Josie feels bad! No, not because it's totally her fault that Kristen left. She feels bad because she thinks everyone else feels it's her fault that Kristen left. WAAAAH!
Quickfire Challenge: Katsuya Uechi, master sushi chef, challenges them to create a dish to impress a sushi master. The least favorites are Lizzie, who inexplicably made a soup, and Josh, who made a breakfast sandwich on rice. The favorites were Brooke, who had nice, clean flavors, and Stefan, who threw something together last minute. Interesting that the top two are both from LA and probably eat sushi a lot. Anyway, Stefan wins his first Quickfire but there's no immunity this week, just cash.
Elimination Challenge: Guest judge David Chang (Ma Peche, Momofuku) arrives and Tom announces that the cheftestants will be cooking a meal for a group of famous chefs, and they each need to cook a fried chicken dish. Josh and Josie go with a more traditional dish, while everyone else puts a twist on it. There are numerous equipment issues and, this will be a shocker, Josie has time management issues. But here's what was ultimately served:
Sheldon: Umami drumsticks and thighs, wings with usukuchi and grapeseed oil (a la Momofuku). Sheldon burned his first batch of wings so he didn't serve enough so that each judge could have one. Even so, the judges thought his chicken was crunchy and not greasy, and they admired that he did something different.
Lizzie: chicken with coriander, black pepper, and brown sugar with peach cabbage slaw. Poor foreign Lizzie served what are basically chicken tenders, and while the judges liked them, they couldn't believe Lizzie took a whole chicken and served them a boneless breast.
Josie: chicken with black garlic, cayenne, thyme, and hot sauce with daikon salad. Josie did nothing but brag about her Southern fried chicken, but the judges thought it was overly greasy and bland.
Stefan: chicken cordon bleu with garlic aoli and lemon. The judges are disappointed that he did something so simple and pedestrian and of course, Wolfgang makes a boob joke.
Josh: smoked fried chicken with hot sauce and blue cheese. The judges love the smoky flavor, and think that it could be crispier but it had the most flavor of anything on the table.
Brooke: dukkah-crusted chicken breast over wilted escarole and tomato salad. Poor Brooke is having an awful day. She decided to serve boneless breasts, which was mistake number one. She somehow both ran out of time and had extra time at the end, so she kept her chicken warm in the oven and then refried it, so it unsurprisingly turned out dry. AND, it turns out that two of the diners, the guys who own Animal, interviewed for line cook jobs with Brooke years ago and she didn't hire them. Man. So anyway, they hate her chicken.
The cheftestants have to wait for the morning for Judges' Table. Josh, Sheldon, and Lizzie are the top three. They liked Lizzie's crunchiness and especially her side salad, but were disappointed she used boneless breasts. They liked Sheldon's sweet and savory dish, but he didn't give them enough chicken. Ultimately, they choose Josh's twist on a traditional recipe as the winner.
That means Brooke, Stefan, and Josie are the bottom three. Brooke's biggest mistake was cutting up the chicken, and she overthought the whole process. And then holy crap is Tom sick of Josie's shit and it is REALLY satisfying. She tries to blame her equipment and then that she didn't have enough time for why her chicken was greasy and Tom just shuts her down. And THEN she has the nerve to say that everyone else who ate the chicken liked it, and Tom is like, "Oh, so this panel of world-renowned chefs doesn't know what we're talking about?" Stefan tries to say he was serving the fried chicken of Europe and Wolfgang and Tom call him on his shit. It really was lazy of Stefan. I mean, seriously? I think chicken cordon bleu was the first "grown up" meal I learned how to make. Tom accuses him of making something he thought would just get him through instead of trying to win.
The judges debate. They can't believe Brooke cut up the chicken, which made it flavorless. She's just lucky that the others screwed up worse. Padma thinks Josie made fried chicken, but Tom points out that it was greasy and nasty and even guest judge David Chang sees that her timing issue is unacceptable. And they're mad at Stefan for lying and saying that he doesn't know fried chicken, and they're also like, "Who even serves chicken cordon bleu anymore?" I mean, if he had done SOMETHING with it, like made it a bite, or used interesting ham and cheese or a unique breading or SOMETHING.
Anyway, they send Josie home, thank GOD. I can't wait to watch her lose again on Last Chance Kitchen, and I know Tom at least is wondering why the fudge they brought her back.
Sheldon is riding high after his Restaurant Wars win, as well he should be. It certainly got him some respect in this competition, and with Kristen out now, maybe he's a frontrunner. Brooke tells Stefan and Sheldon that if she ever in a million years thought that Kristen would be eliminated, she would have said something in her defense to the judges. Stefan interviews that Kristen should have thrown Josie under the bus, because it's a competition. They all hope Kristen will return via Last Chance Kitchen.
Josie is whining to Lizzie that she feels "heavy" but she refuses to roll over and take the blame for someone else. Like Kristen did? Josie dabs at her eyes and says she doesn't care what others think. She doesn't? Lizzie interviews that Josie thinks everyone else thinks she should have gone home. What Lizzie is too nice to say is that Josie should have gone home and everyone does hate her.
The cheftestants enter the kitchen to find Padma waiting with master sushi chef Katsuya Uechi. So their Quickfire Challenge is to impress a sushi master. He advises them to keep it simple: rice and fish, and make your diners happy. Padma explains that there will no longer be immunity, but they can win $5,000. And... go!
Scramble, scramble, scramble. Brooke interviews that she and her husband probably eat sushi three times a week but it's scary to cook for the master. Josh is less experienced with sushi, since he lives in Oklahoma. Kind of landlocked, that state. So Josh is making a breakfast sandwich, which Stefan interviews is really dumb and he might get his fingers cut off like the Japanese mafia. Stefan is having chef's block in that he can't figure out what to make. Sheldon thinks everyone will be looking at him since he's Asian, but he doesn't make a lot of sushi. His twist is making lemon charcoal but setting a lemon on fire. Interesting idea. I wonder if it tastes anything like lemon or just tastes burnt. Josie has sushi experience, in that at least she knows not to handle the fish too much lest the heat from your hands start to cook the fish slightly. Josie tells no one (because no one asked) that she's doing New England clam chowder sort of? And then interviews that she's had sushi parties where you eat sushi off naked women. Wasn't that only a thing people did on reality shows in like 2005? That was something people did in real life? I guess Josie did.
Stefan finally gets started, and decides to make two items. He doesn't really explain why he's doing two or how they complement one another. Lizzie interviews that she hasn't made sushi in about ten years, and sushi isn't her art. I get that. Sushi is so specific and if you don't live in a coastal area, you probably don't have much experience with it.
Time to eat! Stefan made yellowtail with grilled shitake and raw lobster with seaweed and unagi. Uechi wonders if he seared the lobster (Stefan didn't) and says it's very good. Josie made halibut with yuzu and bacon aoli. Uechi liked the idea of using bacon but thought it needed more punch. I don't even know what Lizzie's dish is: lobster, micro greens and pickled ginger with yuzu sake broth. It's basically a soup and salad with some raw lobster on the side. Uechi thinks it could be improved with some rice in the soup.
Brooke confesses that sushi is her favorite food in the world, and she made octopus with yuzu and grated wasabi. Uechi likes the clean tastes. Josh made another WTF dish: tempura bacon, omelette, salmon belly, and yuzu kosho aoli. He also has rice on the top and bottom, like it's a sandwich. Uechi doesn't say much but he also doesn't look too impressed. Sheldon made hamachi sashimi with fresh ponzo, mitsuba, and lemon charcoal. Uechi is interested by the lemon charcoal.
Padma asks Uechi how he thought the cheftestants did as a group and he says, "You guys worked very hard." Heh. I don't know if it's a translation issue, but he didn't really say that the food was good, did he? His least favorites were Lizzie, because her tempura was chewy and she poured hot soup over cold fish, and Josh, because his combination was good but his bacon was too greasy. His favorites were Brooke, who had clean flavors, and Stefan, who had good combinations of flavors. And the winner is...Stefan! Wow, I thought it would be Brooke. Stefan is happy to finally win a challenge, especially one that was judged by the master of sushi.
Once Uechi exits, Padma welcomes the judges for the Elimination Challenge: Tom Colicchio, and David Chang, chef/owner at Momofuku and Ma Peche. Tom explains that there are a few great chefs in town, and Tom has invited them over to his house for dinner. The cheftestants will be cooking the dinner, and it's going to be fried chicken. Josh is thrilled, because this is right up his alley. David Chang says that everyone loved fried chicken, and it's a simple dish but hard to do perfectly. Tom lists off the chefs that will be at dinner: the guys from Son of a Gun, Michelle Bernstein, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril, David Chang, and Tom. That lineup inspires shit-your-pants level terror. Tom reminds them to make it crispy and delicious. Padma says that the winner gets a year's supply of Terlato wine.
They have thirty minutes to prep, so everyone starts breaking down chickens. Stefan makes a gross joke about breasts and thighs and let's just pretend that never happened. We get it. He loves ladies. Done. Josh hopes to emulate his grandfather's recipe, and since they don't have much time to brine, he's injected his chicken with the brining solution. Josie is blending spices carefully, and she interviews that her great-grandmother was an expert at Southern fried chicken, and she's going to do it. Josh gives Josie shit over whether or not South Florida is actually in the South. Well, neither is Oklahoma, really.
Brooke tells Josh he's going to hate her recipe. Josh hopes she's not trying to make it healthy. Brooke admits that she's only using breasts. And she's taking them off the bone. Oh, Brooke. I don't know much about much but I know that real chefs frown at boneless chicken breasts. Those are suburban weeknight dinner territory. I mean, I use them because they're easy to cook and eat, but if I were making dinner for this group? I don't think I'd make what are essentially chicken tenders. Way too easy to dry out, and flavorless. Brooke interviews that her plan is to fry the skin and use it in the breading so that it still tastes like it has skin on it. That sounds interesting.
Everyone gets their chicken butchered and seasoned and in buckets for transport, and they hop in their cars to head to Tom's rental house. On the way, Josie gets in a mock argument with Stefan and asks him how to say "Kiss My Ass" in German. He tells her a phrase, but then reveals he actually taught her how to say "I'm going home ." Let's hope Stefan has some sort of witchcraft powers.
They all arrive at Tom's house and set up their cooking space. They are prepping indoors and it looks like they have just a regular home stovetop, but they also have a bunch of deep fryers out on a patio. Sheldon is going to try to do chicken two ways, and hopes he can stay focused enough to get it all done. Lizzie is worried about making fried chicken since she didn't eat a lot of it growing up, and she has decided to cook the boneless breast. See above as to why this is a terrible idea. Stefan is making chicken cordon bleu. Dude, seriously? Not only is that incredibly easy to make, it's really, really boring. I mean, at least use something inside that's unique or interesting; as far as I can tell, he's using plain old ham and cheese. He had better make a kickass version of chicken cordon bleu then.
Josh is smoking the chicken before he fries it to give it a smoky flavor. Josh coats the chicken in a brown paper bag, which is pretty old school. The various chefs arrive for their dinner; they're sitting at a table outside under a tree overlooking the ocean. It's amazingly beautiful. The chefs all discuss whether they prefer dark or white meat chicken and why, and they each have different opinions. The capper is when Tom tells Wolfgang that he should start a chain of fried chicken restaurants called "Wolfgang Clucks." Everyone dies laughing, which tells me that they've gotten into the wine already because it wasn't THAT funny.
Twenty minutes left. Brooke realizes that she doesn't have time to fry her chicken skin, so she's left with a boring boneless chicken breast. Brooke's having a bad day. Meanwhile, Tom and his guests continue to share stories and memories about fried chicken and Michelle Bernstein comments that she feels bad for the cheftestants because their food will never live up to the memories being discussed. Emeril calls them all "fried chicken fools."
One of Josie's fryers doesn't get hot enough, so she can't use it. Lizzie offers to let her use her fryer when she's done. Meanwhile, Sheldon's oil is too hot and he's worried that the outside of his chicken will be burnt while the inside is raw. His first batch if burnt so he has to toss it, and that means there won't be enough of one of his types of chicken for each diner to get one. Lizzie finishes up at her fryer and lets Josie take over. Lizzie is slightly concerned that she'll go home because she's not making traditional fried chicken, but she also feels like she has to stay true to her own style of cooking, which is apparently chicken tenders like I buy in the freezer section of the grocery store.
Here's a shocker: Josie runs out of time! So she can't serve the chicken wings she wanted to add to her dish. I don't see much on the plates she's putting out. There's fried chicken and then something that looks like coleslaw. I thought she was also going to have biscuits and like three other sides? Just another example of Josie overpromising and underdelivering.
The first round of food is served and Padma introduces the diners and judges: Vinny and Jon from Animal and Son of a Gun, Michelle Bernstein, guest judge David Chang, Tom, Emeril, and Wolfgang. Josie reminds us that Michelle was the guest judge when Josie went home last time, and here's hoping that history repeats itself.
Sheldon made Umami drumsticks and thighs, wings with usukuchi and grapeseed oil (a la Momofuku). Lizzie served chicken with coriander, black pepper, and brown sugar with peach cabbage slaw. Josie: chicken with black garlic, cayenne, thyme, and hot sauce with daikon salad.
I think it's pretty ballsy to serve Momofuku chicken to David Chang. Anyway, they try Lizzie's chicken first. The diners comment that it's crispy and tasty, but Tom points out that, given a whole chicken, no one would cut off a boneless breast. David from Animal is like, "Wait, they were given whole chickens? Then this kind of sucks." See? So it seems like Lizzie's is good for a boneless breast, but the judges would have preferred bone-in. Tom adds that he doesn't think Lizzie really understands fried chicken in the American style, but the side salad is really good.
Jon makes fun of Josie for serving her Southern fried chicken on a banana leaf. I don't know what the coleslaw is that she served with it; it looks like a bunch of strings in a pile. Wolfgang points out how greasy the chicken is, and Emeril holds up the banana leaf to show off the pile of grease on there. Michelle Bernstein says she took one bite and she couldn't eat any more. Yikes.
Emeril and Tom both really liked Sheldon's dish, and Tom adds that he appreciated that Sheldon thought differently about how to approach fried chicken. Wolfgang notes that he didn't get any of the wings because Tom ate them all; Tom retorts that he split one with Michelle. Regardless, the judges noticed that Sheldon short-changed them on part of his dish. Wolfgang says that, on the other hand, his bone is picked clean because he couldn't stop eating it, and Michelle Bernstein agrees that it was "juicy, salty, crunchy, and not greasy."
The second set of cheftestants is getting ready to serve. Brooke notes that her chicken is done but she still has fifteen minutes until she has to serve and she doesn't want her food to get cold. Her solution is to put her chicken in the oven and then refry it just before service. Putting cooked chicken breasts in the oven seems like a great way to completely dry them out. You'd think just the refrying would be enough to heat them up; they're not thick cuts of meat. Josh interviews that he's the only one in his group who actually made fried chicken, so he feels good about his chances.
Stefan serves first: chicken cordon bleu with garlic aoli and lemon. Josh jokes that he made fried chicken and everyone laughs. His actual dish is smoked fried chicken with hot sauce and blue cheese. Brooke made dukkah-crusted chicken breast over wilted escarole and tomato salad. Padma reveals that Vinny and Jon interviewed to be Brooke's line cooks many years ago and she didn't hire them. She's as embarrassed as you'd expect, which is very.
They eat Brooke's chicken first (after many, many more wine refills, so everyone's getting a bit buzzed, or more than a bit in some cases). Wolfgang asks, "Where the fuck are the bones?" and then says that it's more "The Apprentice" than "Top Chef." You can tell everyone is buzzed because they fall out laughing at that lame joke. Tom says that the chicken is dried out and Vinny snarks that he's glad he didn't take the job with her. Ouch.
Moving on to Josh's chicken, everyone loves the smokiness. Tom says it wasn't that crispy but it had the most flavor of any chicken on the table. Emeril says that Stefan's dish is giving him the blues. Vinny points out that Stefan was already on the show once, and he gets a second chance and makes a lame, boring dish. Jon notes that both LA chefs served chicken breasts and Wolfgang makes a boob joke, of course.
Overall, Wolfgang notes that they had some great dishes and some good dishes and then some that were overly complicated for no reason. Tom thinks they got some good flavors as well as some good sides. Vinny says he enjoyed the ones with bold flavors and good technique, and Wolfgang says he liked the ones that kept it simple.
Because the judges are drunk, judges' table is delayed until the day. They don't say that's why, but you know that's why. That means the cheftestants have to deal with their anxiety overnight. Stefan and Brooke sit on the porch and mull over the options. Brooke thinks her flavors were good but if the judges were looking for fried chicken, Josh gave them traditional fried chicken. Both Brooke and Stefan note that they could be screwed if the judges wanted traditional fried chicken.
Weird interstitial. Brooke eats all the yogurt. Sheldon plays the ukelele.
The morning, the cheftestants prepare to see the judges, but first, Stefan calls his mom, who has Parkinson's disease. So Stefan gets emotional. Does this mean he's going home? Lizzie tells Josie that her chicken was super moist. Well, that's a nice way to say greasy.
The cheftestants report to the Stew Room and Padma asks to see Josh, Sheldon, and Lizzie first. They are the top three. I'm a little surprised to see Lizzie there, but Tom did say that her chicken was flavorful and her side was good. Tom asks them if they were freaked out to cook for such big names, and they all were. Wolfgang thinks Lizzie fried the chicken well, but it wasn't traditional fried chicken. Lizzie says she's not familiar with it, and Tom and Padma think that's fair, and they liked her cabbage salad. Josh tells them that he was inspired by his grandfather's recipe, and Emeril says it was darn good. Sheldon wanted to make one savory and one sweet dish. Tom says the only problem was that Sheldon didn't give them enough chicken. Sheldon says he ran out of time, but doesn't explain that he burned the first batch, which I think the judges would respect more than hearing he ran out of time. The winner of this challenge is... Josh. Of course. I mean, he's the only one who served fried chicken that the judges liked.
So now the other three (Brooke, Josie, and Stefan) have to go face the music. Tom starts out by saying that they made some confusing choices, and Brooke can't stop nodding. She says that this was a really difficult challenge, and she overthought everything, including taking the chicken off the bone. Tom thinks that was her fatal mistake, because she lost all the flavor.
Josie's intention was to serve all of the pieces of the chicken, but a fryer was down, so she served the boneless pieces. She did? They didn't mention that. David Chang tells her it was greasy and a gut bomb, and Josie says she didn't have enough time. Tom looks like he might have had too much wine yesterday and he's hungover and totally fed up with Josie's bullshit. He points out that Josie seems to always run out of time, because an hour to fry chicken is more than enough, and he doesn't know how she could run out of time to put the chicken on a paper towel for a minute to get rid of the grease. Seriously. Josie's defense is that she thought it was delicious, and so did Lizzie, and so did everyone else who tried it. Tom asks if she's saying that the all-star panel of judges don't know what they're talking about. Seriously. What did Josie expect to come of that? Did she think Tom would say, "Oh, YOU thought it was delicious? Well, clearly we were all wrong then. You WIN!"
Padma asks Stefan why he made chicken cordon bleu. Stefan claims that they don't have American fried chicken in Europe, but Wolfgang begs to differ and Stefan doesn't argue the point. Stefan says this is his version of what he ate as a kid, and he tried to put a twist on it. Tom points out that it's not really a twist, and it's something you'd eat at a bad banquet. Tom adds that he thinks Stefan just cooked something that was good enough to get him through. Emeril adds that it wasn't even a good chicken cordon bleu. They all leave and Padma calls him "such a bullshitter." Padma hates Stefan. But does she hate Stefan more than Tom hates Josie? Let's find out.
Padma starts the deliberations by saying that all three cheftestants made mistakes, but who made the worst fried chicken. Tom thinks Brooke's mistake was that she got flustered and gave them a dried-out chicken breast. Wolfgang says that she took out the bones and then overcooked it, and David adds that the dish had no flavor. Tom says he's rather eat Brooke's food than Josie's greasy fried chicken, and Emeril says he couldn't eat one. Padma says that at least she gave them fried chicken, and Tom says it was greasy and nasty. David doesn't understand how she ran out of time, and Tom says "the Josie show." David is perplexed at the chicken cordon bleu, and Padma says that she hasn't even seen that dish on a menu in years. Emeril says he had it two flights ago. Padma is disgusted by Stefan's lying that he doesn't know anything about fried chicken. Plus, she hates him. Jeez, did they sleep together and then Stefan never called? That's kind of sexist of me. I didn't wonder the same thing about Tom and Josie, but mostly because Tom's married and I think Josie likes ladies.
The bottom three face the judges to hear who's going home. Tom says that he thought this was a simple, straightforward challenge. Brooke's decision to give them a dried-out chicken breast was surprising and confusing. Josie is still having trouble with time management. Stefan gave them a dish you learn in the third week of culinary school, and it was a bad version. So who's going home? Josie. Hooray! I wouldn't have cared if Stefan left, but he deserved to stay longer than Josie. And Brooke deserves to go to the finals.
In Josie's exit interview, she says that she can't believe that she's going home because of fried chicken. She is one of the least self-aware people I've ever seen on this show. I'm sure she will be successful somewhere cooking Guy Fieri type food.
If you don't want to know what happened in Last Chance Kitchen, stop reading now.
Josie and Kristen were challenged to break down a whole salmon into ten filets and then cook them. Tom isn't impressed with either one's filleting technique. Kristen cooks a dish with pickled pineapple and raisins, but she doesn't have enough time to plump up the raisins so they have a weird texture. She's saved because, although Josie comes up with a delicious fennel-dusted dish (there's that fennel again), she overcooks her salmon, and Kristen gets the win. Thank GOD.