TCFL 18 Portland // Episode 2 Recap & Draft Analysis

Hello TCFL! Let me officially welcome you to Season 18! By the time the deadline passed, we reached 37* entries! In each Season that we've done TCFL in this format, we've grown year-to-year. Thanks to everyone for spreading the word. Here are the payouts for this season:

1st Place: $230.00** & ownership of the TCFL Cutting Board Trophy for one year

2nd Place: $65.00

3rd Place: $35.00

Mr./Ms. Irrelevant (Last Place): $10.00

*NEW FOR THIS YEAR*

Midseason Bonus: The leading team overall after Restaurant Wars will win $15.00

Tiebreaker 1: Team with most Chefs left after RW

Tiebreaker 2: Team that scored most points in RW
*The Commish is the 38th entry, but I am abstaining from the prize pool this year. No one wants to see the guy in charge win, right?

**$15.00 will be kept for Trophy shipping purposes, if needed (it's heavy). If shipping isn't needed, this will go to the Champion.

With all the housekeeping out of the way, let's get to the Draft and Episode 2!

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Coming off her Episode 1 Elimination Challenge win, Sara was chosen by a whopping 38 out of 38 teams, marking the first time in TCFL history that a Chef was selected by everyone. The closest prior to Sara was Gregory from Season 17 at 31/34 Teams.

On the flip side, shout out to AHutch for being the only team to choose Roscoe. With his quick Episode 1 elimination and quick LCK loss, Roscoe promptly ends the season with a -1 overall. Chosen only twice was Episode 2 Quickfire winner Jamie, rewarding Mr. Consistency and Lisa with a fast +5 points.

 

While Sara was chosen by all the teams, she was not the most popular choice for who we think will win Top Chef at the end of the season. That goes to Shota who was selected as the Tiebreaker #1 answer 14 times. Ten different Chefs were selected for this question. Shota rewarded the faith by teaming up with Avishar and winning the Episode 2 Elimination Challenge. More importantly, they could end up being my favorite Top Chef Buddy Duo since Fabio and Stefan in Season 5.

Long time players will notice that I made Team Names mandatory in the Draft Form this year. Let's do some Team Name superlatives, but first, some respect to those of you who just didn't want to deal with it. I'm looking at you, Ally and Lisa.

• Best Reference To The Bachelor Franchise: Scallop Fingers, who weirdly was referred to TCFL by Top Scallop. Must be something about that friend group.
• Meanest Team Name (for no reason): Rita Stinks. Almost every day I wonder how we've been friends for 25 years.
• Best Mask Related Team Name: Mask en Place. Mask and distance, people! Stay safe out there.
• Easiest Way To Get A Shout-Out From Me: Champagne Padmas. Far and away my favorite version of Padma.
• Best Flex: Defending Champs. Factually correct.
• Worst Flex: Self Proclaimed Mrs. Irrelevant. You have to earn the irrelevant crown...
• Inexplicable Use of Math Symbols (tie): Cook offs > Dance offs and Cats > Beavers > Ducks

Stray Draft Stats:

• We have three sets of duplicate teams. Congratulations, you guys can now root for one another until Tiebreakers come into play.
• Ally and Champagne Padmas
• The Losers and Cats > Beavers > Ducks
• Self Proclaimed Mrs. Irrelevant and Lettuce Turnip the Beet
• There were four teams that registered with non-Gmail email addresses: one Yahoo (!), one MSN (!!), and two AOL (!!!)
• We have a record eight Rookies this season. Welcome and I hope you all enjoy the league. And thanks to our vets for continuing to spread the word.
• Almost all of you paid with Venmo, immediately prompting them to ask me if I want to sign up for their credit card.
• Trash Talk was definitely lacking this season, but shout out to TCFL Rookie Dessert Table: "I’ll beat my son that’s all I can promise!" This is our fourth Parent/Kid combination in TCFL. And thanks to Scallop Fingers for busting out a Season 1 deep cut: "I'm not your bitch, bitch"

Stray Episode 2 Notes:

• I love how involved the Alumni are, so far. There's a great mix of personalities and they're playing into what we like about them. Of course Blais is gonna be a goober and order "the Kitchen Sink". And of course Carrie is gonna order Fancy Toast.
• The same can be said of the Chefs competing as well. This has a chance to be a really enjoyable season.
• Shout out to the diner I spent the most time in back home (usually with Cook offs > Dance offs), the Embassy Diner, pictured at the top.
• Of course the two personalities that annoyed me the most (Gabriel & Dawn) got teamed up (out of necessity) and of course they finished with a great dish. They key to Dawn this season might just be being able to plate a dish on time.
• "Chef-splain" has now entered my vocabulary.
• You usually go home if you mess up pasta that bad (shout out to Mustache Joe). I was definitely surprised that one of the ladies went home.

Phew. That's enough rambling for now. Check out the STANDINGS after Episode 2. This will be the same sheet for the whole season so bookmark it now if you'd like. Until next week...