NEW YORK—After seven seasons, the Emmy-award winning show Top Chef has brought 18 of the best, the brightest and the most beloved chefs in the previous seasons (also known as the runner-ups or those who could have won) and gathered them together for Top Chef: All-Stars.
It’s a veritable who’s who in the pantheon of culinary stars who have ventured beyond their kitchens and onto reality television. Famous New York chefs and restaurant owners such as Angelo Sosa (of Xie Xie in Hell’s Kitchen), Spike Mendelsohn (who owns a burger place in Washington, DC), new TV host Richard Blais (who hosts the new show Blais Off on The Science Channel) and Italian chef Fabio Viviani, among others.
Of the Filipino-American chefs who have joined Top Chef from seasons past (Leah Cohen, Josie Smith-Malave), producers deemed it best to bring back Dale Talde, one of the more colorful chefs that the show has ever had.
Top Chef: Chicago, Dale’s season, was shown on Bravo back in 2008. It was the show’s fourth season, and the first season where a female chef (Stephanie Izard) won. Dale was riding on a wave of wins and was considered as a front-runner until he was booted out after he cooked the now infamous butterscotch scallops.
“The last time was a real shocker. I didn’t expect to be eliminated then,” Dale said in a recent interview with the Asian Journal. The biting loss came with a few extra baggage. “There was a few regret and hesitation. I was wondering if I was mentally prepared in the first place,” he added.
Last year, he received a call from the show’s producers asking if he wanted to join the All-Stars season.
“I was presented with another opportunity of a lifetime, so I grabbed it. Redemption, baby,” he said with a quick laugh. “Being in the show is a blast. I’m a big fan of the show and being invited back is like being given a chance to prove myself once more.”
The first time he saw the other chefs for the All-Stars season, he was mesmerized.
“I was like, wow, this is going to be tough. There are a lot of great chefs here,” he said. “Jen Carroll’s season (Top Chef: Las Vegas) was one of my favorite seasons to watch and I was looking forward to competing against her, too bad she got booted out early.”
Scallop-gate
For this season’s first episode, aptly called History Never Repeats, the chefs from each season are teamed up for the Quickfire Challenge to create a dish that represents the city where their season took place. Dale’s team won and received immunity from elimination.
During the show’s Elimination Challenge, each chef was confronted with the ingredients from the dish that sent them home in their season. The chefs had to recreate their dishes, this time successfully.
For Dale, this was the challenge he dreaded the most, yet here it was, on the show’s first episode.
“Butterscotch scallops, it was like having a drunk cousin or uncle at Christmas events. I don’t want to talk about it anymore but there it is, you are forever tied to him. When I lifted up the lid to my Elimination Challenge, I was faced with that relative I really never wanted to see again. That scallop dish is my bad cousin and I had to deal with it. It was my worst nightmare,” he said.
Guest judge Anthony Bourdain (who also happened to be the guest judge on the episode where Dale was eliminated) said Dale unf*cked the dish the second time around. Back in season four, Bourdain called Dale’s scallops “supremely bad”.
“I was very happy when I heard him say that. Very happy and very relieved,” Dale remarked. “I am hoping to not ever do that dish again.”
Mentors & Idols
One experience that Dale hopes to relish this season is the possibility of working with the best and cooking for the big-time celebrity chefs in the industry. Growing up as a cook, he looked up to these chefs and mentors and he is endlessly amazed at what they do.
Back in season 4, Dale was quite inspired when he won a Quickfire skills challenge judged by one of his favorite chefs: Daniel Boulud. This season, they were given an opportunity to cook in the kitchen of four famous and notable New York City restaurants.
Dale and his team cooked in Wylie Dufresne’s kitchen at wd~50 in downtown NYC, where he prepared a “Sunny Side Up Egg Dumpling, Braised Pork Belly, Milk Ramen with Bacon, Beef, and Pork.”
With this dish, Dale chalked in his first win.
“It was really an honor to cook in his kitchen,” he said, “It was such an amazing experience, and I won a trip to New Zealand, too. It is very draining to go through this process but I am happy I did it.”
After this season, Dale intends to use his prize and go to New Zealand during the summer and maybe travel around the area. He hopes to be able to visit the Philippines again and he also wants to see Thailand and Vietnam.
“Visiting the Philippines last year gave me a sense of home. As a first-generation Filipino-American, when you hear Filipinos say that I was going home, back then it didn’t mean anything. That is, until I arrived there. Before that, there was no emotional attachment yet. Now there is. This is my heritage, this is my culture, and I am totally embracing it,” he said.
Dale’s mom hails from Iloilo while his dad is from Negros Occidental. The last time he visited the Philippines was 21 years ago, when his grandfather died.
He was born in Chicago and was brought back to the Philippines where he was raised for a couple of years until his parents could financially get on their feet. Growing up, he moved back with his family and was raised in a suburb just outside Chicago.
“Visiting the country led me to this place where I saw how far we’ve come and how far we need to go, what we have done, what we should have done and what we need to do,” he said.
Now 31 years old, Dale received his training at the Culinary Institute of America and worked in various Chicago restaurants moving to New York City, where he first worked at Morimoto, before moving over to Buddakan, a modern Asian restaurant where he is currently the Chef de Cuisine.
Comfort Food: Noodles
“As much as I am a proud American, I’m a proud Filipino as well,” Dale said, relishing the culinary adventures he has made so far, keeping that dream of opening his own place someday, where he can showcase more Filipino stuff.
“That’s what part of my restaurant is going to be, embracing the different aspects of being Asian. That is what the business dictates. It is going to really be risky if we go all-out Filipino at this point. We’re here not just to be Filipinos,” he said.
Back in 2008 when we first interviewed Dale, his wish was to open a small and cozy restaurant that will serve some of his favorite comfort food.
He considers anything that his mom makes, specially her pancit, pancit molo and batchoy as his comfort food. “I love batchoy, it’s my favorite thing. When I open my restaurant, I want to open a very simple batchoy and barbecue place, something simple and really good,” he said back then.
“With the current business environment we have, I don’t think opening a purely Filipino restaurant is a very sound idea. If I had to open my own now, it is going to be a Southeast Asian noodle shop, and will concentrate on what these countries’ have to offer as a whole,” he shared.
For now, Dale gets his pancit and adobo fix from Kuma Inn. “I love it there,” he said, “It doesn’t help that I live near the Lower East Side.”
Changed Man
“I was 28 years old during the show’s fourth season. I wasn’t a very happy person, I wasn’t very happy with the person that I was. [After the show,] I promised myself that I was not going to be such an angry person,” Dale shared.
The show portrayed him as a very outspoken young man who was almost always very angry. It was a portrayal quite close to who or what he was back then: brash and cocky.
“When you are angry, you tend to take it out on other people, and that’s what I did before. I have made a lot of missteps and acted like a real jerk. It wasn’t very positive at all. I didn’t like that person myself,” he added.
Not to say that his fire and passion have flickered, because Dale assures us he is as passionate and as fiery as before, maybe not just as vocal.
With the show now, he also intends to show his friends and family that in between Top Chef: Chicago and Top Chef: All-Stars, he mellowed, did a little growing up and matured.
For the fans that continue to follow the show, that is exactly what they have seen. Dale promises a fun and amazing season ahead.
“I’d be biased but for me, this is the best season of Top Chef. There will be more twists and turns and shocks. This is, without a doubt, the hardest season to mount,” he said.
(Photos courtesy of Bravo)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(NYNJ Jan 7-13, 2010 LifeEASTyle pg.2)
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