The complete 180 that has been done for Dahmere by so many people is actually staggering. So many people wrote him off early because he used boxed pasta for his signature dish which, in all objectivity, is not that big of a deal and isn't even close to being the biggest faux pas that one could have in signature dishes. Everyone loves him now and heralds him as this strong, vocal leader with a real chance of winning, and that just shows how signature dishes in Hell's Kitchen don't really tell you as much about a chef as you might think in a lot of instances.

Many people go back to La Tasha from Season 13, who ended up being one of the most consistent winners in the competition's history, and I agree. Her grilled watermelon didn't end up defining her as a chef and didn't have any bearing on how she would perform once the actual competition started. Same thing with Danny from Season 5. His "Mahi Gone Bananas" is probably among the worst signature dishes from any HK winner, but he ended up being incredibly strong. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we've seen many chefs over the years have good signature dishes, but not turn out to be great on the line.

My main point is that we should probably stop jumping to such hasty conclusions based on a chef's signature dish. In the end, it's really just a starter challenge that doesn't determine much as far as the competition goes. Writing a guy off because he used boxed pasta in his signature dish is, in my opinion, nonsense considering that they serve boxed pasta on the Hell's Kitchen menu anyway.