Shirley Chung Reignites Her Rivalry With Brooke Williamson on 'Bobby's Triple Threat'

We’re in for a spicy matchup as two old rivals meet face-to-face on Bobby's Triple Threat. Chef and "Dumpling Queen" Shirley Chung is a seasoned culinary competitor — and champion, taking the crown on House of Knives — but was fellow Food Network chef Brooke Williamson’s runner-up on Top Chef Season 14. It’s time for revenge.

For the first round, Bobby introduces king crab and mustard as the focal ingredients. Shirley selects chef Michael Voltaggio as her first Titan to tackle.

“What about Brooke?” Bobby teases.

“Yeah! What about me?”

“I have a little plan for you.” Shirley blows a kiss at Brooke.

King Crab and His Mustard Subjects

Michael and Shirley run off to their stations. For Shirley's first dish, she’s making a king crab congee with a mustard-king crab beurre blanc. She pulverizes the rice, breaking up the grains to make it cook faster. She pairs the congee with a king crab salad with radish and cucumber dressed with her tiger-tiger sauce (a sweet and savory condiment outlined in Shirley's 2018 cookbook, Chinese Heritage Cooking From My American Kitchen), slicing the crab leg into bite-size pieces to make sure the sauce coats every piece.

On Michael’s side of the kitchen, he separates the meat from the crab for the first dish, a king crab toast with a fermented red tofu mustard. He’s also making a king crab and uni mac salad with pickled mustard seeds.

Our judge for the night is Geoffrey Zakarian; he pulls in Michael’s king crab toast. He believes the red tofu mustard feels aggressive for the crab, but it’s still a nice dish. He describes Michael's pasta salad as “playful” but wishes there was more lemon to cut through the richness.

Geoffrey moves on to Chef B, Shirley. He appreciates that he can taste the crab and mustard, and believes the congee was a great vehicle for those ingredients. “I love the beurre blanc, but when you put it on top of mustard and crab, it’s like very, very rich, so more acid would be great,” he says. Of the king crab salad, he says, “The vinegar, and the pickle, and the mustard are like, spot on.”

Michael receives seven points, and Shirley edges him out with eight points. Shirley takes an early lead against the Titans and looks over to see Michael pouting. She offers him a hug. Michael rejects it, and I felt that emotionally. I only accept pity when it comes as an 18-piece bouquet of Buffalo wings.

If We Got Beef, It’s a Wrap

Next, Bobby presents ground beef and shallots for Round 2, and Chef Tiffany Derry rises to the Titans’ occasion to face Shirley. Shirley excels at making dumplings, and these ingredients are the perfect vehicle for it. Shirley goes for a Beijing meat pie dumpling with a shallot chili crisp and black vinegar dressing.

Tiffany meets Shirley’s challenge, caramelizing beef in a cast iron to make cheeseburger spring rolls. As the ground beef cooks, Tiffany slices ginger for her second dish, a charred beef patty with a shallot chili sauce wrapped in lettuce. On the opposite side of the kitchen, Shirley fries shallots for her second dish, a Mongolian-style stir-fry with beef and shallots, topped with crispy shallots.

At the judges’ table, Geoffrey digs into Shirley’s Beijing meat pie. “Well, it’s a really well-made dish. Explodes with the shallot and beef.” On the other hand, he felt that the dough was a little soggy. Geoffrey enjoys the shallots in Shirley's Mongolian-style stir-fry; they’re not overcooked nor undercooked, and “the beef is very moist.” He just wishes there were a bowl of rice on the side.

He moves on to Tiffany’s cheeseburger spring rolls, served with a sweet shallot Thousand Island sauce. “It’s really good, the sauce is off the charts.” His main critique: there is not enough filling. He had no critiques of her charred beef patty, except that he would have liked a crispier piece of lettuce to wrap the beef. “That’s delicious, really nice spice level.”

Shirley receives eight points, and Tiffany receives seven points. The Titans are two points behind heading into the challenger’s choice round.

The Pork Belly of Righteousness

Shirley and Brooke have a history with pork and beans. During the Season 14 Top Chef finale, Shirley lent Brooke a slab of pork belly for her pork and beans dish. And that was the dish that helped her beat Shirley in the finale. Now the ingredients meet again, but this time with a twist: the beans come in the form of doubanjiang.

Doubanjiang is a fermented broad bean red chili paste. It’s savory, spicy and salty, a staple in Sichuan cuisine. Shirley chars her pig skin, using it to make a red braised pork belly with doubanjiang caramel and a pork-fat rice with mustard greens. Brooke slices her pork belly and places it in a deep fryer. She’s making a grilled-and-glazed pork belly with a bacon cabbage broth and pineapple doubanjiang glaze.

At the final-round judging table, Geoffrey is presented with Shirley’s dish first. “The pork is just flawlessly cooked, and the rice — what’s great about the rice is that each kernel is coated with bacon fat,” Geoffrey exclaims. He would have appreciated a little more heat to give relief to some of the sweetness and richness.

Next, he’s presented with Brooke’s dish. “I love the cabbage, the way it’s treated. I think the pork belly flavor is delicious,” Geoffrey expresses. However, he could not taste the doubanjiang as much, and the dish doesn’t feel as unified.

During the final remarks, Geoffrey elaborates on what he appreciated about each dish. He loves the flavor of Brooke’s pork and beans, but feels like it could have been cooked a bit longer, and gives her a 15. Geoffrey admires the flavor Shirley was able to pack into the pork belly in 40 minutes, but feels like he needed something fresh to balance out the fat. He gives Shirley a 17.

Shirley triumphs over the Titans and gets her Top Chef redemption. The dumpling empress walks away with a bag of dough!