I was initially reluctant to watch Top Chef: Seattle because of the horrible previous season in Texas, but my fears were dispelled from the first episode onwards, as this season more than made up for the crapfest last time.
Top Chef: Seattle had the best selection of contestants this time around, including 3 former contestants: Stefan Richter from Top Chef: New York, C.J. Jacobsen from Top Chef: Miami, and Fil-Am chef Josie Smith-Malave from Top Chef: Los Angeles. There's another Fil-am contestant, Sheldon Simeon from Hawaii, who highlighted Pinoy food during Restaurant Wars.
Stefan can be a douche at times, but he's hilarious, and while Josie can be frakking annoying, she's not as hateful as those three bitches and generally unpleasant human beings who ruined Top Chef: Texas for me.
This entire season appeared to be an apology for last season, as the series concentrated more on the food and each contestant's ability than the drama. It's good that they dispensed with the MasterChef-style of pre-elimination rounds before the official roster of contestants was announced, and even Restaurant Wars was tweaked a bit from the usual style. There were fewer team and catering competitions this time around, which was good, but the finale was staged Iron Chef-style, before a live audience, which was really, really bad--hope they don't do this type of finale again.
This was also the first time that all my favorites ended up in the final four, and my two overall favorites ended up in the finale, but the best thing of all was that my favorite contestant from the very start ended up winning the title of Top Chef--Kristen Kish, who looks like she could pass for a younger sister of Hawaii Five-0's Grace Park. She was unjustly eliminated early on as she responsibly took the blame for Josie's crap, but she redeemed herself during the Last Chance Kitchen competitions, earning her the right to return to the finale. Kristen is the second female chef to win the title of Top Chef.
