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COURTESY BRAVO
Lee Anne Wong and Bryan Voltaggio race the clock in this week’s “Top Chef.”
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It was a tough first week for chef Lee Anne Wong on the debut episode of “Top Chef All Stars” Thursday.
“I hope I don’t have to swim home,” she said on camera, after her grilled halibut turned out charred and took a beating from the judges.
This was after the “Quickfire Challenge,” when her almond-crusted artichoke tempura turned out missing its crunch.
“Twice in a row I’m making dumb, technical errors,” she said. “That’s not who I am as a chef.”
Wong ended up in the bottom two for the episode, but survived to cook another day, or week. This week.
Wong, originally from New York, is the chef and owner of Koko Head Cafe in Kaimuki, executive chef of Hawaiian Airlines and executive chef at Papa‘aina at the Pioneer Inn on Maui.
She was featured on the first season of “Top Chef” in 2006, making it to the final four, then became a supervising culinary producer for the show for six seasons.
The new “Top Chef” season, set in Los Angeles, features 15 contestants from past seasons considered front-runners or fan favorites. The winner takes home a $250,000 prize, the largest ever for the show.
It airs at 6 p.m. Thursdays on Bravo.
