Fil-Am Paul Qui named Top Chef

Filipino-American contender Paul Qui has proven that he can definitely take the heat inside a competitive kitchen when he emerged the winner of the United States reality show “Top Chef: Texas” on Wednesday night (US time).   Qui— considered to be the most consistent bet in the Texas installment of the hit reality show— bested Chicago-based Sarah Grueneberg in a finale shot in Vancouver, Canada.   Judge Tom Colicchio described the competition as “about as close as it can get,” but results from a live poll, which was flashed on the show’s final episode, showed that 88 percent believed Qui should win.   Aside from the title “Top Chef,” the Fil-Am has raked in $125,000—the prize money that he said he intends to spend on “student loans, savings, [and his girlfriend] Deana.”   Final challenge   According to People.com, the final two “were asked to prepare four courses of their choices for 100 diners and a panel of judges” with assistance from eliminated contestants who were divided between them.   A separate post from the TM Daily Post said the Fil-Am chef “worried that his team was not familiar with his style of cooking, which he nervously described as ‘Japanese with an Asian influence’”—something that Qui himself “mocked on Twitter”:  

Japanese food with an Asian influence WTF lol — paul qui (@pqui) March 1, 2012

  “Qui called his restaurant ‘Qi’ and served a meatless four-course tasting menu, leaning heavily on fish and eggs,” TM Daily Post wrote.   The Fil-Am’s menu was composed of:

• chawan mushi, steamed egg custard, prawns and pea shoots;
• grilled sea bass with clam dashi, pickled radishes and mushroom;
• congee with scrambled eggs, uni, and kale; and
• coconut ice cream with puffed wild rice, mangosteen, and Thai chili foam.

  “I wanted to orchestrate a meal that represented my style of cooking, using the freshest ingredients Vancouver has to offer. So I stuck with a lot of seafood, eggs, and fruit,” he said in an interview with Bravo TV after his win. Proving himself   At the final episode, Manila-born Qui—who migrated with his family to Virginia when he was 10 years old—revealed that winning the title would prove to his parents that “he can follow through and succeed at something.”   To his surprise, both his parents were in the restaurant together with his girlfriend, launching a “tearing” moment between him and his father.   He said the encounter “put me at ease and it got me fired up to win this thing.”   “It’s really important for my parents to be proud of me,” TM Daily Post quoted him as saying. “This is something I can do to give back—that’d mean everything to me.”   Qui is the executive chef of Uchiko, a “Japanese farmhouse dining and sushi restaurant” in Austin, Texas.   According to his page on the restaurant’s website, the Fil-Am chef became interested in food “as a child, with the ‘sweet smells of freshly baked breads in the mornings and the diverse culture of the Philippines’ that he found in the bustling bakery of his family’s grocery store.”   He moved to Texas to attend college, where he waited tables at several restaurants—a part-time job that intensified his passion for food and urged him to enter the Texas Culinary Academy in 2003.   Though he specialized in classic French and Japanese cuisine, Qui became known in the show for his modern takes on meals, including his version of adobo, which had quail and ginger rice.   “I don’t necessarily know what my comfort zone is because I push myself out of it all the time,” he told Bravo TV. “I think that there are a lot of chefs that deserve recognition and I’m happy to be able to shine a national spotlight to what we do in Texas. It isn’t all about BBQ (barbecue) and Tex Mex (Texan-Mexican cuisine).” - VVP, GMA News