Top Chef - "The Elements" (Epidsode 405)

Hi fellow foodies! I'm filling in for Megan, who's enjoying the fine cuisine of Italy. Yep, jealous! Antonia is still miffed that she was on the bottom for the film challenge. Zoe felt "jacked" after the challenge - Jennifer was surprised at the poor reception of their dish. For today's Quickfire Challenge, Padma introduces the guest judge, Ming Tsai from the Blue Ginger restaurant (and a line of Asian stuff that they used to sell at Target, if I'm not mistaken.) This competition is about good taste. It's time for the annual palate test. Everyone's blindfolded and has to taste a variety of pairs of the same ingredients - one is high-end and one is not. Each person has 20 seconds to figure out which is the higher quality - of course, the winning chef gets immunity. Ryan is up first, thinking that his palate is ready to go since he didn't eat breakfast. Whatevs. He gets maple syrup, and picks the right one. Then bacon, which he also aces. Stephanie gets crab wrong. For shame. The contestants go through chocolates, butter and cheeses. Dale got all of the Asian ingredients correct, but screwed up and picked sub-par caviar. Jennifer correctly identified the quality pork, I'm not making a joke about her and pork, because she looks like she can beat the snot out of me. My favorite, Kiwi Mark got one wrong. Faux-hawk Richard seems pretty confident, as does Antonia.

It's time for the results - the loser was Stephanie, with 6 out of 15 correct guesses. The runners-up, with 11 out of 15 correct were Ryan and Jennifer and the winner with 12 out of 15 is Antonia. In this week's elimination, the chefs will be cooking for the Meals on Wheels Chicago Celebrity Chef Ball, catered by some of the cities' top chefs, who are cooking courses 2-4. The gang will have to "set the tone" for the dinner by creating the first course. The theme is the 4 elements - air, earth, water and fire. The chefs pull knives and divide into teams according to each element. They have 15 minutes to devise their game plan, which Faux-hawk Richard says isn't nearly enough time for an event of this magnitude. Team Water is Kiwi Mark, Douchey Andrew and Foamy Richard. Richard suggests raw fish. Team Air (Jennifer, Ryan and Nikki) immediately think of "little birds". Team Earth (Spike, Antonia and Zoi) debate over the merits of butternut squash soup and Antoina reminds her teammates that this is a challenge about high-quality. Spike feels "vulnerable" because Antonia has immunity. Come on Spike, no chef has ever slacked off because they had immunity, they all have reputations to protect. Antonia suggests a carpaccio. Team Fire (Dale, Stephanie and Lisa) go first for the obvious - seared beef - but  Dale doesn't want to be literal and suggests a deviled egg, which doesn't go over well at all with Lisa, who thinks it's "weak". Dale thinks Lisa is a negative person, and doesn't think working with her is going to be a pleasant experience.

The gang arrive at Whole Foods to shop for ingredients - they have $500 and 45 minutes. Faux-hawk Richard is going to poach a fish (in water) to tie into his team's element. Team Air eyes the duck. Team Fire works on conceptualizing their dish. Dale wants to rub a tenderloin with "crazy hot spices" and Lisa thinks they should go with an Asian dish. Dale doesn't want to do Asian. Basically, Lisa wants to kiss Ming Tsai's ass. Spike from Team Earth is worried about their carpaccio and salad. Antonia again stresses the high-quality ingredients they're using. Spike isn't listening and is still trying to push the butternut squash soup. They went to get their filet, which derailed Dale's plans, so they went back to the egg. Lisa's freaking out. Stephanie tried to find a happy medium and suggested grilled shrimp. Now she feels "mostly confident." After shopping, everyone heads to the old Marshall Fields kitchen to prepare their dishes. They have 2 and a half hours to prep and cook. Kiwi Mark said the kitchen was so big that you could probably fit Yankee Stadium in it. Mark, I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate! Everyine scrambles around as always, but Team Sea hides out in a corner. Team Earth's carpaccio is sounding yummy. Spike is still harping on the damn soup. Faux-hawk Richard describes his salmon, cooked in plastic bags. Team Fire decided on shrimps wrapped in bacon with a chili salad. Lisa has a very deliberate technique for cooking bacon - she doesn't just nuke it like the rest of us. Team Air went with a duck breast and salad. Lisa is miffed at Nikki for invading her team's space. Dale hates being around her. Lisa's bacon isn't cooking the way she want it to. Ryan gets frazzled and accidentally dumped out the pomegranate juice his team needed for their cocktail.

Tom arrives to check on the teams' progress. Spike says working with Team Earth has been "a pleasure". Sure it has, soup boy. Tom is desperate to know who's "making" everything for their dish. He visits Team Water, Tom looks quizzical when he heard that Faux-Hawk Richard is poaching his fish - or he just doesn't like their blue aprons. Richard feels he may be losing his touch with charming Tom. Time's winding down. Tom didn't think Team Air had a clear idea of their dish, hoped Team Fire's dish wasn't too spicy, and thought Team Water was a little too over-confident. Zoi hinted that there wasn't much tasting going on. That's always bad.       

It's time for the ball. Each team has prepared 80 portions of their first course for the guests. Richard is nervous because his team is the only one that hasn't started plating their food, and there's only 15 minutes to go. Kiwi Mark asks is the fish should be plated skin up or skin down, and we discover that Richard may not have thought this whole dish through. Andrew found scales on the cooked fish, which was unforgiveable. The servers anxiously await the plates to bring out to the tables. Spike thinks Zoi's mushrooms are under-seasoned (at least he tasted them.) So, Team Water's poached salmon with faux caviar, parsnip puree and watercress salad comes out first. Andrew's woried about the scales on the fish. Ming got a scale. Uh-oh. Dale's stressed since he's trapped back in the kitchen and doesn't know how his dish will fare until they get to the Judges' Table. Team Fire's dish, grilled shrimp with pickled chili salad, deviled aioli and miso smoked bacon is out next. The shrimp gets raves, but some find it spicy. One smart cookie contributes that "it's fire!" Nikki is confident that her team's dish (Team Air's duck breast with citrus salad and pomegranate prosecco apertif) is "quality." The apertif is getting panned, Tom states he hates the little drinks with dishes - Ming says he likes them with dessert. It's time for Antonia to shut Spike up - Team Earth's beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli is out last. Gail thinks their decision to use Rosemary was a "bad idea." Tom calls it "absolutely bland." Oh, please don't let this dish be an excuse for Spike to gloat for the next 25 minutes. The diners filled out comment cards about the dishes. The judges loved the shrimp dish. The scales ruined the salmon. Tom didn't "get" the duck. The carpaccio was the disappointment of the evening. Lisa's feeling good about her dish, and she probably was right to reject the deviled egg. Richard's worried.

Judges' Table. Padma calls the fire team out to meet the judges. No surprise, they were voted the best. The shrimp were spicy "in a good way", according to Gail. Tom was glad that all of their contributions to the dish worked so well together. The winning chef on the team wins a vacation to Busco, Italy - and it's Lisa. Who knew cooking bacon would bring about such accolades? Dale is bitter. The judges want to see Team Earth and Team Water. Faux-Hawk Richard admitted he cooked the fish - but did he clean them - there were scales-o-rama. Richard says he missed a few, but he apparently missed a lot more. Tom thought the salmon was mushy. The judges asked the other twoi boys what they did to contribute to the dish. Andresw said he made the salad and the tapioca caviar. Gail asked him if he had done it before and he said yes. Gail then added that it was bland. Kiwi Mark made the puree. Tom didn't understand why parsnips were involved. Mark thinks the parsnip and vanilla flavors went well with salmon. Tom lets him know he was incorrect in that assumption.

On to Team Earth. Antonia said she thought everyting tasted great, but the judges told her it was bland. Ming thought every element of the dish needed more seasoning. Zoi told the judges that as a team they didn't want to overpower the meat - and she's usually heavy-handed with seasonings. Spike said they should have had lemon and then brought up the fact that he thought they should have made the soup. Enough about the soup! Antonia said she didn't want to do soup and Padma reminded her that she had immunity and all of the judges agreed that soup would have been a much better choice. The teams go back to await the final decision. Spike's pissed that he took the backseat to Antonia. Richard thinks he and his faux-hawk are heading home. It's down to the scaly fish and the bland beef. The carpaccio got the lowest scores from the ball guests. Tom said Zoi and Spike should both head home as they didn't stand up to Antonia.

The judges have made their final decision. Team Earth had the worst dish of the night, and Zoi was sent home. Damn! I was so hoping Soupy Spike was heading home. The lone couple of 'Top Chef' is no more. Obvs, Jennifer is upset. Spike started yelling at Antonia and told her she should have been more considerate and listened to the input of the other members of her team. Antonia said she'd do soup. Jennifer piped in and Spike struck back at her. Dale uses the forum to go on the attack against Lisa. Ooh, tensions are rising - it's on like Donkey Kong with Spike and Jennifer!