The food blogosphere is on FIRE (pun intended) right now over the announcement of Top Chef Masters, airing on June 10th. Think of it as Top Chef meets Iron Chef America meets WWE Smackdown. If there's such a thing as a foodie-gasm, this is the thing to inspire it.
The judges will be celebrities, including Zooey Deschanel, NPH, and, here's a headscratcher, Jeff Lewis (WTF?), along with past Top Chef-testants, and the usual three judges.
But blaringly absent from the roster of contestants are any chefs from O.C.
So here's my incomplete list of suggested Top O.C. Chefs, should this series go into Season Two:
Hiro Ohiwa from Cafe Hiro
Florent Marneau from MarchN Moderne
Takashi Abe from Bluefin
James Hamamori from Hamamori
Mark McDonald from Old Vine Cafe
Walter Rowin from Slidebar Cafe
John McLaughlin from At Last Cafe (technically in Long Beach)
Who would you like to see on Top Chef Masters?
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.