Quickfire Challenge judged by Michelle Bernstein: Make a duo that represents the angel vs. devil battle you go through as a chef. The least favorite dishes are created by Ash, who tried to make two custards and barely succeeded in getting one done, Bryan, who made two desserts that failed in execution, and Laurine, who made two chicken dishes that Michelle found boring and uninspiring. The favorites were Michael V., who made two different salmon dishes, one modern and one traditional, Eli, who made two scallops, one cooked in butter and one cooked more healthily, and Robin, who made a healthy arugula salad paired with a rich apple crisp. The winner of the Quickfire is Robin, which pisses everyone else off because everyone just finished talking about how much they don't think she belongs there.
Elimination Challenge: Deconstruct a classic dish, which means to take the dish apart and serve the main elements separately in such a way that the diners end up feeling like they ate the original dish. Judges are Padma, Michelle, Penn and Teller, Colicchio, and Toby Young. The chefs draw knives to be assigned a classic dish. Jen struggles with the whole concept of deconstruction, since it's not her bag. Ron seems confused, and Laurine has trouble executing her plan while being annoyed by Robin, who has immunity.
The chefs serve in pairs as follows:
Mike V. made Caesar salad: chicken wing, parmesan jelly and brioche while Mike I. made eggs Florentine: braised kale roll, egg emulsion, and crispy phyllo.
Bryan made Reuben: tuna, warm mayo, Thousand Island flavors, rye, and gruyere cheese while Laurine made fish and chips: halibut, zucchini relish, tomato confit, and parsley chips.
Ash made shepherd's pie: lamb chops, leeks glazed carrots, pea puree, and Madeira jus while Jen made meat lasagna: steak, mascarpone béchamel, tomato sauce, and parmesan crisp.
Ron made seafood paella: lemon and herb oil, chayote, and peas while Eli made sweet and sour pork: pork rillettes, broccoli puree, sweet and sour sauce.
Ashley made pot roast: seared strip loin, potato puree, crispy shallots, and carrot foam while Kevin made chicken mole: chicken croquette, Mexican coffee fig jam, and pumpkin seed romesco.
Robin made clam chowder: fennel flan with potato crusted clams and crushed bacon.
At Judges' Table, Padma calls back Ashley, Michael V., Kevin, and Jen as the top tier, and Kevin wins the competition. The bottom tier is Laurine, Ron, and Ash. Laurine and Ash both had good ideas with execution problems, while Ron never had a good idea and didn't really execute it well either. So Ron is told to pack his knives and go. Seriously. Has he cooked a good dish all season? He talks a good game but I haven't seen him do anything in the last three or four episodes that wowed anyone.
All that's left of Mattin is his red scarf. Tear. So Mike I. decides that they're all going to pay homage to Mattin by wearing red scarves that day. Luckily, Mattin left a supply of scarves. Or the producers supplied them. Mike I. passes out the scarves to everyone and interviews that he thinks Mattin should have stayed and Robin should be gone, because she sucks. Thus begins the theme of this week's episode: "Everyone Hates Robin (Who Sucks at Cooking)."
The ladies are getting ready to head to the kitchen for the day. Robin keeps babbling at Laurine and Jen, who just kind of roll their eyes at her nonsense. Jen interviews that everyone thinks Robin should have been the one to go, but before you feel too bad for Robin, SHE interviews that she knows everyone thinks she should have been the one to go. Before they leave, Robin has to ask Mike I. for a red scarf, even though he was freely doling them out to everyone else. He does give her one, though. And then she puts it in her pocket instead of around her neck like everyone else, so I think she secretly likes being the outcast.
Quickfire Challenge. The cheftestants walk into the kitchen and Padma chuckles over the fact that they're all wearing red scarves. Padma is standing with chef Michelle Bernstein, whom Kevin explains likes "clean and simple" food. Padma explains that Vegas is all about temptation, which is all about the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. She specifies that the angel is on the left shoulder, although I would think the devil would be there, since the left is sinister and all. Anyway, the challenge is to make a duo that represents the good and bad sides of the chef's brains in one hour, and the winner gets immunity.
Mad scramble. Product placement. Ash decides to do a custard duo. DING DING DING! Custards = bad on this show. They never set right, or they taste weird, or the curdle or something. BAD IDEA. Eli is going to do the most obvious interpretation, which involves making one dish really fatty and artery-clogging and the other really healthy. Eli goes on to interview with a chuckle that he's "the best bleeping cook there," which I think is tongue in cheek given past Eli quotes, but then again, maybe he really does think that. But I think he was mostly kidding. Robin is taking it personally and talks about how she had cancer so she's not supposed to eat sugar (I haven't heard about this anti-cancer sugar diet; I mean, I get that sugar is generally not the healthiest ingredient but I hadn't heard about a post-cancer non-sugar diet). So she's always trying to balance her need to eat healthy with her desire to eat sweets. Like pretty much every other person on the planet except my brother who doesn't like candy, because he's a freaking weirdo. Bryan says that he's won lots of Elimination Challenges but no Quickfires, and he thinks he's been trying to do too much.
Hey, Ash's custard isn't setting! What a surprise! That should work out well for him. Padma calls time and she and Michelle walk over to taste Michael V.'s dish first. He made rillettes of salmon as his angel and a confit of salmon and ice cream (ice cream and salmon?) as the devil, and he explains that his contrast was modern versus traditional. Kevin made halibut with seasonal vegetables ("light and fresh") for his Angel and deviled egg puree with bacon for his Devil. I kind of thought the idea was to do a duo -- the same main ingredient prepared two ways. Guess not. Ron followed my idea of the challenge and made Chilean sea bass with corn hash as his Angel and Chilean sea bass with yucca for his Devil. Not sure why corn hash is more angelic than yucca, but okay. Padma finds a lot of bones with the fish.
Ashley made scallop crudo as her Angel and seared scallop puttanesca as her Devil. I dig that she made puttanesca, since that literally means "belonging to a whore." She doesn't make that connection explicit, though. Eli made a scallop with radish top pesto as his Angel and scallop with brown butter risotto as his Devil, the second being much more fatty and sinfully prepared. What's with all the scallops, though? Is Jamie back? Bryan made frozen coconut, lychee and vanilla (so it's all white) and dark chocolate mousse (all dark). At least he went for something other than fatty vs. healthy.
Jen made (shocker!) scallops two ways: the Angel is scallop crudo with olive oil and the Devil is seared scallop with butter. I'm sure it was well executed, but BORING. Ash says that he ran out of time, so all he has is his Devil: spicy asparagus custard with pink peppercorn shortbread. So he's not going to win. He explains that the other custard would have been coffee-flavored and manages to charm Michelle Bernstein enough that he'll probably be okay. Robin explains that she had lymphoma, which led to being obsessed with raw food and eating healthy. So her Angel is arugula, apple, and fennel salad, and her Devil is cardamom apple ginger crisp. I don't think I realized until just now that there are apples in both dishes; I didn't see the connection between the two. It didn't seem like her mentioning her cancer was gratuitous there, because she was explaining the story behind her dish. Michelle comments that it's "nice and simple," and Kevin already told us she likes simple food, so there you go.
Laurine made a chicken and vegetable consommé for her Angel and chicken saltimbocca for her Devil, going for the healthy/unhealthy dichotomy. Mike I. made cucumber yogurt soup for his Angel (because...?) and his Devil is rack of lamb kabob style served over cous cous. I don't understand the connection between the dishes other than they are both Greek, and I don't get why they were assigned Angel/Devil. FAIL!
Michelle is ready to proclaim her least favorites: Ash the Unfinished, Bryan the Poorly Executed, and Laurine the Boring and Uninspiring. The favorites are Michael V., because he executed it perfectly, Eli, because he made great bites, and Robin, because eating her food was a pleasure and there was good contrast between the dishes. When Robin's name is called as one of the finalists, a bunch of cheftestants look pissed and/or roll their eyes. But wait! Then Michelle announces that Robin is the winner! People clap half-heartedly, and Padma says that Robin has immunity. Eli interviews that saying you had cancer is a good way to win a Quickfire. What a dick. I really don't think that's why she won, and since he didn't, you know, taste her food, how does he know? Maybe if he'd made something other than the fourth scallop dish, he would have won.
Elimination Challenge. Padma introduces Penn and Teller. I kind of hate Penn. He just seems like one of those smarmy, know-it-all guys who thinks he's way smarter than you, and maybe he is, but I have an aversion to that type. But enough of my issues; the cheftestants love these dudes. Because they do magic! But they're funny! And they deconstruct their tricks! So Penn and Teller do the cups and balls trick, where they have three cups and three balls and make the balls appear and disappear under various cups. Penn then does the trick again, this time using clear plastic cups, and show how the entire trick was done. Except then I went back and watched the original trick and I think they changed it. But, whatever. It's all about deconstructing their tricks.
Padma explains that their Elimination Challenge is to deconstruct a classic dish, and Mike V. helpfully interviews that deconstruction is serving up all of the elements of a dish separately and allowing the diner to reconstruct the dish on his or her plate. The cheftestants pull knives to learn what dish they will be deconstructing. Kevin is worried, because he chose chicken mole negro, and that's what he tried to make in the last challenge and failed. Ron is very happy to get paella, because he says he makes it a lot. Is there any dish Ron doesn't make? He's the chowder king, he makes paella all the time. I'm starting to think he's a bullshitter. Padma explains that Michelle and Penn and Teller will be judges, along with fav
orite of nobody, Toby Young. I hope he's spent his time off thinking up extra prefabricated lines to insult the food.The cheftestants go shopping. Bryan has Reuben sandwich, and he's decided to make it using tuna instead of pastrami. Interesting. Jen got meat lasagna, and she is not that excited, because she doesn't quite know what to do. She's just planning on buying all of the components and figuring it out when she gets into the kitchen. I would think that would be pretty easy: a noodle, some meat, some cheese, a schmear of sauce. Mike I. has eggs Florentine; the problem is that he doesn't know what that dish is. Isn't it just eggs Benedict but with spinach instead of ham? Has he never worked a brunch? I mean, at least he has to figure it's eggs, spinach, and a sauce of some sort. Mike I. makes the "joke" that it's not eggs Florentine, it's eggs "foreign-to-me." Ha?
Mike V. is breaking down chickens with a cleaver, and seems really happy about it. His dish is Caesar salad, and he's breaking fresh bread. Look at little Volt go! His brother calls him a show-off. Kevin thinks his competition is the Volts, because they deconstruct dishes all the time, and he's looking at this as a second chance to show the judges that he knows how to make this dish.
Jen still has no clue what she's going to do, and she explains that her training is more classical, which doesn't involve a lot of deconstruction. She's struggling. Ron tries to explain what he's going to do but I don't even understand what he's talking about. He adds that he makes paella all the time, so he's totally going to win. Eli interviews that he doesn't think Ron knows what deconstruction means. Eli, on the other hand, totally knows what he's doing, and he's using a pressure cooker that he had to tape up because it got broken during transit. That seems like a horrible idea. Pressure cookers are volatile.
Ashley got pot roast, and since she grew up poor, she didn't eat a lot of beef. I get that, but if she ever did have beef it was probably pot roast or ground beef, since those are typically the cheapest cuts. Then Eli's pressure cooker totally explodes, but no one gets hurt. Ash wonders why Eli didn't just use one of the various pressure cookers available in the kitchen. Robin has chowder, and she hates chowder, so she's making a flan. While she cooks, she walks around the kitchen and talks to herself. Poor Laurine has to work to Robin, and gets progressively more annoyed as time marches on. And then Robin decides to start making random funny noises for no apparent reason. Laurine might punch her.
Laurine is trying to make fish and chips, and her potatoes aren't crisping up, so she's standing by the oven and watching them closely. And then Robin's all, "Can you pull my pancetta out?" and Laurine has just about had it with her, but she passive-aggressively does it anyway. She should have told her to get it herself.
Colicchio comes in to talk to each chef about their dishes. Ash has shepherd's pie, and admits that he's not quite sure what he's doing yet. Colicchio tries to talk to Jen, but she doesn't want to talk to him, because she's too busy. Colicchio heads over to Ron who says that he needs some luck and then tries to get Colicchio to tell him what to do, basically. Oof. This is not looking good. Colicchio finally talks to Jen, who tries to get rid of him quickly, and admits that this is out of her usual cooking wheelhouse. After Colicchio leaves, Ash interviews that he's also worked mostly in traditional restaurants too, so he's not psyched about the deconstruction either.
That night, back in the house, the various cheftestants discuss the challenge. Ron admits that he doesn't really know what he's doing. Eli first apparently has to explain to Ron what paella is, which is kind of scary, since Ron claimed he was an expert. And then Kevin says that he's worried that Ron's dish is just going to be paella with no deconstruction. Ron seems confused. Kevin and Eli give him some tips about what he should do; they basically tell him how to cook and serve his dish.
Meanwhile, some of the other cheftestants are having a beer and discussing how frustrating it is to be near the top and then on the bottom the challenge. Laurine is frustrated from losing to Robin in the Quickfire and then having to be to her in the kitchen. Laurine was in a bad mood already and listening to Robin beep and boop around the kitchen isn't helping.
Weird interstitial. Mike I. tries to find out what eggs Florentine is from his fellow cheftestants. Some claim not to know, but he finally finds out the main elements from Ron and Laurine. Later, he tries to figure out the origin. Well, based on the Florentine part, I'm going to guess it's Italian? He makes his "foreign-to-me" joke and the women encourage him by laughing. I hope they're drunk, or desperate for entertainment.
The morning, various cheftestants (Jen, Ash, Ashley, Laurine) commiserate on how screwed they are. Jen reminds us that, even though she's been in the top three a few times, it's all about the dish created for this challenge, and she's not that confident.
The cheftestants arrive in the kitchen, where they have one hour to prep before service. The judges also arrive, with Toby Young taking Gail's spot. Mike V. and Mike I. are serving together (because that's not confusing). Mike I. doesn't like his presentation, and he's also worried about Toby being mean.
Mike V made Caesar salad: chicken wing, parmesan jelly and brioche while Mike I made eggs Florentine: braised kale roll, egg emulsion, and crispy phyllo. While introducing it, Mike I. feels the need to explain what eggs Florentine is to the diners, which is kind of obnoxious given how we know he just learned it himself. Toby didn't like the eggs, and thought it was more of a reinvention than a deconstruction. Michelle thought the Caesar salad was fantastic, and well-executed. Penn makes a joke about exploding that only serves to further annoy me.
Laurine and Bryan are serving . Bryan is confident in his dish, but Laurine is worried about her chips. I'm not sure if she understands that chips are not potato chips, but in fact, French fries. Because she totally made potato chips. Anyway, they were soggy so she stuck them in the oven to recrisp them, and they burned. She ended up with fourteen usable chips and had to divvy them up amongst seven plates. So Bryan serves a Reuben sandwich: tuna, warm mayo, Thousand Island flavors, rye, and gruyere cheese while Laurine serves fish and chips: halibut, zucchini relish, tomato confit, and parsley chips. They eat the fish and chips first, and Tom finds the fish overcooked. Toby and Padma both think there needed to be more to the chips, and Teller demonstrates how overly chewy the chips were. Seriously? He's still not talking? Everyone loved the Reuben except Penn, who is no food expert and I don't even think he gets a vote, does he?
While plating, Ash realized that his potato and parsnip puree was gummy. I'm going to guess it stood around for a while and then he overmixed it, which will turn any mashed vegetable into glue. So he decides to skip the puree, which seems like a pretty big component of shepherd's pie. Ash also points out that it's an English dish, so he worries that British Toby will be more harsh than usual. Ash serves shepherd's pie: lamb chops, leeks, glazed carrots, pea puree, and Madeira jus while Jen made meat lasagna: steak, mascarpone béchamel, tomato sauce, and parmesan crisp. The judges agree that the lasagna is awesome, especially putting the parmesan crisp on top to serve as the crusted baked cheese on top. Tom complains about Ash's lamb, which is cooked inconsistently. Toby explains his idea of shepherd's pie, and how dumb it was to skip the potatoes.
Eli thinks Ron is struggling, still, as we see Ron wandering around the kitchen aimlessly. Ron explains that his rice isn't crisping up, but he's going to deal with it. Ron serves seafood paella: lemon and herb oil, chayote, and peas while Eli serves sweet and sour pork: por
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k rillettes, broccoli puree, sweet and sour sauce, and broccoli salad with light citrus dressing. Michelle points out that the rice in the paella is overcooked and yet not crisped. Padma doesn't think it's deconstructed at all, and Tom calls it "a sad bowl of food." Tom likes the pork balls, and Toby complains about the presentation, because they look like bull's testicles. Padma pipes up that she's had bull's testicles, and Penn shoots back, "I'll bet." Here's the thing about that line: it was on every promo, every preview, and everything. So by the time it finally happened on the show, I realized that it kind of doesn't make sense. Is he implying that Padma's such a whore that she fucked a bull? I don't get it. It would have been a lot funnier if I only heard it once.Kevin explains that his prep time was spent making sure that all of the components he made the day before are perfect. Ashley is working on plating and presentation, and she's worried that it's a mess. Ashley made pot roast: seared strip loin, potato puree, crispy shallots, and carrot foam while Kevin made chicken mole negro: chicken croquette, Mexican coffee fig jam, and pumpkin seed romesco. Penn thinks it's the best mole he's ever had, and Michelle says that Kevin's effort shows. Everyone loves Ashley's pot roast, and Toby thinks it's the best cooked piece of meat they've had so far. Look at Ashley making a comeback!
Robin has to serve alone, both probably because she has immunity and also because no one likes her. She made clam chowder: fennel flan with potato crusted clams and crushed bacon. The flan looks disgusting. It looks like cat food. Padma says it looks like cream of celery soup and Toby thinks it just looks like something that was leftover and congealed. He asks Penn if he's ever used sleight of hand to avoid eating something, and Teller demonstrates how it would be done. The food is all served, and the judges take off to make their decisions.
In the Stew Room, Ash is worried that he didn't do it right, because he doesn't really get deconstruction. Jen knows that her food tasted good, but she thinks it looks terrible. Ashley kind of scoffs. Annoyed that perfect Jen is acting like she might lose when everyone knows that's not happening?
Padma comes in and asks to see Ashley, Michael V., Kevin, and Jen. So I kind of get why Ashley might have been annoyed since Jen was the Girl Who Cried Wolf. Once they are assembled, Padma tells them that they're the tops. Tom compliments Michael V's use of chemicals, because it really worked, and says it made him excited about food. Michelle tells Ashley that she made pot roast interesting. Tom tells Kevin that he achieved perfect balance and everything made sense. Toby tells Jen that she made it simple and kept it good. Tom was surprised, knowing how much Jen struggled in the kitchen, and they all have a good laugh. Michelle announces the winner and it's...Kevin! And he wins some Calphalon pots and pans! Do real chefs use nonstick cookware? I do, but I'm a rank amateur.
Back in the Stew Room, Ash says he's just going to make salads and crisps from now on, because that's what it takes to win. Ooh. That was a total burn on Robin, and she kind of calls him on it. Ash tries to backpedal, not very successfully. The winners return and tell Laurine, Ron, and Ash to go back out.
Once they assemble, Padma tells them what they already know -- they are the bottom three. They start with Ash. Toby tells him that the missing potato really hurt his dish. Ash explains what happened to his puree, and how he didn't serve it because it wasn't up to par. Then he says that he's only ever had his own shepherd's pie, which might not be the classic dish. Tom brings up that the lamb was unevenly cooked, which Ash didn't notice. Ash gives a little speech about how great his competition is and how he has more to show. I like Ash, but I'm getting a little tired of him serving subpar food, shrugging, and then trying to sweet talk his way out of it. Just serve good food and drop the bullshit.
Laurine knows that her fish was overcooked. Tom thought it was too tentative and she was out of her comfort zone. Laurine agrees. Michelle thought the dish was too deconstructed, and Toby complains about the lack of fries. Laurine explains what happened with her chips, and how she'd rather serve two good chips than six soggy ones.
Padma asks Ron if he's ever done deconstruction, and Ron says he hasn't, and he thinks he had the most difficult dish. Tom knows that Ron struggled and got stuck in his head, which led to poor execution. Toby thought the end result was mediocre. Besides the execution, Padma thought the concept was all wrong. Michelle adds that if Ron didn't like or understand the challenge, he could have at least cooked the individual components really well. The cheftestants leave to wait for judgment.
The judges spend like five minutes talking about whether they should pronounce paella as "pie-eh-ah" or "pie-ella." Michelle totally burns Toby when she says that she's Latin, so she uses the Spanish pronunciation. Plus, isn't it ironic to hear Toby Young accusing others of being pretentious? Anyway, they all agree that Ron's components were poorly cooked, and he made bad choices at nearly every step along the way. Tom thinks that Ash made a poor plate of food, but liked that Ash criticized himself. For Laurine, the centerpiece of her dish was poorly cooked, and she wasn't comfortable with the challenge.
The cheftestants come back out to hear the verdict. Tom explains that, with deconstruction, every component has to be cooked well. Ron didn't deconstruct and cooked his food poorly. Laurine did the same and had bad portioning. Ash didn't stay true to his original dish. But Padma tells Ron to pack his knives and go. I saw that writing on the wall about ten minutes into the episode. Ron's been outclassed and outcooked for a few weeks now, and he's not in the upper echelon (which, this season, is really high up), so he was destined to go shortly regardless.
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Watch Ron's exclusive exit interview video.
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