwag courtesy of Directv and Quaker Oats. Not a bad way to pass an hour in Los Angeles.

As much as I enjoyed these perks, however, the main goal of the experience was to meet Fabio and score a photo. What can I say? I have a man crush. So with this humble dream in my head, I trekked down to a dusty lot on Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street and found what appeared to be a tented tour bus with all sorts of Top Chef branding all over it (would you expect anything less from Bravo?). I took a seat in the audience and then waited with bated breath for our chefs to come out and dazzle us with culinary wonders and funny accents.
Much to my surprise, as I sat there, a lovely young lady came up to me and asked if I was the writer of B-Side Blog. WHY, YES I WAS! That’s right, people. Someone recognized me at Top Chef: The Tour! This was already turning out to be a fantastic event. I really love when I go to an event to fawn over someone and then wind up having someone fawn over me. Well, she didn’t really fawn, per se. But you know what I’m saying. The fawner became the fawnee. Unfortunately, I completely forgot the girl’s name; so I feel pretty bad about that. But if you’re out there, say hi to the readers!
Anyway, with my ego appropriately inflated for the afternoon, the two chefs finally trotted out onto the little stage, and an affable emcee took to the mic. He did a whole greeting and then asked “Who here’s got a seat for the parade!!!!” This resulted in confused murmurs and silence — after all, anyone who had made their way to this tent had most surely navigated through gay pride parade preparation just a few blocks away. So was he asking us if we were going to the gay pride parade? Or was he just insinuating that we were all gay? Either way, seemed like an awfully strange way to kick things off.
“Aren’t you guys going to the parade?” the guy asked, somewhat offended that NO ONE had responded to him. Finally, he clarified: “The LAKERS parade. They’re gonna win, right??”
With that, the audience chuckled slightly, and the emcee smiled broadly, still perhaps unaware of his ambiguous phrasing. “So who here is gonna go to the parade?” he asked again. This time he was received with greater enthusiasm, but the man in front of me refused to embrace the moment. “Which parade?” he asked his friend quietly. “There are TWO.” Needless to say, we eventually moved on from this awkward preamble and dove into the demo.

The chefs take to the stage.

The fans greet Hosea.

Rousing applause for Fabio.

Fabio has an extreme dislike of cilantro, as evidenced by his horror here when Hosea mentions the herb.

The two prepare for their cooking demo, which was an oatmeal encrusted shrimp (Quaker Oats was a sponsor) over a mango salsa and coconut curry rice. Or something like that.

A mirror overhead allowed us to see the action unfold on the stovetop. Unfortunately, they forgot a pan; so they only pretended to sauté some snow peas.

Working diligently. 500 years of chopping technique!

Fabio pushes a bowl of cilantro away.

Fabio offers Hosea a loving view of a shrimp dredged in oats. Bromance was in the air.

I don’t remember what these two were talking about at this moment, but it looks like Fabio wants to punch Hosea in the face.

Applying the finishing touches to the dish. And by the way, for the past three or four minutes, we’d been subjected to the smell of shrimp deep frying in oil. It was fantastic.

Fabio perches on the sponsorship. And yes, there were MONOGRAM BY GE appliances nearby, but I neglected to document them.

The finished product. We all got to try the dish (a small army of chefs in the tour bus cooked them up for us). The shrimp was pleasant, but honestly, the real star was the coconut curry rice. Quite, quite tasty.

After the cooking demo, which lasted only about five minutes — I kid you not — the floor opened up for questions. Sadly, I don’t remember many of them (don’t worry, the woman next to me looked to be a journalist. I’m sure there will be plenty more details when her article is published, wherever it may be). One lady grilled the men about how to launch her own brand of food, and one guy asked them what they thought of Toby Young. Regarding the latter question, both men said they liked him, with Hosea saying that he personally enjoys British humor; so Toby was right up his alley. Later, the guys said they really didn’t enjoy the guest judges who acted like assholes (and no, they did not give names). They felt the chefs that had already been well established like Jacques Pepin and Eric Ripert were great — their criticism was straightforward and helpful. Others, they said, were just dicks who seemed to be trying to prove their merits in the culinary world.
Of course, I couldn’t let this event pass without posing at least one question, and while I really wanted to ask something about Padma and Gail, I opted instead for the more basic question, “Top Chef seems like such a pressure cooker. What were you able to learn from being on the television show that you were able to apply to your kitchens?”
“Nothing,” Hosea responded quickly. He and Fabio then chuckled and said that they mostly learned that it’s possible to get a lot more done in a short amount of time than one could ever think possible (the two cited the Foo Fighters microwave and toaster oven episode as a perfect example). So there.
As for the rest of their thoughts on things, I really don’t remember much. Fabio made one or two veiled (and not so veiled) allusions to Hosea’s torrid affair with Leah — something Hosea laughed off with a self-depricating laugh. Also, both guys bemoaned some of the production elements of Top Chef, citing how the judges often wouldn’t get to eat their food until thirty minutes after it had left the kitchen — a timeframe that usually hurt most of their dishes. Aside from that, I really can’t recall much else from the Q&A. What can I say? I’m a blogger, not a reporter.
After the questions, we moved onto the meet-and-greet portion of the day, and that could only mean one thing: awkward photo time:

It’s an odd pic, but one I will treasure dearly. I told Fabio I wanted to go to his restaurant in Moorpark. I think it came off sounding like a stalkerish threat.

On a whim, I asked the guys if they could leave a voicemail for my friend Meeshie. They were more than happy to oblige. Turns out, however, that she answered the phone. The two chefs sort of talked at her (much to the amusement of the crowd), and then when they were done, I got on the phone to find Meeshie laughing in a confused sort of way. Fabio then took the phone back from me and began talking at length to her, saying mostly “You a-gotta get your ass a-down here!” Needless to say, she was positively thrilled.

Fabio with two girls from Whrrl, another sponsor of the event. To see their pics of the demo (including more shots of Fabio talking to Meeshie), click here.

Oh, and let’s not forget the free stuff. I spun the wheel, landed on the Directv symbol, and I won… a new pen! I was also given a Top Chef sticker and some complementary boxes of Life Cereal. Mission accomplished.

All in all, a fun little event. If you want to check it out, well, bad news. Saturday was the last day of the tour. If more dates open up, I’ll be sure to tell you all. Thanks again to Bravo! And thanks to that bastard jash for giving me the heads up about the event.