Intimidating!

It's the last elimination before the Aspen trip. Who will make it into the final four, and who's dreams will be crushed like some food that you crush?

Quick Fire Challenge: The chefs go to famous NY restaurant Le Cirque, where they are served a classic house dish: halibut wrapped in potato on a bed of come creamy leek deliciousness. As they enoy their meal and the company of Le Cirque's owner, they are given their task -- to recreate the dish they are eating.

chefs grounded

Quick Fire Challenge: Padma sneaks into the Chef's suite at 6 a.m. and demands they make her breakfast. They drag their asses up and out to their transformed kitchen, in an array of nightclothes. In 20 minutes, they have to prepare Padma the perfect breakfast, using a fance blender.

so my dish is...i'm sorry, i can't stop looking at your breasts.

The chefs are still reeling from Tre's departure. Hung thinks Tre was his only real competition. Meanwhile, Casey and Sara notice they're the only ladies around. It'd be nice if they could both make it further.

Quick-Fire Challenge: The guest judge is a Miami chef who says the city's aesthetic is making everything look great and sexy, no matter how high end it may or may not be. To that end, the chefs each pull a number corresponding to an aisle in the supermarket. They must make a dish with only ingredients from that aisle and a few basics given to them in the Top Chef kitchen.

laid back tre

After a draw, Restaurants April and Garage get another chance to wow the judges. Or at least, move them to make a decision. Will dream-team April take the challenge, or do underdogs Garage have some fight in them?

Quick Fire Challenge: Today is a team quick fire, with each restaurant competing for extra wine money and the help of a sommelier (who turns out to be past contestant Steven). The challenge is a line cook-off, with four rounds: oyster shelling, onion dicing, chicken butchering, and an egg separating and beating. After initially falling behind, Garage wins this one handily, as April's Casey spends an eternity chopping her onions.

you're undecided now, so what are you gonna do?

Apologies, but with the way this episode of Top Chef ends, "war" just isn't an appropriate term.

Quick-Fire: The chefs must make an upscale burger for French cooking legend Daniel Boulud. This is the first Quick-Fire that doesn't carry immunity for the winner, which as most chefs note, indicates that the game is on. A lot of the contestants go the seafood route, making burgers with shrimp, scallops and other things I don't eat. CJ ends up winning, and he gets the benefit of being able to choose his team for the upcoming elimination challenge...the much-anticipated restaurant war!

woo! food truck!

Will another team challenge mean more trouble with Howie? Does the pope wear a funny hat?

Quick-Fire: The chefs have to make their own Coldstone Creamery mix-ins. The guest judge tells the chefs to keep it simple, but Hung decides to go crazy in the opposite direction, adding a ton of bizarre ingredients to his ice cream. Dale, who follows directions with a peach cobbler mix-in takes the day, and has immunity.

Two fellas who don't have the teamwork to make the dream work.

After a way premature Q&A week, the Chefs are back! And they're...making a Bertolli frozen dinner for guest judge Rocco DiSpirito. Rocco looks like a live Tin Tin, if Tin Tin was an asshole and sans-Snowy.

Quick-Fire: The chefs are given a food quiz. Overconfident Hung blows it by choosing not to taste an item before guessing what it is, giving me (and the other contestants, I am sure) a laugh. Casey ends up winning the quiz, which earns her immunity.

Lia is sad that Camille left. Joey feels he needs to step up his game. He calls himself "the great wuss." Hung is still (annoyingly) confident about his kitchen skills. According to him, it's all about "finesse, style, grace and elegance" (all of this from the chef who is constantly running willy-nilly around the kitchen.)

It's time for the Quickfire. The guest judge is famed pastry chef/restaurant owner (Miami's Duo) Maria Frumkin. The challenge is all about timing. The chefs are going to work with the most time-saving culinary innovation of the 20th century - frozen pie crust. Dale's not happy about the pie crust after last weeks disaster. They can use the pie crust however they want in 90 minutes. Padma expects miracles. Hung loves banana cream pie - but decides to do a chocolate mousse. Dale's "jacked to make this Quickfire happen" so he can redeem himself after last week's debacle. Sara M. decides to tackle some rabbit. Joey confesses that he actually does have some pastry experience. Lia decides to stick with what she knows and goes for the savory. Howie chooses the "cooks desert" of tarts. Hung's mousse isn't setting. Tre expresses his femimine side with his dish and adds some heart and star-shaped pastry accents. Ha! Hung's pie ended up a tad runny, so he used strawberry slices along the sides to hide his mistake. Dale's confident he's made his 2 best dishes of the competition. Let's see what Maria has to say.

this is not how you make pineapple upside down cake

Hung thinks he's above everything, Joey complains, and some of the contestants make a bad choice: it's just another week on Top Chef!

Quick-Fire Challenge: The chefs have to prepare an appetizer to compliment one of many Bombay Sapphire Gin drinks. The drinks look fruity and delicious, but Hung isn't interested. He thinks hard alcohol is for suckers (I might agree, on certain Sunday mornings...). After a half an hour of kitchen madness, Casey wins with a yummy-looking take on french toast. Hung is told his dish doesn't pair well with his drink, to which he obnoxiously retorts, "oh, interesting, for the first time in culinary history, sweet doesn't go with creamy, DOUCHE!" (or something like that).

What did Tom think? I'll just repeat that.

I know Padma is probably cute, but come on. Is she really a food critic? How many times in this episode could they show her repeating Tom Colicchio's thoughts, only more emphatically?

QUICK FIRE CHALLENGE: Today's quick fire involves scooping shellfish out of a giant tank and cooking up a delicious seafood dish for Padma and guest judge, Chef Alfred Portale. Hung disappoints everyone by scooping an excessive amount of shellfish out. I wish someone would yell "the ocean called, they're running out of shrimp." Even worse, evil Hung drops a crawfish on the floor and leaves it behind. This disgusts Lia, who thinks there's a way things happen in the kitchen, and it doesn't including the meaningless death of crustaceans.