By Chuck
Colicchio delivers a bummer of a wake up call -- Quickfire involves taking turns at the egg station in the kitchen of a crowded Chicago breakfast institution. It's a crap place to spend time, but Antonia's calm demeanor nets her the ultimate prize -- a job on the egg station! She also gets to choose her team for the challenge, and selects Richard and Stephanie to fight beside her in...drum roll, please...restaurant wars. They'll aim for gastro pub fare. Dale, with Lisa, Spike and, of course, Asian food, wins the coin toss for his team's executive chef position and takes a pragmatic approach -- he's stuck with the same bunch of wedding wars losers, minus one, so that's got to be better. Right?
Colicchio and his gypsy scarf decamp for greener philanthropic pastures, leaving guest head judge Anthony Bourdain to eviscerate the cheftestants. And to introduce the help -- each team gets an extra pair of hands, culled from the last four rejects. Mai Buddha -- the Asian gang -- selects Jen, while gastro pub Warehouse Kitchen nabs Nikki, because Antonia needs someone to roll out the pasta. At some point, Jose Andres shows up.
Warehouse Kitchen works without issue and knocks it out of the park, with Stephanie taking the win and a piece of cardboard that can be exchanged for a trip to Spain. Mai Buddha implodes over a brown avocado and three bad attitudes. Plus, ending a dining experience with something that calls to mind vomit and wood chips, or baby food and potpourri, just isn't a good idea, and Dale (Dale!) packs his knives for presiding over an ambitious failure.
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It's morning in Chicago -- and this time it's really morning, as it isn't even starting to get light out yet. 5:45 A.M., to be exact, and Colicchio walks through the front door of Chez Chef, no doubt bearing wonderful news, and summons six surprised, sleepy people downstairs. It looks like Spike, taking advantage of vacancies, has pushed two beds together to create a larger bed. Schemer. Once the group has assembled in the kitchen, Colicchio informs them that the reason for the early morning visit is a field trip to a Chicago breakfast institution,where they'll all be cooking. For Quickfire, they'll man the short-order egg station, which translates into one of the worst wake-up calls ever. Spike points out that cooking eggs requires incredible precision, and that any chef will tell you that a short-order egg station is one of the most difficult jobs around.
Getting to the final four is the immediate goal, at least for Antonia and Stephanie -- winning would be nice, but after working hard (with difficult competition where there's no room for error, yes, thank you, Stephanie) a slot in the final four would feel really good. With that, and Spike's "Let's get the egg out of here," they're off. The early morning reveille precludes any discussion of missing Andrew, and what a fine chef and solid guy he is, and how his absence will be felt, so this is me pouring some beer on the ground in his memory.
Lou Mitchell's, self-proclaimed servers of the world's best coffee (is it?), is packed -- it's a decades-old institution, everybody loves it, it's massive, and, admits Dale, it's intimidating. Owner Helene, a solid woman who looks like she takes no guff, will be judging the Quickfire, which will see each of the six remaining chef-testants take a turn individually staffing the egg station. The winner will be the individual Helene would hire, were someone pointing a gun at her head. Spike's got years of short-order cook experience, but it's been a long time since he's cooked a copious amount of eggs.
Helene introduces the chefs to "the hole," "where a lot of the action takes place," and to Martine, whom they can watch to get a sense of the flow. She will be joining Helene to scrutinize the chefs' performances. Spike senses a general nervousness based on Helene's sales pitch -- calling her "hardcore," he does a decent impression of her smoker's growl and her take on the challenge: "It's hell, you're gonna die, you're gonna hate that you came here, and you're never gonna cook again." Sounds like disaster awaits. Antonia and her YO BIOTCH t-shirt are up first -- she's psyched to jump into a line because she likes to test herself. She concentrates on remaining calm, moving as fast as she can, and repeating orders. She's flipping potatoes, she's flipping eggs, and as Helene waves her out to make way for the victim, it appears she's done a fine job.
The chefs arrive in their restaurant spaces to find that there is no kitchen. Oh buh-rother! Nicholas has volunteered to be the executive chef on the purple team. It shall be an ego battle for the ages. , the chefs go to pick out furniture and flatware. The purple team wants colors of the ocean, because of their seafood theme. Justin is already being a complete dick, telling Carlos to focus on the plates and not what they're making, and that Sara doesn't understand. The purple team quietly delights in the green team's first public squabble.
The chefs head to Whole Foods and Restaurant Depot to pick up ingredients and wine and basically everything else. Ugh, those are the two most stressful places for someone who can't cook and doesn't know what they're doing. I'm sweating just walking them walk through all those aisles of bulk foods. Sara needs ring molds for her dessert but Restaurant Depot doesn't have any. Back at the Foundry, the chefs create kitchens.
The green team is calling their restaurant "Found." They plan to showcase everyone's different backgrounds in food. Justin is creating a rabbit dish, Carlos is doing red snapper, Nina is working on pork tenderloin, Shirley is doing some kind of fish and Sara is doing a spice cake.
The purple team is calling their restaurant "Restaurant Fin," which does not sound classy. Brian is doing a scallop crudo, Stephanie is doing oysters, Carrie is doing shrimp, Nick is doing some kind of crazy seafood, oxtail combination and Travis is doing a cake with no fish in it.
Sara is asking about her supplies and making sure things are taken care of and Justin says, "Let's just be positive and focus on cooking great food right now." He sucks. Nina is not having Justin's ego. Meanwhile, Brian picked up Xantham Gum instead of Agar Agar for his purple corn thing. I don't know what effect either of those would have on food.
Back at the house, the chefs go over service details and how they want the tickets to look, etc. The day, Sara gives the wait staff of Found the rundown. Travis also knows the value of great service. In the kitchen, Justin is mad about bowls and not in a fabulous way. ("I'm simply mad about bowls, mama!") Justin could sink the whole team and they feel it.
Service begins and Travis welcomes guests to Fin. In the kitchen, Nicholas dryly says this is what he does every day of his life. "It's definitely a lot of pressure cooking for Chase Sapphire Preferred Diners," Justin sighs, as the assigned person to deliver that line. They have a passion for dining! So much pressure. The preferred diners are at Found, while the judges land at Fin.
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Brian's purple corn gel with scallop crudo goes out first and the purple corn gel should probably not have gone on the plate. Stephanie notes that Nick is a great expediter and he should never change what he's doing. Meanwhile, at Found, the preferred diners had their menus taken away too soon. How will they relish the full dining experience and double the points with no menu? The wait staff is not filling the tickets out properly, and Sara walks away from a Preferred Diner before he's done speaking. Ohhhh shit.
The second course comes out at Fin: Carrie's sautéed gulf shrimp with a chickpea puree and Stephanie's linguini with caviar and oyster cream. Carrie's shrimp is overcooked and Stephanie's dish is tasty. Travis is giving great service, but he hasn't gotten that eleven-top of Preferred Diners yet.
Found is not doing well. The waiters are serving the wrong tables and Justin is exploding with chaotic fury. It's not even funny how poorly it's going for them. At Fin, Nicholas's drum and oxtail dish is hearty and good. Travis's olive oil cake comes out last with a much better gel but lacking in moisture.
Did Found just get the worst waiters or what? The Chase Sapphire cardholders are getting anxious as the judges show up. Padma checks in on the table and they're like, "Oh disgraceful!" as though they were getting half the points. The judges sit down and peruse the menu at Found, finding it better than Fin's. But service is far worse at Found, because Sara is busting ass bussing tables. Padma calls Sara over to check on the first course. Justin is like, "THERE'S NO TICKET, I CAN'T EVEN."
A stressed-out Sara drops off the appetizer and forgets to explain the dish. The judges guess that it might be Carlos's. It's a red snapper crudo and it gets crucified before the judges even taste it because they're upset. Justin's roasted parsnip is served on a flat plate and described as "so bad." Shirley pastes together her olive oil poached cobia on ong choy for the judges. Sara drops it off and Padma snipes, "Why don't you describe the dish?" It is going so, so poorly for Found. Shirley's dish tastes good at least.
The Chase Sapphire members arrive at Fin and sit down, agreeing that they're all "banking" on a better experience. Those dickheads. They won't get any points, because this meal is free. So the joke is on them.
"We're all dying a little bit," Gail says back at Found. Sara plops Nina's dish down in front of the judges and walks away yet again. Gail reads from the menu that it's pork tenderloin with sunchokes and mushrooms. The judges are not used to being treated like civilians. Nina's dish is tasty, but does it even matter anymore? Sara's dish is completely busted in the back, leaving it without its cream component. Prediction: Sara will cry in this episode.
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Sara presents her crappy dessert, explaining it without prompting. Gail calls it a weird, greasy cookie. The regular, non-VIP diners also hate the dessert. Speaking of VIP, the Sapphire Assholes are having a marvelous time over at Fin. Finally, for all our nerves, the night is over and the chefs head to the stew room to watch the monitors. Padma says it's clear one restaurant did a better job and one failed. Yeah, I'd say so.
Restaurant Fin faces the judges first, and it's no surprise that they are the victors this week. Padma says Travis did the best job at Front of House they've seen in all eleven seasons. Nicholas did a good job as the executive chef. The only thing that wasn't great was Brian's corn gel. How does one even know what a corn gel should taste like or what texture it should be? The judges award Nicholas with the win for the best dish and for successful shepherding of his team.
Found Restaurant finds themselves in front of the judges, who are none too pleased. Padma tells them it was a disaster and Sara says she doesn't see the disaster. Welp, she's going home. "So you didn't intend to explain any of the dishes to us," Padma scowls at Sara. Gail points out that Sara did explain her own dish. Nina volunteers that service didn't go well in the back either. Justin blames the servers being untrained and not knowing how to do the tickets. David Chang says the food is actually the biggest problem.
Carlos humbly apologizes for the cut of his fish, and Justin cuts back in with the problems with the tickets. Sara talks about the "verbal fire" of the judges' tickets and that was yet another poor judgment call. Nina's dish was good, as was Shirley's. Sara has a bad attitude by the time the judges get to grilling her. She has accepted defeat, I reckon. She retreats without crying.
Justin and Sara are in the hot seats, and they both think it will be them. Their dishes and attitudes sucked. Eventually, Tom says they both made egregious errors, but Sara is told to pack her knives and go. Sara goes down in flames, but without tears.
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