So here we are, the first part of the Hell's Kitchen finale. I have to be honest, I am kind of surprised by the finalists. Who would have thought the last two would be the guy who made Chef Ramsay a hen in a pumpkin and the relatively inexperienced (only 3 years out of culinary school) Christina? But each chef actually managed to impress over the course of the season. Christina won a handful of challenges and Petrozza proved to to be very skillful at his stations.

Thankfully Chef Ramsay decided to keep the finale the same as the past seasons and had each finalist design their own restaurant from the menu to the decor. This is always a great way to end the season.

Right off the bat Petrozza has a tough time with his menu while Christina has a very good idea about what she wanted her restaurant to be. Petrozza thinks that flowers everywhere will be a great idea (blech!) while Christina wants a sleeker feel. She has a very strong feeling about how she wants everything to look, right down to the wait staff.  It is very clear Christina knows what she wants and Petrozza is having a tough time.

Well here we are at the last three. I have to admit I thought from the beginning Corey and Christina would be here, but I was a little shocked to see Petrozza. I honestly thought Bobby was going to be in the final three, but that might have just been because he was so cocky. I'm just glad Matt is long gone.

The day after elimination Chef Ramsay cooked his signature dish for the remaining chefs. But before he could do that, Chef Ramsay brought out the chefs' families to say hello. Petrozza's dad, by the way, looked exactly like him sans goatee.

It was all a front though (of course), because after the chefs' families left, Chef Ramsay had each chef try to recreate his dish  based on taste alone. Christina caught onto the twist though and was evaluating each bite while her mom offered suggestions.

Both Petrozza and Christina picked venison over buffalo as the meat in the dish, which was correct, however Petrozza missed the puree entirely, giving Christina the win. She missed the cream (even though her mom said it like ten times) but nailed the white bean puree. If Petrozza had put any sort of puree on there he would have won. Christina was awarded yet another dinner with Chef Ramsay, as well as a tour of the city on a double decker bus with her family. Awww.

Well this season of Top Chef is over, but we ain't done yet! Welcome to this week's Top Chef, the Reunion!

Interestingly enough, it was pointed out that Richard would not be attending this year's reunion because his wife was about to give birth! I guess of all excuses in the book to miss the reunion, your wife giving birth is allowed.

We start off finding out a few things about Stephanie. First of all, she was extremely happy and shocked to be the winner (obviously). She mentions that she is happy to be the first female Top Chef, but she would rather be known as the Season 4 winner vs the first female Top Chef (so people don't think she only won because she was a woman). Also we find out that she will be using the money to open another restaurant in Chicago. Props to the hometown winner!

We also find out that Mark (despite his homo-erotic bath with Spike) was recently married and would be staying in the country for a while now. I guess he will be able to share a pint with Colicchio.

Well here we are, dow to the final four. And after Bobby being kicked off last week, who knows what is in store. The only thing we know for sure after the first few minutes of this episode? Nobody wants Jen around.

At the start of this week's show, Chef Gordon Ramsay tells the chefs that they have one hour to prepare eighty portions of a lunch special for what he calls the most demanding customers alive. Ramsay tells the chefs that these demanding customers will be voting for the best dish. After a furious hour of cooking, Ramsay brings in the guests for lunch - eighty pregnant women. Oy vey.

While each chef started serving their dishes, Corey had trouble getting her dish finished and out to the pregnant (and agitated) customers, which hurt her a lot. Corey got the least amount of votes, followed by Jen. The ladies loved Petrozza's and Christina's dishes, however Christina took the win with a mere 2 votes. She was awarded a trip to Rodeo Drive to go shopping at a high end boutique. The losers were given the punishment of shining silverware.

Can we just talk about how weird it was to have Ramsay in the boutique asking Christina to let her hair down? He was practically making her model for him. I mean that's technically her boss. Creeeppppyyy...

by Andrew Sousa
So here we are, the last three. The only ones who are still standing are Richard, the food science whiz, Stephanie, the solid competitor, and Lisa, the villain (there is always a villain). Who is going to be the next Top Chef? I can hardly contain myself!

After a coupe of civil mimosas, the chefs meet the judges, along with three incredible chefs: Chef April Bloomfield of the Spotted Pig, Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill in NYC and Chef Eric Ripert, world renowned seafood chef. I would be shaking in my boots.

The challenge is simple, just like every other finale - the chefs must produce a four course meal starting with fish, then poultry, followed by red meat and finished with a dessert (mandatory). They are then told each chef would pair up with one of these amazing chefs as their sous chefs, each with their own array of proteins to be used for the challenge.

After Stephanie drew the first knife, she was allowed to pick her sous chef first (the original criteria was the chef with the most elimination challenges, however she was dead even with Richard). She (of course) chose Chef Ripert as her Sous chef for the challenge. Richard chose Chef Barber and Lisa ended up with Chef Bloomfield.

At prep Stephanie made a little fun of Eric Ripert ("You sure you know how to fillet that fish?") while Richard showed the chefs how to use liquid nitrogen to make hot sauce ice cream. Meanwhile Lisa buddied up with her sous chef which was - well let's just say a little unnatural.

The next day the chefs found out (there is always a twist right?) that their sous chefs wound not be coming in to work that day! The judges wanted to make sure the chefs were truly on their own to win their title of Top Chef.

After the chefs discussed how happy they were that Matt was gone, and that they wanted Jen to be the next chef to go, the following day the remaining five chefs appeared in front of Chef Ramsay to watch him demonstrate the new special - Lobster Spaghetti. He then told the chefs their challenge is to teach a group of students how to make the special. But the students are no ordinary cooks, they happen to be beautiful (and typical) pampered LA housewives. Oh yeah the chefs can't actually cook anything, only teach.

After the housewives completed their cooking, Chef Ramsay tried each of their dishes. Petrozza had issues with his pasta, mostly because he was too busy flirting with his student. Jen and Bobby also didn't do so hot, but that was mostly because their housewives had never held a knife. In the end however Christina was the best teacher and provided the best dish. Christina was told she would be having a special lunch with Ramsay. Oh, and the housewives all got their very own Gordon Ramsay stainless steal cookware. Please - like they are ever going to use that.

Christina was brought to her special lunch, cooked by Chef Mark Peel and Ben Ford, two amazing chefs. Christina was given the opportunity to cook with these chefs and take in as many of their culinary pointers.

At dinner service Ramsay told the crew that they will have a full house that night and one table with a party of 12. That's 12 appetizers, 12 entrees and 12 desserts at once. Remember there are only 5 of them.

It has been six months since the last episode (for the chefs, not for us, of course) and here we are in Puerto Rico! The last four Richard, Stephanie, Antonia and Lisa (with a brand new haircut) are the last four to battle it out for the title of Top Chef!

Quickfire Challenge

Not long after the chefs get off the plane, they are whisked away to an amazing resort for their Quickfire Challenge. There they meet their guest judge, Wilo Benet, owner of Pikayo and one of the best chefs in Puerto Rico. They are then told they must make two fritters using a stable Puerto Rican ingredient - plantains.

After some major frying (and a couple of fires) the chefs serve the judges their fritters. Chef Wilo was not a fan of Antonia' slaw and plantain jam or Richard's raw plantain salsa. In the end though Wilo really loved Stephanie's fritters with tuna slices, which, by the way, looked amazing. Stephanie then mentions that this is her first quickfire win of the season. Better late than never! (Plus, she's won a zillion elimination challenges, so that's not too shabby.)

After the challenge, Chef Wilo invites the chefs to come to a party with traditional Puerto Rican dancing, music, food and (most importantly) Rum. After some eating and dancing, the chefs rest up for their elimination challenge.

To start off this week's episode, Chef Ramsay woke up the chefs bright and early and brought them to the roof of the building which will become the location for his new restaurant (the one where one of these chefs will be the executive chef). Ramsay then gave them all black jackets and formed them into one team. No more red or blue!

Chef Ramsay gives them a quick tour of the new space for the new restaurant and then brings them back to Hell's Kitchen. There Ramsay gives each chef a different protein to cook for an individual dish in 45 minutes. After each chef cooked their dish, Ramsay gave each one a try and was actually quite impressed. Jen and Christina were called forward as the best two. After some deliberation (and a commercial break to set the mood) Ramsay chose Jen as the winner for her thinly sliced, but delicious, rib eye.

Jen won a trip to Las Vegas to cruise the strip and enjoy a dinner with last year's winner Rock. Not a bad little prize. Ramsay also told her to pick someone to bring on the trip and in a surprise twist, Jen chose Corey despite their differences.

Everyone else's punishment was to unload the trucks. If you remember last year, Bonnie made a major mistake unloading the trucks (she forgot an ingredient). Luckily she was cute so Ramsay never yelled at her for it. I wonder if Christina will be so lucky.

Quickfire Challenge

This week the chefs start out by being sent to a high end meat purveyor in Chicago to break down some dry aged rib eye. My mouth was watering the whole time.

The chefs are given their outfits, tools and are told they have twenty minutes to break down their dry aged hunk of meat into seven beautiful steaks. Yum. After twenty minutes the chefs are told to pack up their meat and head on over to the kitchen.

In the kitchen we meet our guest judge Rick Tramonto, owner of Tru and Tramanto's Steak and Seafood. The chefs are told they have to cook the perfect steak to Chef Tramonto's specs in thirty minutes.

After the judge throughly inspects the steaks, he gives the win to Spike for his perfectly butchered steak. Will this hurt or help him in the end?

Elimination Challenge

After the Quickfire, the chefs are told they will take over Chef Tramonto's restaurant for the night to serve their hand picked menus made from ingredients found in the restaurant. Each chef will make an appetizer and an entree to serve at dinner. As the winner, Spike is able to pick his proteins for the challenge. Not a bad advantage. 

After last week, Gordon Ramsay points out that the chefs are still struggling with their timing in the kitchen. For the first challenge this week, Ramsay has the chefs cook three items off the menu, however, he informs them that only one chef can be in the kitchen at a time. Each chef has six minutes to cook before passing the baton off to the next chef where they must continue where the previous chef left off.

After the relay race, the blue team left their scallops raw, while the red team's John dory presentation was dreadful. In the end though, the blue team forgot their sauce for the chicken dish, giving them the loss. The red team is rewarded with a trip to the beach, while the blue team is punished with fixing up the kitchen. Let's just say I was not looking forward to seeing Matt in a bathing suit.

The next day at service Ramsay tells the chefs they would not be cooking the regular menu. Both teams would have one hour to create their own menu to serve that night at dinner service. This is usually the episode where the competition really gets good.

First of all, I have to say Padma is one big fat liar (well maybe not fat but...). It turns out the chefs will be doing the fan favorite - Restaurant Wars! Woohoo!

Quickfire Challenge

We started this week's show with Chef Tom Collichio waking up the cast way way way too early. He informs the chefs they will be going to Les Michelles, a famous breakfast joint in Chicago. Their job is to be the short order cook for breakfast. Being a short order cook is very hard, especially at a hopping breakfast joint like this one.

After a brutal time on the line and a frenzy of orders, the owner of the restaurant chose Antonia as the best short order cook. Collichio announces he will not be able to be at the elimination challenge and sends the chefs to a unknown location.

This week we start off with the girls' team deciding who to send to the blue team (remember last week?). Corey tries to persuade Jen to go by using a little reverse psychology. Apparently it worked because Jen decides the red team is too safe and she wants to make herself known on the blue team. Yeah I don't really get her strategy either but, hey, good luck to her.

Ramsay then tells the chefs for their first challenge they have to use leftovers to make 4 dishes using 20 ingredients. The red team quickly comes up with a menu while the blue team takes up ten valuable minutes deciding what to do. Meanwhile, Matt makes a mistake and ends up cutting the tip of his finger off (literally!). If you ask me, the red team seems cursed.

After Matt is ran off to the medic, Ramsay comes back and asks a very reasonable question - what happened to the fingertip? The girls start searching and can't seem to find it. Let's just pray its not in the pancetta Matt was cutting. I think Ramsay put it the best - "This just turned into a 21 ingredient challenge."

After his finger gets wrapped up, Matt hops back on the line like a trooper. Hey, he still has nine left.

Quickfire Challenge

We start this week off with a familiar face. The chefs are introduced to everyone's favorite (especially the girls) chef from season two - Sam Talbot! We all know he should have won.

The chefs are given the task to make a "sexy salad" in 45 minutes, a rather long amount of time to make a salad if you ask me. This, of course, only means that the chefs better create some amazing salad, or they're in for it!

Sam was not a fan of Richard's salad, Stephanie's unfinished fall flavored salad or Lisa's grilled squid salad, despite the high end ingredients. It's interesting how some of the best chefs this season were all in the bottom three. Dale and Antonia both did well with their unique salads, but Spike took the win with his beef and pineapple salad.

Chef Ramsay starts the morning off with some homemade food for the chefts. He produces three dishes: chicken parmesan, sausage ravioli and beef stew. He tells the chefs there is one ingredient missing in each and asks what the missing ingredient is. The trick is - there was no meat in any dish, it was all soy. None of the chefs are able to spot the difference, angering Ramsay.

After the taste test, the chefs are lined up to do another taste test, expect this one is blind (and soundproof). The chefs are asked to taste a variety of foods while wearing a blindfold and headphones. The women seem to do much better than the men. It is kind of surprising that Bobby (an executive chef) can't identify a truffle when he tastes one. The last two up are rivals Ben and Matt (he is on the red team now remember?). Who said Hell's Kitchen can't do poetic justice?

Quickfire Challenge 

This week we start off with... no guest chef. The chefs are greeted by plain ol' Chef Tom Colicchio and Padma. Right off the bat Padma drops the first bomb - from now on the Quickfire Challenge does not grant the winner immunity. She then asks the chefs to divide into two teams, the Forks and the Spoons.

Then the chefs learned they would be doing one of our favorite Quickfires - the relay race. The first task was between Lisa and Antonia to slice an orange. Lisa smoked Antonia and gave her team a head start. The next task was between Spike and Andrew - to de-construct an artichoke. With the help of a peeler, and Spike breaking an artichoke top, Andrew quickly broke up his artichoke and picked up the slack. Up next, Richard and Dale, who were pretty much head to head. They had to clean up a monk fish and produce two fillets which they do at pretty much the same time. The last task was to make homemade mayo. Stephanie and Nikki both beat the crap out of some eggs to make a mayo. Apparently Stephanie has stronger arms and her mayo gave her team the win.

Two notes: No one was able to shock viewers as much as Hung did last season when he broke down the chicken. Also, was this foreshadowing or what? Dale couldn't stand that Nikki said she hadn't made mayo since culinary school. We just know this means drama for them later in the episode.

The First Mini Challenge

After it was decided that no one was sent home last week, the chefs went back to their rooms to relax - and talk smack. Bobby and Ben form a semi-alliance and talk about how lazy Matt is. All the women seem to dislike Christina, but I think it's just jealousy.

The next day Chef Ramsay takes the chefs to a farmers market and informs them they will be cooking for a sweet sixteen party (oh boy). He tells the teams they have to make a tasting menu to serve to Ramsay so he can decide what will be added to the full time menu that night for the honored guest. They are given fifteen minutes to shop before they head back to prep for the main event (wait a minute - am I writing a Top Chef blog or a Hell's Kitchen blog?).

Back at the kitchen the chefs have 45 minutes to make two appetizers and one entree for the tasting menu. Throughout prep Matt complains he has no voice and doesn't agree with his team's menu. When it comes time to present the dishes to Chef Ramsay, he asks if any of the team members have been to a sweet sixteen party recently. Matt informs the chef he has, but was not allowed to influence his team's menu, which is unbelievable to Ramsay.

Ramsay, of course, has the sweet sixteen girl, Melissa, and her mother come out to try the dishes. Between the chicken and the shrimp appetizer and the buffalo wings, the princess chooses the men's wings. Her next choice is the women's fish and exotic rice. For her third dish, it was between a fillet minion and a skirt steak. After some serious thought (and possibly her mom's two cents) she decides to go with the men's dish, giving the men the win.

As the men go out for their reward, the women are given the task of decorating Hell's Kitchen -- luckily with the help of a "sparkelicious" decorator. And of course no party planing is complete without the mother stopping in to tell the chefs they are doing it wrong. Meanwhile the men went to a local go-kart track to release some stress.

 

Quickfire Challenge 

This week's celebrity guest chef is none other than Art Smith, Oprah's personal chef (it is Chicago, remember) and owner of the restaurant Table 52.

The chefs are quickly told they must create a simple, tasty entree - in fifteen minutes! It's going to be a madhouse!!! Luckily they get to use good ol' Uncle Ben's quick cooking rice (who was clearly a sponsor).

After pure chaos, the guest chef tastes each cheftestant's quick entree. Art was not a fan of Mark's dry miso turkey breast, Stephani's rice pancake (not good sounding at all) or Lisa's southwest dish which was not very original. Chef Smith loved Dale's fried rice and scallops and Antonia's rice salad, one of her mother's homegrown dishes that she loves. Antonia wins the challenge and gets immunity. She better call her mom and thank her for that recipe!

Elimination Challenge

Sticking with the Oprah theme, the chefs are asked to share their culinary skills with the common folk and devise a healthy, nutritious, and (above all) tasty meal for a family of four. But the catch is the dish has to cost under ten dollars. How are they going to pull this one off?

After a trip to Whole Foods ( and Mark ripping it up on the Didgeridoo -- an Australian instrument), the chefs head to the kitchen to start working on their ten dollar meals. There Padma throws the chefs a curve ball and tells them they will have a little help with their meals - literally. The chefs are paired up with a team of little kids from Chef Smith's school, Common Threads! How fun!

Thirty seconds into cooking Spike's little chef cuts himself peeling carrots. After a quick wash, the kid hops right back on the horse and keeps peeling. Thatta boy!

This week, Vanessa is back, but from last week's injury, she is unable to do much. She says she will need plastic surgery. I have a feeling this will be a problem this episode. Poor girl.

In the morning, Chef Ramsay shows the chefs his white truffle onion pizza - worth $200. The chefs are challenged with providing their very own high end pizza. Man I'm getting hungry.

After all the chefs each make a pizza, they try each other's to pick one to perfect and present to Chef Ramsay. The women choose Jen's pizza rather quickly, while the men have a little more of a problem. They debate between pizzas and Ben calls out Louross' pizza for being similar to a pizza you would get at Pizza Shack. Ouch. Finally the men (well actually just Ben and Bobby) decide to serve Ben's pizza.

Quickfire Challenge

As the chefs walk into the kitchen this week they are greeted by tables covered with pastries, chocolate cakes, and everything else that is yummy and sweet. They are then introduced to this week's guest chef, James Beard Award-winning Executive Pastry Chef of Jean-Georges, Johnny Iuzzini. Wonder what this quickfire will be all about.

Padma begins to point out that usually in Top Chef, the one killer is the dessert. So, to test this theory, the quickfire challenge this week is for the chefs to make their best dessert. The winner will get their recipe in the new Top Chef cook book.

Johnny was not a fan of Antonia's lemon cake and Spike's rum-cake souffle, despite his effort. Dale's traditional dessert won over our guest judge, while Richard's faux scallops (banana) over a dessert guacamole won big points for creativity. So big in fact, Richard won the challenge and immunity for this week.

Elimination Challenge

After the quickfire, the chefs learn they get to go to Second City, the birth place of improvisational comedy in America.  But as we all know  when the chefs are sent to enjoy themselves, well, they are never just sent to enjoy themselves. At one point in the show, the Second City cast starts to have the audience yell out a color, an emotion and a food used in cooking. Guess what those suggestions turned out to be? The chefs soon learn that they will be cooking a five course meal based on the suggestions yelled out by the audience. This should be good.

Immediately after last week's elimination, Chef Ramsay continues to spew insults as the chefs head back to the dorms. The chefs think they can relax and head to bed, but Ramsay doesn't let them. He sends them back to the kitchen to clean it. Corey (who is still on bad terms with everyone since she tried to eliminate two strong team members a couple of weeks ago) leaves early before all of the cleaning is done. Clearly she's not winning any points with her teammates.

The next day Chef Ramsay informs the teams that Hell's Kitchen will be opening up for a special family dinner service with a new menu. He then shows them how to make fresh pasta for the new menu, which just so happens to be the teams' first challenge. They have twenty minutes to make the most pieces of perfect pasta they can. After Chef Ramsay inspects the pasta, he weighs it. The women beat the men by over a pound of pasta, sending the men into the kitchen for prep work. The women, on the other hand, get to spend their day at the amusement park.

At the beginning of service Chef Ramsay tells the teams that whichever team completes the dinner service first automatically wins. Should be some incentive to finally finish a service!

I hope everyone has cooled off from last week. And if not, this week's episode might help.

Quickfire Challenge

This week's Quickfire put a huge smile on my face as soon as the chefs walked into the kitchen. They were greeted by this week's guest judge Koren Grieveson, owner of Chicago's Avec restaurant, and sixteen pitchers of delicious beer. The challenge for the chefs is to create a dish to pair with one of the sixteen beers. Mmmmmm. My mouth is watering already.

While tasting the dishes, Chef Koren seems to have a great poker face and doesn't say much.

Spike didn't win the chef over with his boring tapas and clams plate. Richard and Stephanie both did well by using ingredients in their dishes that were similar to what was in their chosen beer (duh). But the winner was Jen with her beignets. Clearly she channeled her emotions from losing Zoi last week and used them for good. Good for her.

Elimination Challenge

The chefs are sent to a Chicago Bears game to tailgate for the fans. Who can't relate to that? 

This week's episode of Hell's Kitchen started where last week's left off; various members of the girls team still mad at Corey for trying to send them home. After a night of trash talking and complaining, the teams are awakened by Chef Ramsay to catch loose chickens in their dorms. Once they finally catch their animals, Chef Ramsay shows them how to break down a chicken (not the live ones thankfully) and give them the challenge of breaking down a chicken in under 2 minutes into 8 pieces.

The ladies do a great job with most of the chefs getting all eight pieces passed by the chef. With the men up, the ridiculous women-hating chef Jason rips apart his chicken after claiming it's a no brainer that the men would win. This fiasco, accompanied by Craig's below-par cuts, guarantee the men's loss. Their punishment is to pick peppers in the scorching heat while the women visit the Saddle Ranch restaurant on the sunset strip.

As the women walk into the restaurant, they are greeted by a familiar face. Everyone's favorite past contestant, Aaron (the one who fell asleep standing up), is there riding the mechanical bull! After he says his hellos, he leaves the girls to ride the bull, while Ramsay watches (in kind of a creepy way if you ask me).

by Andrew Sousa
 
Quickfire Challenge

This week's Quickfire challenge stars guest judge Ming Tsai, owner of Blue Ginger, a well established Asian restaurant in Boston.

The challenge is the always popular blindfold taste test challenge. However, this year's version is a bit different - the cheftestants have to choose the more high-end ingredient of two products while blindfolded.

Most chefs seem to know what they are looking for and did pretty well. The ingredients ranged from meat to butter, and from olive oil to sake. Sounds fun!

Stephanie did the worst, with 6 out of 15, and Antonia did the best, giving her immunity. She was the smart one, using different fingers while tasting and really cleaning out her mouth out with water after each taste. Her trick seemed to pay off.

Welcome to this weeks recap of Hell's Kitchen!

As we start this week's episode, we get the feeling that the teams don't seem to like each other very much. Jason says he will not lose to girls again and the girls say it was nice to cut some of the dead weight (i.e. Dominic). Can't wait until these teams join up and we see some real fun!

The next morning the chefs are pulled out of their beds at 5:45 a.m. to dig through the trash and really take a look at all of the amazing food they tossed at the previous night's dinner service. It amounted to thousands of dollars of waste, according to Chef Ramsay. Not a smart way to run a kitchen.

Back in the kitchen (after a shower), Chef Ramsay shows both teams how to fillet and cut up a rather large halibut. For the challenge, each team has twenty minutes to follow Ramsay's example and make the most perfect six ounce portions of the fish as possible.

After twenty minutes of slicing and dicing, both teams come out with 41 sliced portions of fish (coincidence?). A tie for the first time in Hell's Kitchen history. The tie breaker: each team needs to pick a member to go to the front and pick a piece that they believe is closest to six ounces. The team's portion who comes closest to six ounces wins the challenge. And let me tell you if you missed it, it was very, very tense... (Kidding, but don't you love how they manage to make halibut weighing so suspenseful?)

Hello and welcome back to your weekly recap of Top Chef: Chicago!

Before I start I need to ask a question: At the start of this episode, some of the contestants mention how Jennifer and Zoi have an advantage because they are dating. Do you agree? Personally, I think it is a little unfair. A lot of reality show contestants make dumb decisions because they miss their friends and families. In probably one of the only times I will agree with Spike, he says everyone else has a slight disadvantage because they don't have that person there that they connect with. But on the flip side, if either Zoi or Jennifer goes home, the other might be even more affected. Comment with your thoughts!

Quickfire

This week's Guest Judge is Chef Daniel Boulud, one of the best French chefs in the world.

The challenge - to create a vegetable plate using at least three culinary techniques to impress Chef Daniel. Talk about stressful! Most (if not all) of the chefs get very nervous. Apparently they're a little rusty on technique.

After 30 minutes of running around like nuts, the chefs present their dishes. In the bottom tier, Nikki fails using her endive like a boat, as it was "cute," but not very technical. Lisa had no train of thought with her dish and Manuel fails to impress.

The tops: Dale with his vegan sashimi plate and extraordinary knife skills. Zoi impresses with her wonderfully blanched eggs and Richard's does well with his interestingly prepared mushroom. Dale, however, came out with the win and walked away with immunity.

by Andrew Sousa

Welcome to another episode of Top Chef Chicago!

Quickfire Challenge

As usual we start off the competition with the Quickfire challenge. The guest judge: Rick Bayless, a multi Beard award winner and owner of Frontera Grill and Toplobampo in Chicago. The challenge: Create a high end staple of Mexican cuisine, the taco. Mmmm I would be lying if I said I wasn't salavating.

Immediately I'm thinking that Manuel (executive chef of Dos Caminos) should be able to pull this one off, seeing as how he IS the executive chef of a high end Mexican restaurant.

Manuel makes the quintessential taco with chorizo (a staple type of sausage in Mexican cooking). Oh man am I hungry.

Lisa blows her chances by creating a chewy skirt steak taco. Andrew uses duck meat, which works well seeing as Bayless' favorite taco in the world is duck taco. Spike manages to gain points by going with a street style taco. Richard decides to use jicama as the tortilla for his taco which is an interesting choice.

Once judging comes around, the guest judge doesn't like Eric's taco because it doesn't look high end enough. Eric retaliates by saying Mexican food can't be high end. So there.

On the top end, the guest judge really likes Andrew's duck taco, Richard's jicama tacos and Spike's street style tacos. In the end Richard's oddball jicama taco pays off as he wins the Quickfire challenge. On top of the win, Richard's taco will be featured in one of Rick Bayless' restaurants. Not bad.

 

Welcome Top Chef viewers! Come here weekly to catch up and comment on recaps of Top Chef:Chicago.

We start this episode with Stephanie and Valerie working out, talking about the challenges. They mention how they used to work together at a restaurant. What is with all of these contestants knowing each other? Take Zoi and Jennifer dating. What's up with that??

Tonight's Quickfire takes place at the wonderful, yummy, fresh and fun farmers market. The cheftestants find out, however, that they can only use 5 ingredients (not including salt, pepper, sugar and oil). If anybody has been to a local farmers market you know just how hard that is. All of the fresh fruit, veggies, meat, cheese, pies and other assorted goodies are overwhelming. It's like a foodie heaven.