[ Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the Top Chef season finale yet, you may not want to read this post ]

As the foodie phenomenon continues to pervade pop culture, the number of food related shows on tv continues to rise, albeit with inconsistent quality. In the classic PBS-style cooking show category, one of the new stinkers is Tommy Tang’s Let’s Get Cooking. Blame my NY-centricity, but I had no clue that Tommy Tang was even remotely relevant anymore. Credit him with being the pioneer responsible for popularizing Thai food in the U.S., but man, that was probably close to twenty years ago. Now in his PBS series, he’s apparently trying to be the Thai version of Martin Yan, traveling throughout Asia and representing each country’s style of cooking. Tommy however can’t seem to keep his hands off other people’s dishes. He’ll ask a chef to prepare a dish representative of the native country, and then proceed to practically wrestle the spatula away from the chef, as if to prove he knows how to do that dish himself.

But if Tommy Tang has brought PBS cooking down a notch, Hubert Keller has picked it right back up. You may recall, but probably not, that I absolutely raved about a meal I had in Vegas at Fleur de Lys back in 2005. It was the best meal I’ve had in Vegas to date, and it was prepared by a chef I had never heard of. That chef was in fact Hubert Keller. I’ve only caught 2 episodes so far of Secrets of a Chef, but it is great, creative cooking presented clearly and with attention to detail. Great stuff.

A positive nod should also go to Mark Bittman’s The Best Recipes in The World where he travels around the globe exploring the best of a particular ingredient or dish. Frequent appearances by superstars Mario Batali and Gary Danko are a big reason why this show rocks.

Reality cooking shows took a turn for the worse with the most recent season of Hell’s Kitchen, which turned out to be so much contrived drivel that it turned me off to the whole genre. Who really wants to see Gordon yell at hopelessly unskilled and untalented goons every week? It soured me so much I couldn’t even get myself to tune into Kitchen Nightmares, a show which I previously had been looking forward to after having seen the original BBC series and finding it absolutely brilliant.

Fortunately though, I happened to tune into Top Chef early this season, and it managed to suck me back in. With contestants that can really cook being put to supremely challenging tasks and being judged by the highest caliber of judges, this was what the reality cooking show format was meant to be. The series wrapped up with its big finale last night, and in my opinion, the best man won. To my mind, it wasn’t even close. The last five episodes or so, Hung was far and way the most consistent and cool under pressure even in the most absurd of circumstances (remember the whimsical smurf village he created when he got stuck with the cereal aisle in the supermarket quickfire challenge?) There was no doubt from any of the judges or contestants that he was clearly the most technically gifted chef. Casey, the fine figured Texas hottie had the best palate but you could see her lose her way time and time again. She could really cook, and I would have given her the nod over Dale, but she didn’t have the chops to be Top Chef, not in a season featuring a ringer like Hung. I had been pretty convinced Hung would win ever since that mise en place quickfire where even Tom Colicchio had to chuckle in disbelief as he watched Hung’s sick knife skills breaking down chickens like a 3-card monte dealer handles cards. Sure, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Casey win, but this season, nobody could hang with Hung.