ottawa foodies

Hi all,

I'm excited to watch Top Chef Canada tonight, April 11, 9 PM Food Network Canada.

A bit disappointed though that no local Ottawa chefs will take part in the competition, but should be fun to watch nonetheless.

Enjoy

PS: I changed my name to tourist (from dasklown)

I'm excited for this too, I'm a Top Chef junkie.

Watched, and was a bit disappointed. The female co-host reads the lines like a news anchor, and Mark McEwan is a bit dull. Hopefully it picks up a bit.

We watched the first episode last night - was pretty surprised at what some of these chefs considered their "A" game with what were, essentially, pretty easy challenges. I think Mark McEwan was going for serious but seemed more lugubrious. My SIL works for McEwan at his store; I wonder if she has seen it and what she thinks.

I liked the first episode; seems like they have decent production values, but I agree that the female co-host is very lackluster. And I don't enjoy Mark McEwan. He seems a bit of a blowhard, and I am kind of over him, having seen him on so many Canadian Food Shows already.

Pretty bad episode last night... the challenges just weren't that interesting and as a result the final product left much to be desired. I just have an issue with sponsored challenges. "create a dish using 100% Canadian Cow's Milk Cheese" (dairy farmers of Canada). This challenge didn't allow for much creativity since having cheese in a dish pretty much excludes fish, seafood and asian inspired dishes. Maybe i'll watch it next week, but i'm not so much looking forward to it anymore.

tourist, we were thinking the same thing last night as we watched the cheese challenges. Can we look forward to a Canadian Milk challenge? An egg marketing board challenge? Foodland Ontario? I'm thinking this could be really bush league stuff if they follow that example.

The sponsored challenge just follows the same format as the US equivalent. Not saying it was good - but they pretty much follow the same recipe as the original. (insert Loblaws for Whole Foods).

That's not the part that irks me. I think Mark McEwan was a terrible choice. I'm also very surprised at the chef choices, for the most part. There appears to be a MUCH lower level of chef in the Canadian version versus any of the previous episodes that I can recall. This may change as the herd is trimmed but for now, I'm amazed at how many incomplete dishes we've seen. Has there ever been this many?

I'd also like to see Mark not give many 'tips' while the chefs are cooking...Tom C was very good at asking questions without really giving away what he was really looking for. The way Mark mentioned his concern about the Cobb salad could have altered the chef's decision in how he presented. Either help them all equally (virtually impossible), or let them do their thing.

Wow...Mark McEwan? I just don't know why they chose him.

..with that said, I'll still watch every episode and am somewhat enjoying it so far. It will only get better IMO.