The Elimination Challenge has the chefs going "back to school"… to Louisiana State University’s freshman orientation, specifically. The chefs will take over the dining hall to feed 500 freshmen. They will be forced to use the same equipment the cafeteria cooks use every day, which means nobody can make some goddamn foam or anything. If they’re smart, they will make burgers. Freshmen love burgers. Anyway, for an almost unrelated twist, the winner of this challenge will get a Toyota RAV4. Back on track, the chefs will stay in dorms the night before. It’s stupid and unnecessary, but it’s fun, I guess.
Up in the Top Chef house/dormitory, the contestants talk about what they majored in in college. Many of them went to culinary school, so this could be a new experience. In the cars on the way to the dorms, the chefs share their craziest college story. Brian’s involves an arm full of stitches. He is really excited to relive his drunkest years.
Some college kids welcome the chefs and give them the full tour. They are going to get really oriented. They even play Frisbee in the quad! The chefs head for the dorms, which are the biggest dorms I have seen, but make no mistake, they are still terrible.
The chefs run into the cafeteria with no preparation. They take a look around and try to divide up the eight stations. Everyone wants the one with the big, flat-top grill (a plancha) and few people wants cold stations. There aren’t really enough ingredients for multiple produce items to go around. Carlos also wants the plancha, and nobody wants the wood-burning oven. Carlos stomps all over Shirley, who called the plancha station. He’s being a real dick about it and may never recover.
The chefs get to work on their cafeteria dishes. Nicholas is doing some roasted pork and marks his oven accordingly. Shirley ends up with the crazy no-cook-top pizza oven station that nobody wanted and has to adjust. Justin is making gulf shrimp with cauliflower and stuff and he knows it’s not the typical college meal but believes in not "cooking down" to people. Nina thinks the students will hate it.
Stephanie is taking a smarter route, cooking for her audience with a fancy grilled cheese and tomato soup. She is using weird cheeses but we’ll see how it goes. Carlos is being pretty bull-headed about his dish, but exhibits confidence when Tom comes in. Carrie is making some healthier food because she didn’t have that option in college. And, she has immunity. Nina is making a corn puree but there isn’t much of a blender to create a puree. It’s really just like, a home blender.
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The chefs meet their servers, and Nicholas calls them "our own lunch ladies." Service begins and the new freshmen come pouring in. Anything fried goes over well, so Nina is really running. Carrie’s station with blanched broccoli and a sauce is wildly unpopular. The judges show up and the mascot continues its antics.
The judges gab about college life a bit, and then check out Shirley’s roast beef with a potato puree and Nina’s fried chicken with a sweet corn puree. Fried meats and purees -- yes. Brian made a shrimp cake, which is just fried enough. The judges sit down with the freshmen and they’re just as awkward as you might think. Gail likes the shrimp cakes, which the mascot then demands from Brian, creepily using gestures only. The college students like the roast beef.
Nicholas serves up some roasted pork and grits, which Tom calls out for looking "exactly like cafeteria food." Nina’s dish is just so-so, and Nicholas’s could have been seasoned better. It’s really a battle of the purees at this point. The judges come to visit Carrie, whose cold station is getting lonely. The broccoli and herbed yogurt sauce – shockingly, not popular! Justin made that marinated gulf shrimp and cauliflower garlic puree. The mascot messes with the judges and you can tell that Tom absolutely hates it. He dispenses with the tiger as quickly as possible.
The college students aren’t wild about Justin’s under-seasoned, funky shrimp dish. Padma and Gail shrug their shoulders at Carrie’s dish, too, but Carrie has immunity. Stephanie serves up her grilled cheese and soup, then Carlos makes excuses for his slow-cooking fish. He complains that Nicholas "stole" his oven and Nina hears it all. The tilapia comes out, as will the truth.
The judges like the tomato soup, but everyone seems to agree that the cheese is funky. Nina is running out of food, and Tom and Emeril go on a rampage to find out the truth about this stolen oven. Nicholas denies Carlos’s claims and it is pretty stupid all in all.
Service is over and the chefs return to the stew room to drink wine and discuss the "stolen oven." Nicholas is a little butt-hurt about it and Carlos is defensive. They both look like assholes. 80% of the viewers are on Nicholas’s side for "oven-gate." The judges come on-screen to compliment Brian and Shirley. Carlos’s dish was good, but took too long to serve. Stephanie’s dish is mediocre and Justin’s dish is lacking flavor. Nina’s fried chicken and corn puree are also inconsistent so for the second time Nina could be on the bottom. Carrie’s dish sucks, but it doesn’t matter because she has immunity.
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Shirley, Brian, and Carlos see the judges first for some good news. They had the only three successful dishes. Carlos’s dish was tasty and focused, Brian’s shrimp cakes were hearty and popular, and Shirley’s crazy oven made good roast beef. The winner is Shirley, against all odds and planchas. Shirley wins the car! Fuck you, Carlos, and the plancha you rode in on.
Stephanie, Nina, and Justin head in to hear, for the second of three times this round, the ways they didn’t execute their dishes well enough. Nina’s corn was watery and lacking in supply. The chicken was all right, but the corn puree brought it down. Stephanie’s cheese combination in that wacky grilled cheese sandwich made for an unappealing, curd-y texture. Justin interrupts the judges to say that he probably could have knocked out a shrimp roll no problem but he’s above it. What a munch.
Gail asks Justin if he went to college and he admits that no, he didn’t, and maybe that was the problem. College kids want fried food, not ghostly-looking shrimp. The bottom three are sent away while the judges discuss the variety of purees and how bland everything is. The cafeteria must not have had many spices. Stephanie simply had a bad cheese mix and unappealing textures.
Stephanie, Nina, and Justin are called back in to hear yet again where they went wrong. Tom says one of them gets a failing grade (boo, jokes.) Justin is told to pack his knives and go and I’m glad because he was being a real butthole. Carlos was also being a butthole, but his time will come. Unless he wins! But Nina should win.
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