Top Chef All-Stars, Episode 9: Dinner Theater in the Round

I am a big fan of round food. Many of the most delicious things one can imagine are round: cakes, cookies, macarons, financiers (when fabricated in mini-muffin tins);  chocolate milkshakes (when viewed aerially); pizza (I said delicious, not gluten-free); crepes (ditto); and Belgian waffles (ditto again).

QED.

Such is my devotion to round food that I composed a riveting and well-received Facebook photo essay on the subject last time I was in Tokyo, celebrating such circular amusements as banana pizza, Japanese poppadoms, and fried spherical octopus fritters (I almost wrote octopus balls, but feared that would send the wrong message to the delicate flowers who constitute a good proportion of my readership).

The long and short of my message? Round food can't be beat.

I mused on this truth at some length whilst Moleskine II and I watched the latest episode of Top Chef All-Stars. There was a good deal of evidence to support my hypothesis that Bravo's fine producers share my obsession.

The fondue quickfire

Fondue pots are round. They have to be, or the cheese would get stuck in the corners. In light of the cultural slurs casually bandied about by our 1970's-averse competitors about one of Switzerland's greatest contributions to the world as we know it (the other, as Harry Lyme never tired of pointing out, was the cuckoo clock), I feel the need to leap to the defense of fondue. We used to eat it a lot. Not hot pots or food on sticks with dipping sauces, but real honest-to-goodness fondue, made by simmering white wine in a garlic-rubbed pan and adding handfuls of flour-dusted and grated Emmentaler until nirvana was achieved. We served it with chunks of chewy baguette and never suffered a word against it until gluten-freedom put authentic crusty bread beyond my reach. Coincidentally, I retired both my fondue pots over the weekend in another gluten-cleansing project: I was running out of shelf-space for my oats, g/f flour, quinoa, and dried fruit, and something had to go. The pots are now in the basement, where they will presumably collect dust for all eternity.

Richard's ramen

Richard forsook his usual nitrogenated components and made what looked like an excellent bowl of honest ramen. This is a dish near and dear to my heart: I even included a bowl of chasumen in the above-mentioned photo essay. This was last summer, before gluten-freedom was imposed from Above. Not only are ramen bowls round, but lots of the things in ramen bowls are round: nuggets of roast pork loin; soft boiled eggs; kameboko; and sliced spring onions, to name the most obvious. Since ramen noodles are made with wheat flour, curse them, I can now only contemplate the harmonious curves of the turned vessel and imagine happier times. 

Fabio's burger
Honestly, what is it with the Rest of the World and burgers? They just don't have a clue. Fabio's not-very-traditional take on America's favorite tasted like meatloaf, apparently, and having once had a burger abroad that was made with - like - breadcrumbs, I totally understand the judges' dismay. This is not to say that burgers can't be tarted up with fancy-schmancy ingredients such as short ribs and ground-up heirloom ostrich brains: both Daniel Boulud and Hubert Keller have made the Very Expensive Burger a compulsory item on fine restaurant menus everywhere. What VEBs all have in common is that they are round and their buns are full of gluten. I haven't had a burger in ages and ages - not even one with foie gras or truffles in it. It is very sad. Although truthfully, I think putting truffles in burgers is silly, like floating gold leaf on top of coffee.

Carla's chicken pot pie
Pies are, by their very nature, round unless they are English steak pies, in which case they are often rectangular. Carla's creation had the judges weeping with pleasure, so much so that they awarded her a trip to Tokyo for her pains. This is an awesome and fitting prize, because it means she'll get to eat even more round food!

So I've come full circle, back to Tokyo, which is where my story began.

And circles are round.