Top Chef Dining at the Langham

Season 6 of Top Chef hasn’t finished airing yet and I’m impatiently waiting for them to cast out the garnishes and get to the top 4 (Kevin, Jen, the Vs) so the show can really get started.  Even though the champion has yet to be crowned, the cheftestants are already feeling the effects of fame and the fans that come with it.  This is why AT and I found ourselves at the tail end of a receiving line worthy of a wedding reception last Friday at The Dining Room of the Langham Hotel in Pasadena.  Except there was no wedding, no bride and groom, and we were standing in the midst of a busy kitchen trying to put out the last plates of the evening.  At the head of the receiving line was a friendly and gracious Michael Voltaggio greeting a group of adoring Breeders.

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Blue Hill at Stone Barns – A Prelude to Fall

On a scale from oblivious to deranged groupie, I rank in the upper 50th percentile somewhere along the lines of shameless admiration when it comes to Dan Barber and Blue Hill.  Besides the obvious fact that Barber can cook up some mouth-watering food, the man sous-vide a turkey in a dishwasher for Thanksgiving one year. How awesome is that?!

Stone Barns Education Center is one of my favorite places to visit when I am in New York and its Blue Hill Restaurant ranks high on the list of best dining experiences for my friends and me.  The chefs and servers work in concert to get diners excited about food from the table side presentation of local ingredients to the parade of well thought out and executed dishes. It was no wonder that my friends and I looked to Blue Hill to provide a great meal to say farewell to summer and lay out the welcome mat for autumn.