Top Chef and I: Miguel Morales, Season 1

Blazing our way into the latter half of contestants of season 1 is going to be no easy feat, but we're more than ready to take it on! Welcome to another edition of “Top Chef and I,” the series where I dive into how well Top Chef contestants fared when they competed on the cooking program, and I'm unloading a lot in this edition with a retrospective hovering over Miguel Morales’ time on the show. Read over the guidelines to get a feel for how these posts work before venturing forth, and I’ll take it from there. 

Profile

Name: Miguel Morales

Residence: New York, NY

Position: Hotel Chef

Synopsis

Episode 1 (Who Deserves to Be Here)

With a passion and drive for cooking, hotel chef Miguel Morales has quite some chops with him as he enters Top Chef. Yet, even with 8 years of restaurant experience under his belt, Miguel fails the quickfire of surviving Hubert Keller’s Fleur de Lys for 30 minutes for being too nervous after 3 minutes in being there.

Among the first to cook for the elimination challenge of preparing a signature dish, Miguel cooks a duo of beef that fellow competitor Tiffani Faison enjoyed when she was judging her peers’ dishes. When the tables turn, Miguel comments on some of the dishes he’s served and has various opinions on them. In the end, his dish isn't enough to be at the top, but it's enough for him to stay.

Episode 2 (Food of Love)

Like many others, Miguel included a pineapple top as part of his display during the fruit platter quickfire, but the focus on his is centered more toward the cantaloupe during judging.

He doesn’t win the quickfire, but he quickly has his sights set on the following sexy dessert elimination challenge. Unlike many other competitors, Miguel has pastry experience and utilizes it by making 3 desserts, but even with a trio of desserts on display, the focus ends up diverting to Miguel’s Scottish hobo outfit, sans shirt, that makes you wanna curl up in a ball and shiver.

Miguel does end up winning the challenge though. Not because he was kissing ass (literally) but rather his execution of the desserts. 

Episode 3 (Nasty Delights)

Miguel continues his success in the game at the octopus quickfire by making a braised octopus dish with red wine and citrus that was noted well by guest judge Laurent Manrique. Subsequently, he was placed at the top of the pack, but the win ultimately went to Tiffani that day.

During the elimination challenge serving food to kids, Miguel is grouped with competitors Lisa Parks, Candice Kumai, Stephen Asprinio, and Cynthia Sestito, but the latter bows out of the competition to take care of her ailing father. Being replaced by Andrea Beaman, who was eliminated in the previous episode (like he gave a damn), they continually work on creating their meal for kids (though in between Andrea’s return, he asks Lisa and Candice to get wine when they’re shopping for the heck of it and halts Candice and Stephen from arguing further than they already have been). 

The inner cheerer has been unleashed!

When the time comes to feed the kids, Miguel maintains to keep them happy with cheers as they’re eating their food. Ultimately, his team comes out victorious over the other's for the challenge (granting him another win in the process). 

Episode 4 (Food on the Fly)

During the gas station quickfire, Miguel says that a gas station is the worst place for a chef to shop (though he never said anything about it being the worst place for loading up after a day's work). He does manage to find enough things in there to make a formidable dish that seemingly involved donuts, but Tiffani accuses him of copying her when similar inventories are noted as he approaches checkout. I thought that was pretty messed up to say because for all she knows he could’ve been buying those donuts to eat during the ride back to the kitchen. Nah, I'm just fucking; he admits it behind her back.

Anyway, the dish he makes utilizes the Listerine strips he got as a "palette cleanser,” but that didn’t do jack shit when guest judge Jefferson Hill calls the dish "sickly sweet.” No win for Miguel this time, but on the flip side, he doesn't end up in the bottom either. In fact, Candice is the only one labeled at the bottom, and Miguel uses that to his advantage during grocery time for the elimination challenge in his second bad mannered moment of the episode.

Doing an Asian meatloaf with vegetables for the challenge, Miguel compartmentalizes it into square balls (however that works) in preparation for the junior league to enjoy. He opted to use the convection setting of the microwave to heat his meal when the time comes thinking it would turn out really fine for the crowd...only for it to be dead cold in the center. Even with that issue, Miguel doesn't land at the bottom and instead lands, much like his flaw, in the middle. This time around, he can’t say Tiffani had anything to do with his faults. He can only blame himself. (Heh.)

Episode 5 (Blind Confusion)

Miguel doesn't fare well during the quickfire of identifying ingredients based on taste only. In fact, he ends up in last place (tying with Tiffani for least correctly guessed at one a piece). Andrea ends up winning that challenge, and though it was good for her, it wasn't so good for Miguel because he'd end up being partners with her during the elimination challenge of creating fusion street food to the public. With Andrea having immunity, it put Miguel at a severe chance of going home.

Miguel's victory is a victory for all (except Dave)

Things look up when they start the challenge. Assigned with Indian and Latin, Miguel lets Andrea take command and becomes aligned with her ideas (including her shutting down the possibility of using canned beans during planning). With Miguel also being fluent in Spanish, he's able to communicate well when they get to the Latin market and even mess with Stephen for a little bit (who's also at the market) as he's trying to get his stuff for his team. Later on that night, he participates in the "Fat Ass Snack Master Challenge" of identifying junk food in the same way as the quickfire and reigns victorious over his competitor Dave Martin.

Miguel's Spanish-speaking skills come in handy again when he and Andrea reach the Mission to sell their food. That don't mean shit in the end though as the English-speaking judges are the ones whose voices matter; their open-faced curried chicken and lentil burrito with tamarind punch was considered hard to attain as street food, and Tom noticeably felt the rice being rather bland above anything else. 

As Andrea and Miguel are placed as one of the bottom pairs of the night, Miguel prompts to throw Andrea under the bus during judging by declaring that her influence is what caused him to produce such product. The judges, on the other hand, see the situation as one where Miguel allowed himself to be controlled by someone who ultimately couldn't be eliminated. In the end, he's spared from getting the axe. 

Episode 6 (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)

Miguel remains firm in his decision of calling Andrea out in the previous episode and states it as not a personal diss toward Andrea but rather an expression of not being able to rely on anyone else in the competition. That attitude is further inherited when he accidentally overfloods the pad's dishwasher with soap and gets slightly aggravated over everyone else unwilling to help him clean the mess once they were done mocking it.

Nothing like waking up in the morning and seeing your dishes covered in suds

During the quickfire of creating an appetizer under a limited budget, Miguel notes his burner suspiciously being turned off. He doesn't call out anyone in particular, but he does re-fix the action once he found out. As he continues forth, his dish transforms from one small plate to a larger antipasto plate that guest judge Ted Allen ends up tasting. Ted has trouble paying attention to Miguel as he's explaining his dish, but nevertheless, Miguel doesn't end up winning the quickfire. Heck, he doesn't even land in the top. The elimination challenge, on the other hand, is a different story...tentatively.

You see, the remaining chefs have to work as a team to make a seven-course dinner for Ted's event. Miguel takes on the first course and proposes smoked scallops & caviar on a latke. Everything seems to be on track (even the aspect of working as a team has been good), but Tom throws a curveball just before they get ready to cook that throws everything for a loop. He forces them to switch dishes determined by a knife pull, and Miguel ends up doing fellow contestant Lee Anne Wong's course of fourme d'Ambert cheese and beet sorbet (dropping him from first to sixth in presentation). As if that wasn't drastic enough, he fucks up prep by putting salt instead of sugar when boiling the sorbet mixture and panics. He tries to pick it up but has trouble recovering to the point that he forgets the name of the cheese when talking to the sea of people waiting to try it. Overall, the cracker that accompanied the cheese was seen as good, but the beet salad made in place of the sorbet was seen as something that couldn't hold up to the cheese.

As a result of his efforts, Miguel ends up in the bottom three for that challenge and gets word during judging of comments made by Lee Anne and Tiffani over his performance. He confronts them in the holding room, and Tiffani responds assuredly that despite feeling ways for Miguel, she didn't think he should go home. Miguel, who had heard otherwise, calls her out as a snake for saying one thing at judging and another thing to his face (making sure to keep his “three” eyes on her from now on as a result). Despite all that happened with Miguel that day, he doesn't get sent home when the judges don't find his faults to be the worst, and he gets saved once more as his journey in trying to become the next top chef manages to continue.

Episode 7 (Restaurant Wars)

No bread? No problem! (except it was)

With the competition winding down, Miguel wants to ensure how willing he is to play. As such, for the following sandwich quickfire, he makes one that is quite different from everyone else's in that it's deconstructed. Though different, that idea ends up working against him as Tom (the guest judge for the quickfire) eats it like a sandwich in order to make things fair among all the other chefs. Considering that Tom felt the flavors were superb, the messiness in trying to eat it put Miguel at such a hinderance that it ended up costing him the win over fellow competitor Harold Dieterle. Moving past it, Miguel is teamed up with Lee Anne and Stephen for the next elimination challenge where the chefs are tasked to make a restaurant. Similar to Dave's feelings on his team, Miguel feels that his ideas are constantly shot down during planning of their restaurant.

To make matters harder on him, he mistakenly thinks the fish they're going to use for one of their dishes is $7.99 a pound when it's $17.99 a pound. The issue of the fish becomes more prevalent during prep when Lee Anne notices that the fish have not been descaled, and it all turns to a head during service when Tom receives a fish with scales on it.  

Miguel's team ends up losing, and when it's time for judging, Miguel (prompted by Lee Anne's claim of him taking a back seat in the challenge due to his lack of knowledge in the cuisine they were providing) tries to ensure that he tried to give out other ideas when Tom calls him out over not fighting harder for a different cuisine he's more knowledgeable at. All of this gives the impression that Miguel really just acted as nothing more than a sous-chef to Tom, and Lee Anne is proposed to answer if she would fire him if the restaurant they made were real. Lee Anne subtly implies she would and additionally claims his food throughout the competition in general to not be impressive to her. During deliberation, the judges sense Miguel not being a leader and is more comfortable being a back seater doing the labor work. As a result, Miguel gets sent home. 

Episode 10 (Reunion) 

Miguel at the reunion

With a whole segment dedicated to him, Miguel returns for the season's reunion aware of what the fans have said about the show and its cast.

He re-calculates the number of eyes he has in reference to his comments during episode 6 (adding one that “sees you when you sleep”), admits his mistake with salt in the same episode, and accidentally farts amid everyone’s discomfort. He also claims that he didn’t mean to throw Andrea under the bus during the street food fusion challenge and gives more meaning to his nickname “Chunk La Funk” that was expressed to him throughout the competition. Toward the end of the episode, he doesn’t specify who he wants to win the show, but he does make his thoughts on what a top chef is known to those around him (someone who remains consistent over someone that's popular). 

Episode 11 (Finale, Part 1) 

In the first part of the season's finale, Miguel makes an appearance as a high roller with Stephen and Lee Anne (who had both been eliminated since his elimination prior) for the remaining chef's quickfire. As a high roller, he was given the privilege of trying out their dishes geared toward his status. Among his variety of comments said, he also managed to drop his portion of Dave’s hot seafood course on the floor. (Go figure.) 

The final 3 eventually find out that they're the high rollers at the end of the quickfire and are shocked, but Miguel somehow manages to shift the tone of the room to annoyance by making a remark over food quality that oppresses them from taking it as constructive. Tiffani particularly feels that Miguel not being in the competition prompts him to say that without a real sense of awareness. Miguel, on the other hand, just feels that he's making comments fit for the topic at hand. 

Episode 12 (Finale, Part 2) 

In the second part of the season’s finale, Miguel appears again to directly impact the remaining contestants in some way. In this case, he's brought as a sous-chef for one of the two remaining contestants: Harold or Tiffani. With the other sous-chefs (Lee Anne, Stephen, and Dave) already selecting their picks for who they want to work with, Miguel feels pressure to even out the playing field when Tiffani only has one person on her side. He still wants to work with Harold though which ends up giving Harold reigns on who he wants to work with since there are more offers than slots available. After grabbing Lee Anne as his first choice, he decides for Dave and Miguel to battle it out for the last spot via knife pull. Miguel ends up victorious in the knife pull, and he gets appointed to Harold’s team. 

After working with Harold, Miguel is brought back with the rest of the sous-chefs by the judges to give input on how they felt working with the finalists. Miguel relays nothing but good comments for Harold for taking him in as a part of his team with ease and aligned him deserving the title over Tiffani despite having love for them both. When Harold wins Top Chef, Miguel returns once more with the sous-chefs to celebrate his victory. 

Analyzation

Miguel's frazzled mindset led him to mistakes later on in the season (such as when he poured salt into the sorbet mix instead of sugar in episode 6)

Within the realm of Top Chef’s first season, Miguel stands out as one of the prominent ones in personality. Yet, he stands back as one of the forgettable ones in the kitchen. A whirlwind of dishes made by a guy who likes to make food for others comes off exactly as that. I don’t get a sense of Chunk La Funk in his meals. That extravagantly buoyant-ness he gives off outside the kitchen is missing when he’s in the kitchen, and it almost feels like that void was filled in with a sense of frazzled-ness during the latter half of his run given the amount of mistakes he made during that time. It was almost as if when the numbers were dwindling down, Miguel’s approach to ramp up just meant staying busy without real purpose. He’s stated before how he did the show to present his skills to the world, and while he did, that doesn’t mean he presented his food to the world. I don’t want to rely heavily on him being a hotel chef as a factor to this since many have gone on the show coming in as chefs for hotels, but Miguel’s tendency to just be a work horse didn’t benefit him in the long haul. 

Additionally, he often tended to relay some of his rougher remarks as nothing more than observational comments, and I felt that even if he claims for his comments to not have malicious intent behind them, they seemed to be prompted when it directly impacted his skills. Case in point were his comments on Andrea taking the lead in episode 5 and even his snake comment in episode 6. Both try to shift the attention toward someone else to inadvertently give this impression that he has good work ethic, but that doesn’t solely define a Top Chef.  

Miguel's appearance in season 5

Beyond his initial run at the show, Miguel appeared again in season 5 as an alumni competitor toward the current group of chefs battling against him and the other alums. Going against eventual winner Hosea Rosenberg, he lost in a 3-1 judge vote and a 4-1 audience vote.  

Miguel’s skills just didn’t add up to ultimate victor during his run on season 1, but to say he didn’t bring anything to the table would be preposterous. Perhaps it’s this notion of not being phased by the camera, but he was himself and didn’t care if the camera caught it (and believe me, it caught a lot). The producers were even a bit taken aback when the judges decided his fate in his elimination episode because of how well his personality captured through on film (but it sure wasn’t gonna stop Tom from doing what he gonna do). Miguel, if anything, played a part in making the show something to watch, and the more eyes attached to a show, the better. Let’s just hope that the ones that were watching at night were not the ones that only appear at night...