Deconstructed Greek Salad
As seen on TV
Which Show?
Who made this dish?
Buddha Lo (during cook, to Matt Peters): "Just making some olives." Matt Peters: "Are you getting fancy olives?"
Buddha Lo: "Yeah."
Matt Peters (observing): "Buddha's a flashy chef. I can see he's playing off the heartstrings of Wiley."
Buddha Lo: "My version of a Greek salad. Yes, I'm making Greek salad, but it's not like any other Greek salad you've ever had before. It shows everything that I am. Playful, whimsical. I'm really hoping that the judges understand what I'm trying to portray."
To judges: "I made for you a Greek salad. Tomatoes marinated in a little bit of balsamic vinegar, goats curd olive, compressed cucumbers, currant tomatoes. It's very easy to hide against really luxurious ingredients, but I think it takes a real chef to really make a vegetable shine."
Buddha Lo (post-win): "I just won against the Bocuse d'Or gold medalist with a Greek salad. That's cool."
Michael Cimarusti: "I think you undersold this dish when you called it a salad. There's a tremendous amount of technique."
Wiley Dufresne: "It's super playful. A lot of fun, a lot of flavors."
Padma Lakshmi: "How you encase that cheese — that was a real surprise. It looked exactly like a black olive until I bit into it, and then all this cheese was oozing out in my mouth."
Result: Score 52 — highest score of the episode. Won head-to-head against Matt Peters (51) by 1 point. Advanced safely.
