Quickfire Challenge: The cheftestants have to cook a dish faster than Tom Colicchio to win immunity and a Toyota Freaking Prius. Tom finishes in 8:37, but the degree of difficulty will be taken into consideration. They can cook whatever they want, though. Here's what they made:
Antonia: seared ahi tuna with tarragon and fresh tomato salad.
Blais: corn-fed foie gras roasted with aromatics, corn, fresh coriander and port.
Tiffani: New England clam chowder with celery and cream.
Fabio: clams, fish, zucchini, tomato broth, thyme and garlic. That seems really similar to Tom's dish, and also, just fish? They aren't going to tell us what type of fish? Weird.
Angelo: yuzu branzino crudo with jalapeno and cilantro. None of it is cooked, and Tom warned them against serving something raw.
Tiffany: pan-seared bass with tomato relish, olives and capers.
Tre: grilled beef tenderloin with seared foie gras with mushrooms and brandy sauce.
Carla: shrimp with mango, cilantro and mint.
Dale: pad thai with egg noodles. Well, that's what it was supposed to be. He ran out of time and it ended up being like one limp noodle surrounded by a dribble of horrible sauce.
Casey: spice-rubbed filet with fresh tomato relish.
Marcel: black sea bass with dashi broth, bok choy and chili oil. He used the remainder of Tom's fish so he could avoid the pile-up at the fridge, which was smart.
Mike: pan-roasted branzino over a black olive and caper stew.
Jamie: clam amuse-bouche with bacon, tomato and cream. Jamie only had time to cook one clam. Shocker! At least she put something out for judging this time.
The bottom are Dale and Jamie for their unfinished dishes, and Angelo, for doing a raw dish. The tops are Mike, Blais and Marcel, who all developed a lot of flavor in a short amount of time. And the winner is Mike Isabella. Wow. Really? I guess we've found his strength – cooking in short periods of time, as long as everyone else has only a short period of time as well.
Elimination Challenge: The cheftestants work as a team to take over a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown to serve the lunch rush. Mike agrees to expedite, and Carla and Casey are front of house, pushing carts of dishes around and serving them to the customers. The dining room is full and people are waiting for food, and yet the food is late in arriving, so it doesn't start off well.
Susur Lee is the guest judge. Okay, this is going to get confusing, because people did multiple dishes, and some dishes were done by pairs, so I'll do my best to list each dish and the reaction to it, in the order they were served. This was the first group:
Tiffani: cabbage, cilantro and sesame salad with crispy curry chicken. Gail doesn't think it's mixed well.
Fabio: soy honey glazed spicy pork rib. The judge think it's sweet and tasty.
Carla: summer roll with vegetables and lemongrass dipping sauce. Gail can't taste anything but the rice noodles.
Angelo: shrimp and pork spring roll. The judges love it.
Marcel: boneless chicken wing with scallion mayonnaise. The judges find it bland.
Blais: pork foot? It kind of shows up while the judges are eating but it never gets introduced.
The judges get their first batch of food, but the diners are not getting much food, and Mike the Expediter is getting frustrated. The judges notice that no one has any food and the cheftestants in the kitchen don't seem to be rushing too much to remedy the situation. There's also some problem with the carts being returned to the kitchen to be reloaded. The judges get their batch of dishes.
Jamie and Antonia: long beans with Chinese sausage. The judges find it overcooked and greasy.
Dale and Angelo: cheung fun with xo shrimp, which the judges think is spicy.
Dale: sweet sticky rice with Chinese bacon wrapped in a banana leaf. The judges have no complaints.
Tiffany: spicy pork with vegetables on a steamed bun. The judges think it has authentic flavor.
Tre: orange ginger dessert with fresh water chestnuts, toasted pine nuts and Thai basil. The judges don't think it's cold enough and, thus, too runny.
Diners just start leaving and finally Tom goes down to the kitchen to kick some ass. And still no food is coming out. It's seriously an embarrassment to watch. Down in the kitchen, people are just strolling around and taking forever to plate their dishes perfectly, three or four at a time, and meanwhile people just want to EAT SOMETHING. The judges get the round of dishes. This is going to be an ugly Judges' Table.
Casey: Chinese chicken feet with scallion pancakes. It wasn't cooked properly, and Padma notes that even the diners, who are desperate for food, aren't eating it.
Antonia: shrimp toast with pickled scallions and mushrooms. The judges like the shrimp flavor, which is present but not overpowering.
Mike: pork and prawn dumplings with spicy soy sauce. The judges think it's spicy, but too salty.
Jamie: scallop dumplings with water chestnuts and Chinese chives. The judges don't think it has enough filling.
The judges call in Antonia, Jamie, Carla, Tre and Casey, because they had the least favorite dishes. The problem is that the editors had to spend so much time showing us what was going wrong in the kitchen that we don't really have a good sense of what was wrong with each dish.
The favorite dishes belonged to Tiffany, Angelo, Fabio and Dale. And the winner is Dale, who was looking totally pissed off until they announced that he won. I guess he was worried that no one deserved to win because service was so bad. And meanwhile, go Dale! And what's going on with Blais? They didn't even announce his dish and barely talked about it, and he hasn't won an Elimination yet (though perhaps he could have won the first one if he wasn't disqualified).
So even though everyone clearly thought it was going to be Jamie, the judges decide that Casey should pack her knives and go. Well, she did make chicken feet. I mean, come on. Although Spike has said in some interviews that Casey volunteered to leave in his place last week, so I guess she was ready. And Jamie lives to see another day!
Since they don't have that extra fifteen minutes (which I didn't mind since there are still so many contestants and the episodes seem pretty rushed these days -- can we bring that back? Or was Andy Cohen mad because it was cutting into his Watch What Happens time?), the episodes don't waste any time with the niceties. The episode starts with Padma welcoming the cheftestants to the kitchen wearing a shirt that I am 100% sure I owned in 1986, which was probably about four years after it was stylish. It's a white shirt with black pinstripes and puff sleeves. It looks like the packaging for Exclamation! perfume (which was my signature scent in 9th grade).
Anyway, Padma reminds them that speed is key when cooking in a restaurant on a busy night, and explains the Quickfire Challenge: one of the nation's best chefs will make a dish as quickly as he can, and then the cheftestants have to make a dish faster to win. The cheftestants' minds are racing, trying to figure out who this renowned chef will be, and this would be a lot more tense if they hadn't shown it on the previews, because we all know that it's Chef Tom Colicchio! The cheftestants are all grinning like fools as Tom gets ready to start cooking, and reminds everyone that he's a little rusty.
Time begins and Tom grabs a bin and runs to the pantry to gather his ingredients and equipment. He returns and quickly sets out his mise en place. He's clearly thought through this and the cheftestants are impressed with how organized he is, and how quickly he opens the clams he's using. At one point, he cuts a whole fish, takes part out, and then tosses the rest of the fish into his garbage bin, which goes flying off the table and nearly hits Padma. The cheftestants all crack up. His prep finished, Tom heads to the burners across the room. He cooks a sauce and the fish. One thing he mentioned in his blog that I thought was genius was that he cooked the fish on one side, then flipped it and covered the pan, and brought the whole pan back to his table, knowing that the residual heat in the pan would cook the other side as he walked. Seriously. That is smart and time-saving. He quickly plates his food and calls time; he finished in 8 minutes and 37 seconds. Damn. I might be able to make a scrambled egg in that time, but I don't know that it would taste great and it certainly wouldn't look great. The cheftestants are shocked. Tom urges them to taste his food, and they all agree that it's a good dish for the time he used, and it would be a good dish even if he had taken longer. He made black sea bass with clams, tomato, and zucchini, and it looks great. Padma explains that the cheftestants can make whatever they want, but Tom says that they will factor in the degree of difficulty, so if one of them makes tuna tartare (or another dish that doesn't require cooking), it won't get very far. Padma then drops the bomb that the winner gets immunity AND a brand new Toyota Prius. Damn! Now that's a High Stakes Quickfire.
Padma starts the clock and everyone runs into the pantry and tries to get into the fridge. There is seriously a ten-chef pileup in front of the open door. Everyone, that is, except for Marcel, who runs over and grabs the 75% remaining fish that Tom didn't use. That's pretty smart, as much as I am loath to admit it. Blais grabs some foie gras, while Dale explains that he's making egg noodles. Okay, he must be making his own noodles, because dried pasta wouldn't cook in that time, but how do you make noodles in that time? Damn. And then cook them? Even fresh pasta takes a few minutes to cook. Dale claims that he could easily do it in a wok, but there is no wok to be had. They have nitrogen, but no wok? What's up with that?
Jamie makes an interview comment about how she's dated people who are fast, and she might be construed as fast too, and giggles. See, that's the Jamie I like? Not the sullen one who doesn't serve her food. Where's that Jamie?
Angelo's making crudo, which is not cooked, which is exactly what Tom told them not to do. Hmm. Mike says that he's used to cooking quickly in his restaurant. Jamie, meanwhile, thinks she's doing great with her clams until there are only three minutes left and she hasn't started cooking her clams. Why wouldn't she start cooking them first? They are obviously going to take the longest to cook. Duh. Here's a shocker: Dale's noodles aren't turning out. I don't even know what he was trying to make, but it looks like Saran Wrap with some dough splattered on it, not a sheet of pasta. Anyway, time is up, and it looks like everyone has something on his or her plate, even if it's unfinished. Jamie and Dale, in particular, didn't finish.
The judges go to Antonia first, to try her seared ahi tuna with tarragon and fresh tomato salad. up is Blais and his corn-fed foie gras roasted with aromatics, corn, fresh coriander, and port. Tiffani made New England clam chowder with celery and cream. That seems like a horrible idea -- I think chowder needs more time for the flavors to develop, and really, hers just looks like a plate of melted butter with some cream floating on top. Yuck. Fabio made clams, fish, zucchini, tomato broth, thyme, and garlic. That seems really similar to Tom's dish and also, just fish? They aren't going to tell us what type of fish? Weird.
Angelo made yuzu branzino crudo with jalapeno and cilantro. Tom verifies that none of it is cooked, since he warned them against serving something raw. Tiffany serves pan-seared bass with tomato relish, olives, and capers. Tre made grilled beef tenderloin with seared foie gras with mushrooms and brandy sauce. Carla made shrimp with mango, cilantro, and mint.
Then the judges to get Dale's pad thai with egg noodles. Well, that's what it was supposed to be. It ended up being like one limp noodle surrounded by a dribble of horrible sauce. Padma asks if it's safe to eat, and Tom tries it but looks like he wishes that he didn't. Dale knows it's terrible. Casey made a spice-rubbed filet with fresh tomato relish. Marcel used Tom's black sea bass and served it with dashi broth, bok choy, and chili oil. After Marcel, Mike serves pan-roasted branzino over a black olive and caper stew. The judges really like it, and Marcel interviews that they were probably still tasting his flavors instead of Mike's. People. He was joking. Here's the problem with Marcel. I would estimate that 65% of his interview statements are supposed to be jokes. The problem is he's deadpan and he's also not funny, so it's hard to tell.
Jamie serves up a clam amuse-bouche with bacon, tomato, and cream. The problem is that she only had time to cook one clam. She's laughing about it, but at this point, I kind of wish she were more upset, since she's on everyone's shit list. Like at least pretend to take it seriously.
Tom expresses sympathy for their plight, since he just went through it. Dale is obviously on the bottom since he barely had a dish to serve, and what he served was horrible. Jamie is also on the bottom for her unfinished dish. Interesting that Tom also used clams and was able to get them cooked in time. Tom also puts Angelo on the bottom, for doing a raw dish even after being warned not to try that. Dummy. The tops are Mike, Blais, and Marcel, who all developed a lot of flavor in a short amount of time. And the winner is...Mike Isabella. Wow. Really? I guess we've found his strength -- cooking in short periods of time as long as everyone else has only a short period of time as well. Has anyone else noticed that Blais hasn't won a whole lot so far this season? Despite being in the top a lot, he doesn't seem to be able to pull off the actual win when it counts. I wonder if that is foreshadowing for what's to come later in the season.
Padma goes on to explain the Elimination Challenge, which is similar to the Quickfire, in that the cheftestants will have to cook food quickly. They are going to Chinatown! That's what I used to yell in my role as play-by-play announcer when my husband wrestled with our dog: "Baxter (the dog) ta
kes him down! He takes him down to Chinatown!" Just a little slice-of-life in my household. Anyway, Marcel does one of his "trying to be funny but not really funny" interviews when he claims that going to Chinatown is just like going to China, because everyone is Chinese and speaks Chinese and you can get great massages. Is China really known for massage? I thought that was more of a Thai thing. Anyway. Shut up, Marcel. The challenge is to work as a team to make an assortment of dim sum options to serve at lunch rush in a popular restaurant, and they have to serve continuously. Tom emphasizes that they will have to cook a lot of food, and quickly. Padma explains that dim sum is served on carts, and their job will be to keep those carts filled with a variety of options. Then there's a commercial for the Prius that Mike won.After returning to their apartment, the cheftestants gather to discuss their dishes, to ensure there's no duplication. Blais has two dishes in mind, and he interviews that he knows dim sum is all about making small, appetizer-like dishes, and doing it quickly. Jamie says that she wants to make scallops, and laughs because everyone remembers her reputation as making only scallop dishes on her season, which inspired Fabio's memorable line, "This is Top Chef, not Top Scallop." This flashback also serves to remind me how much better I liked Fabio's hair short. Mike agrees to be the expediter, since he has immunity. They need two people to be on the floor, pushing carts. Why this is, I don't know, because the restaurant has servers. And Tiffani thinks the servers will need to push the food on the people. Because apparently she thinks the diners will not want food? I don't know. Anyway, Carla and Casey agree to do it, knowing that it means that their food will be in someone else's hands in the kitchen. They also talk about how some people will need to do two dishes so that they have enough food. Angelo and Dale agree to cooperate on a second dish, and Jamie is also doing a second dish. Marcel is shocked that Jamie thinks she can do two dishes since she has shown trouble finishing even one most of the time.
Then the cheftestants gather in the kitchen/dining area for some wine and cards. Well, the men are cooking food while the women sit around drinking wine and playing cards. Except for Dale, who goes off into a corner and looks at a card he got with some photos, which he places in his knife set. The women are clearly way into the wine and talking about their bras, including Tiffani, who says that she has to wear a bra or people would get hurt. My sister in solidarity. I am jealous of those petite ladies who can go braless in public. Anyway, Antonia gets jalapeno in her eye and as she goes to wash it out, Tiffani asks if she needs a towel and uses her bra to wipe Antonia's eye. The women fall on the floor laughing while the men scatter, terrified of boobs, I guess. It's awesome. Girl power! Boob power!
Shopping time! They're shopping at a Chinese grocery store. Tre says that it's not like Whole Foods, so he went up to the meat counter and asked, "What's dead?" Good idea. Various cheftestants wander around trying to find ingredients and trying to find an employee who speaks English. Fabio finds a tank of live turtles, and he explains that he has a turtle for a pet, and bought a leash for it, and takes it for walks. He is horrified that the Chinese employees are cutting up turtles for turtle soup. Hey, there's someone out there with a pet potato who feels the same way about all the gnocchi, right?
Jamie and Antonia are teaming up on a Chinese long bean dish. Antonia admits that she's nervous about working with Jamie, but the dish as described sounds good, so she's trying to be a team player. Casey has decided to cook chicken feet, which is a traditional Chinese ingredient, but it seems difficult to cook well. Anyway, Casey is sure she can make this dish amazing. Good luck with that.
The cheftestants arrive at the restaurant with three and a half hours to prep. Should be plenty of time, since they are making tons of small dishes, right? Crank 'em out. Jamie (and probably others, but Jamie is interviewed) are a little perplexed by the Chinese kitchen, since it has plenty of woks and steamers and not a lot of other equipment that they're used to. Dale has the advantage of having grown up with this food, so he knows it's his challenge to lose. Fabio is making short ribs and quickly discovers that the oven doesn't go above 300 degrees, and he wants to cook at 350. Really? Why would an oven only go to 300 degrees? That's weird. There's also no grill, so he's mystified about making his dish, but he's changing plans on the fly to fit conditions, as the show dictates.
Marcel explains that they have to make 180 portions, which is a lot of food in a short period of time. Jamie discovers that her dumplings aren't working out well, so she's spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the flavors she wants. As a result, the dish she and Antonia are doing together is getting short shrift. Casey explains that chicken feet come with nails on them, and she has to trim them all off. She's doing it super slowly, when she should just be whacking them off. She interviews that she's really into butchering. Slow butchering, maybe. Carla is making a summer roll, and it's taking a lot of time to put together. She's starting to wonder about the wisdom of making something so "fiddly." Tre is also having trouble, because he's making a cold dessert and the kitchen is getting hotter and hotter, making it difficult to keep his dish together.
Angelo talks about cooking with his dad, and how he had to sort through all the rice and pick out the bad ones, and his dad would punish him if he missed a bad one. Wow, what a good dad. Also, when Angelo made the finals last season, it was the first time he ever saw his father proud of him. That explains so much about the way Angelo chooses to be, doesn't it? He's got bad dad syndrome. If he were a lady, he probably would have been a stripper. Or Jen. Maybe Angelo's dad and Jen's dad should get together and compare notes about raising children to become reality show chefs who have emotional breakdowns.
The diners start to arrive, and there are a lot of them, and they are all Chinese, as promised. People are running around. Casey has to make sure that her food is ready to go, since she will be out on the floor, and Antonia is supposed to be plating her food. Casey explains how she wants it done. Fabio is experiencing "the first Top Chef miracle" because his ribs turned out perfectly. Mike heads upstairs to see what's what. I should mention that the kitchen is downstairs and the dining room is upstairs, so they have to load up carts and put them in a dumbwaiter to go upstairs for service. Mike calls for the first carts to come up and Carla and Casey head out onto the floor to serve the judges.
Hey, look who the guest judge is! Susur Lee, who you may remember from Top Chef: Masters. I kind of hated him for a while, then turned around a little bit by the end. He joins Gail, Padma, and Tom. Carla explains the first round of dishes being served:
Tiffani made a cabbage, cilantro, and sesame salad with crispy curry chicken. It kind of looks like a mess of shredded vegetables in a puddle of orange-brown sauce. Not appetizing, and also kind of a huge portion. And salad for dim sum? Is that normal?
Fabio made soy honey glazed spicy pork rib, which looks amazing. It truly is a miracle. It's not gnocchi! Or Italian! And yet, it looks good! Carla serves a summer roll with vegetables and lemongrass dipping sauce. It looks like, you know, a summer roll. Translucent wrapper, vegetables inside.
Angelo made a shrimp and pork spring roll. Here's the difference between his roll and Carla's (besides the meat): Angelo cut his in half on a diagonal, which just makes it look so much better, while Carla's looks like a giant lump on the plate. Point, Angelo. Marcel made boneless chicken wings with scallion mayonnaise, which seriously looks like a dish you'd find at Ruby Tuesdays.
The judges dig into the first round of dishes, as Mike urges the chefs to keep pumping out the food. Tiffany wants to load up another cart downstairs, but she has no food to put on it. Meanwhile, the cheftestants are slowly and perfectly placing food on each plate, as they would in fine dining.
Gail and Susur praise Angelo's spring roll, and Susur also likes Fabio's ribs. Then they start talking about Blais's food, and I have no idea what he served, because the servers didn't mention it and there's no on-screen prompt telling me what it is. Some sort of roll, it looks like? With pork in it? Anyway, the judges aren't crazy about it, so he's not going to win, so I guess it's not important. Just a weird editing mishap. They think Marcel's chicken is a good idea with poor
execution, since it's bland. And how is he not pumping out eight million of those things? Just drop the chicken in the fryer and throw three per plate, squirt of condiment, and go. Susur likes the dressing on Tiffani's salad, but Gail complains about the mix, because her plate is all sesame and nothing else. The judges' complaint about Carla's food is that it looks good, but the filling just tastes like rice noodles. The judges finish tasting and look around, and they realize that none of the diners have any food yet. Blais interviews that no one is pushing food out the way that they should because they're all being so particular about plating. Meanwhile, the diners are all like, "WTF?" or whatever the Chinese version of that would be.Back in the kitchen, Jamie and Antonia are working on that second dish. Antonia tastes it and says that she thinks it needs more seasoning, but Jamie thinks it's fine as is. She dumps the beans back in the wok for more seasoning, I guess. Can't you season without additional cooking time? Now it seems like the beans are going to be overdone and saturated with the sauce, but not necessarily more seasoned. So apparently the carts are all being used (to do what, I'm not sure, since the diners still don't seem to have any food), and now Mike, Dale, and Tre are bringing food out to the judges. What are Carla and Casey doing? No clue.
The judges are given Jamie and Antonia's long beans with Chinese sausage, and the beans do look overcooked and wilted. If you hadn't told me they were beans, I would have thought they were roasted asparagus, because that's what they look like. Dale and Angelo made cheung fun (a type of spring roll) with xo shrimp, and then alone, Dale made sweet sticky rice with Chinese bacon wrapped in a banana leaf. That seems like a complicated plating, but if anyone could handle it, Dale could. Tiffany made spicy pork with vegetables on a steamed bun, which seems pretty authentic to dim sum. Tre's cold dessert is called orange ginger dessert with fresh water chestnuts, toasted pine nuts, and Thai basil. He serves it in a hollowed-out orange rind, which seems fussy for dim sum type service.
The diners are still not getting much food and they have resorted to just grabbing their own plates off the carts as they come around. I'm still not quite sure what Carla and Casey are doing, since every time they show a cart, one of the restaurant's servers is pushing it. Antonia is stressing about having to serve Casey's food as well as her own, because her own is taking a lot of her time. So did she just not do Casey's food? Do it poorly? This is not really explained. Padma notes that no food is coming out of the kitchen and Gail worries about revolt. The diners are not happy at all.
But the judges have to taste the dishes they've been given. They think Dale and Angelo's dish has the perfect amount of spice, and Dale's rice that he made solo is perfectly cooked. Tom even goes in for seconds. Maybe he should offer some up to the poor diners at the other tables. Jamie and Antonia's long beans are overcooked and greasy, and poorly seasoned. Tiffany's bun is authentic and has great flavor. Tre's dessert isn't cold enough and thus is too runny.
Tre runs downstairs and says that he'll run a tray up if they give him one, since there seems to be a problem with the carts. Tiffany yells that they don't have any food to put on the trays. Casey notices that her dish doesn't seem to be coming out, and when it rarely does, it doesn't look good. She heads into the kitchen to troubleshoot, and finds that they were heating her food in the fryer instead of the wok, as she instructed, and apparently, Tiffani has taken over cooking it instead of Antonia? I don't know. Back upstairs, Tom remarks that they were told that the whole point of the challenge was speed, and instead of dim sum, they are serving "slow sum." We see Tiffani wandering around the kitchen with three plates at a time, and Antonia starts yelling at everyone to hustle a little bit. Padma asks Tom to go down to the kitchen, because diners are leaving.
Tom enters the kitchen and asks who's running it. No one seems to be listening and they're all trying to avoid eye contact. Carla captures the feeling in the room when she interviews, "When your daddy shows up where he's not supposed to be, you know you're in trouble." Tom tells them to plate forty orders at a time instead of three and get some food out. Angelo, Dale, and Marcel stand around and have a conversation and Antonia walks by and asks if they're done, and tells them to get to work. Love her. You know who would have kicked ass in this challenge? Jen. I miss old non-crazy taskmaster Jen. Antonia thinks Dale would have been a better leader, but Marcel points out that Dale was cleaning out his shoes instead of cooking. Dale counters that he was sending out plates by the dozen instead of the pair, and he thinks people should be called out for their slowness, but no one has the balls to do it. Upstairs, Tom and Padma are still appalled at the lack of food, and one Chinese diner comments that she only had enough to feed her children and not herself. Dude, when you have to perform food triage in a restaurant, there's a problem.
Tre walks out with the final tray of judges' food. Casey made a play on chicken and waffles, which is a Chinese chicken foot with scallion pancakes. Antonia made a yummy-looking shrimp toast with pickled scallions and mushrooms. Suddenly Mike is there, and he serves his own pork and prawn dumplings with spicy soy sauce and Jamie's scallop dumplings with water chestnuts and Chinese chives, which have the lamest presentation ever. She just flopped two dumplings in a steamer and that's it. No sauce, no herbs, nothing. Lame.
Mike's dumplings are spicy enough, but Susur thinks they are too salty due to excess soy sauce. Susur, expert on Chinese food, says that the chicken foot needs to be cooked in hot oil, but this one wasn't deep fried properly. Interesting, since Tiffani was trying to fry them and Casey told her not to. Padma points out that even the desperate diners are leaving the chicken feet untouched. The judges think that the wrapper to filling ratio is off in Jamie's dumplings: there's too much wrapper and not enough scallop. You can tell just by looking at them. They look deflated and sad, kind of like Jamie this season. The cheftestants finally get their food out, but it's too little, too late. Everyone is kind of deflated. Even the random interstitial emphasizes this, as the cheftestants discuss how humiliated they are.
The cheftestants report to the Stew Room. They sit there mopily and debrief on what just happened. Antonia talks about how each cheftestant was looking out for him or herself, and no one seemed to have any urgency to just push food out the door. Tiffany explains that they were all sort of confused about who was dealing with Casey's dish, and Antonia says that she only took on that responsibility because no one else stepped up. Two things here: on the one hand, Antonia said she would do it, and she should have either done it, or gotten someone else to take over if she absolutely couldn't. But if no one would take over, it's on her. Second, it kind of sucks that Antonia, who was already doing one and a half dishes, was supposed to also do Casey's food, when there were a few people who only did one dish and probably could have helped. Like Tre. Or Tiffani, Tiffany, Fabio, Marcel, and Blais. I thought Blais was doing two dishes, but we barely got to see one. I will give Tiffany a break because she seemed to take on the role of filling the carts and sending them upstairs. The only other people exempt from helping out, in my mind, are Carla, Mike, Dale, Angelo, and Jamie, because they all took on dual roles. Usually Antonia is first to call people out, though, so we'll see what happens.
Padma comes in and asks to see Casey, Antonia, Carla, Jamie, and Tre. So this is obviously the losers, though they don't usually go first. Jamie faces the judges with her normal crossed arms. Padma tells them that the whole poi
nt of the challenge was speed, and there was no speed. Tom asks if they had a plan at all, and Antonia says that Mike was supposed to be down in the kitchen with them, making sure that the food got out. He was? He didn't seem to think so. He seemed to think his job was to be upstairs and push the carts out as needed. I think he probably should have been down in the kitchen, so he could call people out who weren't sending out enough food, since he had the overview.Padma adds that in addition to the poor service, the five people standing there had the worst dishes. Jamie's not surprised about her dumplings, because she knew the wrapper was bad, and she's never made them before, and she steamed them. Susur explains that the wrappers she used were supposed to be boiled, not steamed. Oops. Gail brings up the long beans, and says there was too much oil. Jamie looks like she's about to cry, but then they cut to a different reaction shot where she's not crying. Wouldn't want to show her having emotions that might make her sympathetic to the audience! We need to keep the storyline going that she doesn't give a shit. Antonia says that she prepped the dish, but Jamie cooked it, and Tom says that the beans were overcooked and greasy. They did like Antonia's shrimp toast though, and Gail says it's a conflict between her two dishes, since one was good and one was most definitely not.
Casey wanted to try something different with the chicken feet. Gail points out that a lot of them were left uneaten, because they weren't cooked enough. The pancake was supposed to be light and playful according to Casey, but Tom tells her that it was really heavy and like lead. There's a weird edit where Casey says that Antonia was in charge of her dish and Antonia says she's going to cry and then wishes they had more time to help each other. I have no idea what's even going on with that storyline. It seems like there was a lot cut for time, because it doesn't make much sense. Tre explains that the heat in the kitchen kind of ruined his dessert. Tom says that it didn't work as a dessert and Gail adds that it was a great idea but poor execution. Carla knows that her rice noodles soaked too long and got mealy. Gail tells her that it looked great, but didn't taste great, and Susur concurs. Carla acts like she's taken an arrow to the chest, because food that looks good but doesn't taste good goes against everything she stands for. Padma dismisses them.
The top group is Tiffany, Angelo, Dale, and Fabio. Hmm. No Blais, who is supposed to be the superstar. And whose dish we didn't even get to see. Anyway, Fabio jokes that he didn't think there would be a winner due to the poor service, and then admits that he knows nothing about Chinese food or culture. Gail calls Tiffany's dumpling "a savory marshmallow." Tom compliments Dale's rice and Susur liked the flavor imparted by the banana leaf. Gail has great things to say about Angelo's spring rolls. So who's the winner? Susur thinks the winner was authentic, with well-executed food. And it is...Dale! Damn. Dude is on a roll. In an interview, Dale says that they were all morons and service sucked, but he'll take the win anyway.
The judges now have to decide who's going home. They start out with Jamie's scallop dumpling, which had no flavor. Not to mention, she was the one who cooked the overcooked long beans, which tasted like they'd been sitting around. But Jamie does get points for trying to do two dishes. Padma brings up Antonia's involvement, but it looks like Antonia's shrimp toast is going to save her this week. Gail even says if Antonia had only made the shrimp toast, she might have been in contention for the win. I guess they aren't going to take into account what happened with Casey's dish, since ultimately it's Casey's responsibility. Tre's dessert was half soup, and it wasn't set and tasted bland. Tom thought Casey's chicken feet was "a terrible dish" and Susur calls it "a disaster." What about Carla's food? Susur thinks that it can't just be about looks, and Tom says that the lack of taste made him wonder why anyone would bother eating it. Seems like it's down to Jamie or Casey, since the other dishes had problems but weren't quite as bad as those two.
The bottom five are called back in to find out whose dish was the worst, according to the judges. Jamie looks pretty sure she's going home, and even seems resigned to it. Tom tells Antonia that she played a role in one of the worst dishes, the long beans. Jamie executed the long beans poorly, plus made a bad scallop dish. Tom adds that they like that Casey took a chance, but it didn't pay off. Tre's food was "insipid" and lacked personality, and Carla's food was also bland. A lot of that going around. So who's going home? Casey. Jamie gasps and Casey looks surprised. Guess they all thought it was going to be Jamie. So did I! I was sure of it. She made two bad dishes, while Casey only made one. Casey walks back into the Stew Room and everyone is surprised that it's Casey, not Jamie. In her exit interview, Casey says that she took a big risk, and it doesn't always pay off, but Casey leaves with class. Jamie tells everyone that she's shocked that it's Casey, because Jamie took the brunt of the judges' criticism. Blais smiles at that. I think he doesn't like Jamie much. I'm kind of with him, at least from what we've seen this week. I'm not that worried. I don't think Jamie is going to squeak through much longer unless she really ups her game.
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