Top 5 Restaurants is tracking down the top spots for America's favorite food import -- the taco. Crunchy fish, succulent pork, savory slow-cooked steak: Everything tastes better wrapped in a tortilla and served up with passion. Meet a dedicated sister act in Texas, a one-man wonder staked out in an East Los Angeles parking lot, and a father and son institution in San Francisco, all dishing out food fit for a five-star restaurant.
Melissa d'Arabian shares easy, affordable recipes for serving Tex-Mex favorites at home. Her Pork Carnitas are the star of the Burrito Bowl bar: the caramelized morsels of shredded pork are served over seasoned rice with black beans, Melissa's Simple Pico de Gallo, and all the fixin's like cheddar cheese, green onions, and sour cream. Chocolate-Cinnamon nachos satisfy your sweet tooth, completing this south of the border menu that the whole family will love.
Chef Amanda Freitag, YouTube star Harley Morenstein and actress Anika Noni Rose preside over an all-pizza competition! Three courses of pizza begin with appetizers comprised of exotic looking mushrooms and a creamy Italian sauce. The fun continues as the junior chefs battle against some challenging dough and more sauce in the entree round. Then, the finalists tackle pizza dessert using cheese with a funny name and a wild assortment of fruit!
Nancy Fuller is having some little leaguers over for a meal before the big game and making all of their grilled favorites, with special help from Food Network Star winner Eddie Jackson. They whip up Sweet and Sticky Barbecue Beef Ribs, Creamed Corn Bread Pudding, Grilled Shrimp and Roasted Red Pepper Salad and Fried Ice Cream with Cereal Crust. After dinner, they head to the batting cages for practice and Eddie gives Nancy some pointers!
Guy Fieri challenges three all-star chefs to make guilty pleasure dishes from the comfort of their own homes. In both rounds, Guy plays a game that determines the mandatory ingredients from the fun-filled boxes he sent the chefs. However, they can only rely on whatever ingredients they have in their home kitchen pantries. The chef with the highest score across both rounds gets to spin the Money Wheel for a shot at $20,000.
From creating a life-size chocolate replica of a guitar for a rock star to a gorgeous chocolate "sushi" platter, it's all just another day's work at the renowned Beverly Hills, Calif., chocolate shop Lee Gelfond. Teri Abelson and her two grown daughters, Jennifer and Carrie, make up a raucous, bickering family who happen to be masters when it comes to sculpting and molding the creamy, sugary, incomparable most popular sweet around: chocolate!
In this fiery tournament finale, four winners return with their sights set on taking the title of Chopped Grand Champion. The baskets contain ingredients reminiscent of the preliminary battle themes: wild game, steaks, surf and turf and pork. The appetizer round has the chefs working with a meat not found in the grocery store. A bucket of something frozen is part of the entree basket puzzle, and the two finalists who make it to the dessert round endeavor to give it their all with corn on the cob and an unconventional cheesecake. Only one chef can score the life-changing grand prize and walk away knowing they triumphed while 15 other skilled chefs went down in flames.