Top Chef is one of my favorite television shows. When the new season begins, I am plastered in front of my T.V. Wednesday nights from 10pm to 11pm. Not only is Top Chef a highly addictive form of entertainment, the show offers an array of cuisine from chefs of all different backgrounds, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Because of the presence of A/PI Americans competing (9 total contestants who identify as having an Asian/Pacific Islander heritage) on the show, I decided that the Top Ten A/PIA on Top Chef would be the perfect topic for my term project.
Over the first five seasons to the show, there have been nine A/PIA contestants, one A/PIA host, and multiple representations of Asians/Asian Americans through the forms of guest judges and guest chefs.
To create my list, I went through the history of each season. I found statistical information on each contestant regarding which episode there were eliminated, how many quickfire challenges they had won, how many elimination challenges they had won, and how many time each contestant had been in the top three or bottom three. Most of the contestants were easily sorted and placed into ranking by how long they lasted in the competition. There was one exception to this rule. I ranked Lee Anne Wong, who was eliminated in episode nine, at number three, and I ranked Dale Talde, who was eliminated in episode eleven, at number five. I did this because according to the statistics, Wong’s season had less episodes and in the competition she finished in fourth place. Talde’s season had more episodes, and even though he remained in the competition until episode eleven, he finished in sixth place. This ranking system put Preeti Minstry at number ten because she was eliminated at an earliest episode in the competition (episode three), and the system put Hung Huynh as the highest ranked chef/contestant because he was the winner of season 3, Top Chef: Miami.
I choose to put Padma Lakshmi at number one due to her strong presence on the show. She has been a part of every episode since the beginning of season 2, and she is the current host of season 6, Top Chef: Las Vegas. She has also been Emmy-nominated for hosting Top Chef: New York (season 5). Although she does not represent A/PIA chefs on the show, she is very knowledgeable about the food that is on the show and has two award-winning cookbooks under her belt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_chef
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