Top Chef, Season 4

Tom:
What bugs me is, how do you come here and compete and not know what a piccata is? And he didn't know that and I still don't think he knows.

Anthony Bourdain:
I really find it worrying that I had absolutely no idea what was coming out of his mouth.

Rocco DiSpirito:
Let's just say it wasn't just his gnocchi that were dense.

Tom:
[trying not to laugh] That's just mean!

Erik:
[on his souffle] It rose, but then I dumped a bunch of tortillas and stuff on top of it that made it drop.

Anthony Bourdain:
I gotta say, you were clearly way out of your comfort zone and scrambling around for some way out of a bad situation right out of the gate. But the last thing a souffle needs is more weight on top. Tough, tough, tough..

Erik:
[shrugging] I made glorified nachos. I'm not proud of it.

Wylie Dufresne:
[to Mark] Nice sideburns.

Mark:
I read the diet of the vulture, and it's not boots and road tires. Turns out that they eat little fish, rabbits, and lamb.. which is very similar to my diet.

Gail:
It looked like something a bear would produce, not eat.

Andrew:
Can you guys smell it?

Erik:
What?

Andrew:
Success!

Ted:
Aww, little girl dropped her s'more!

Padma:
I dropped it on your shoe.

Ted:
You dropped it on my shoe? You're gonna get the bill for that!

Padma:
[before introducing Daniel Boulud] If you guys don't know who he is, you should just leave the kitchen now.

Daniel Boulud:
Of course, I have two young chef here who has previously work in my restaurant before, Richard and Ryan. And that will not affect the work of anyone else, be reassured for that.

Lisa:
I wanted to do a cucumber where you run your knife across it and you rotate the cucumber so that you have like a thin.. almost like a wrapper. And then I look over and Dale is doing the exact same thing, and just whizzing through them like soft butter. So I decide, maybe not.

Andrew:
Is anybody else's hand shaking?

Padma:
Your challenge is to create a dinner where each course is inspired by your favorite movie.

Antonia:
I love movies, I'm a total movie buff. This is an opportunity to be really creative.

Ryan:
I start thinking, I have seen 2 movies in 3 years, so.. great.

Ryan:
[talking head] I draw knives, and I get Mark. This guy's f***ing.. New Zealand, New England.. where the hell is Mark from? We're not going to have anything in common!

Mark:
Why don't we just put down a bunch of movies?

Ryan:
Yep, so what are your movies? I love Dumb and Dumber. I think it's funny as shit.

Mark:
To Kill A Mockingbird.

Ryan:
Right, old school..

Mark:
Crazy Bad..

Ryan:
Crazy Bad? What's that?

Ryan:
[talking head] "Like, what movies do you watch?" And he starts naming this stuff, and all I hear is "blaaaah blaaaah blahhhh."

Mark:
[talking head] He has not seen Once Were Warriors or Mad Max or Bad Boy Bubby.

Ryan:
What about the Christmas movie?

Mark:
Which one?

Ryan:
Oh, oh, oh.. What's the one with the kid that gets shot with a B.B. in his eye and they go get Asian food instead? You know what I'm talking about? He takes the glass light for his mom's Christmas, and he puts it in the window..

Mark:
I don't know.

Ryan:
And they go and have Chinese food and have duck instead of normal turkey because the turkey got f***ed up? It's a normal Christmas movie.

Mark:
Do you know what it is? I don't know.

Ryan:
It's a Christmas f***ing movie..

Mark:
Yeah, what's it called?

Ryan:
And they sit down at the table.. [goes to Spike and Manuel] What's that Christmas movie, you guys? "You got your eye shot out.."

Manuel:
A Christmas Story.

Ryan:
A Christmas Story. Got it. Duck.

Mark:
[talking head] A Christmas Story is something that, you know, all the families, everybody's seen it. It's, um.. it's.. I believe it's a comedy.

Andrew:
I have no doubt in my mind that the people that will be eating this food will culinarily crap in their pants when they see what we have for them.

Mark:
First-of-the-season cranberries. Awesome! You know, that's Christmastime right there, isn't it?

Richard:
Kind of a play on the Fizzy Lifting Drink: a pear and a celery soda. We have been working on trying to get the guests to float. And if you do float, I believe burping is the way to get down from the ceiling.

Mark:
We walk into the kitchen and it's huge. Huge! You could probably fit the Yankee Stadium in their kitchen, I think.

[putting the duck legs in the oven]

Jen:
Nice legs.

Ryan:
Thank you.

Richard:
Don't know if he's just got a good poker face, or the Richard Blais charm has just worn off on Tom Colicchio.

Ryan:
I'm not a big sports fan. Do I look like a sports fan? No, I'm not. I feel that I'm metrosexual or whatever the hell you want to call it. I spend my money on good clothes, I like to go out and dance..

Mark:
We've been given the choice of two grills. One is gas-operated, one is charcoal. I'm the only one that had the testicular fortitude to pick a real charcoal grill. This is how I cook on a barbecue.

Antonia:
[about Spike and Mark in the tub] I don't know what those crazy boys are doing. Honestly, this is like a cheap porno.

Mark:
A few people go for shrimp straight off the bat. And I thought, they're really taking my gig. How can I throw the [shrimp on the barbie] when they're already doing it? F***ed up, isn't it? [laughs]

Gail:
So what do you have for us today?

Andrew:
[in a high-pitched voice] What do I have for you today? Oh my God!

Tom:
[to Ryan]. I'm not quite sure why you chose a dessert, and also a dessert I would never think it a million years to see at a tailgate party.

Ryan:
I wanted to have a whole dining experience at my table. And that's where I was hitting. I wanted to be able to say "Okay, so somebody doesn't eat chicken, but, wow there's a dessert. And you know, doing a dessert, I don't think was too left-field.

Gail:
I don't think a dessert is left-field. I just think poached pear with [crème fraîche]and huckleberry sauce was a bit left-field. I just think there would've been more options that would've been more appropriate.

Ryan:
Personally, I wanted to cook the way that I think I would personally like to see at a tailgate. I don't eat heavy. I don't eat ribs. And I thought of these people and said "Cool, I'm gonna serve chicken. Instead of serving something on a bun, I'm gonna do it in the application of a salad form."

Gail:
The bread salad that I got was almost all bread. And I guess I was expecting for it to be sort of moist and found it really dry.

Ryan:
I dissected a tailgate party and the caliber of people that I'm cooking with, and I'm looking at them, and I'm like "I have to do something different." You know, the people that came up, everyone was super sweet at this event. Ladies coming up for recipes, and "How did you make this?" and "Why would you do that, and this and that." and "Wow, pea stew on top, finishing a chicken." "This is quite interesting. We love it." And bringing in, I hate to use the word "California flair-"

Tom:
But, this challenge was not about that. This challenge was about simple food, to the masses, in the form of a tailgate.

Ryan:
Yeah, totally fair.