Top Chef: Egg Sluts And Frozen Melons

Hello again fellow ‘Gasmicians! Are you excited about the impending holidays that are just around the corner? Does the chilly weather and picturesque snowfall outside make you feel warm inside and smile to yourself as you bake cookies with the help of your loving spouse and adoring children? Is it all but impossible to keep from breaking into spontaneous caroling (plus choreography!) as you wander along the twinkly-lit walkways of the mall, grinning at other shoppers, laden with bags containing special hand-picked purchases that are sure to bring a gasp of joy and a rapturous smile to the faces of the recipients? Or, are you like me, fighting a growing sense of terror and doom as the tension mounts and December 25 hurtles your way with all the finesse of a handjob given by an epileptic hooker? Do you feel your body breaking down and getting sick as you work extra hours to make extra money to buy some slick useless trinket so the hubbywife and li’l snotbrats won’t be so pissy about you being gone all the time working extra hours to make extra money? Has the idea of stinkbombing Best Buy or nut-punching the Salivation Army Bell-Ringers started to take on an unhealthy yet attractive glow in your mind? Well, stick around, cuz I’m right there with you guys, and to make us all feel a little better I’ll be taking aim with both chubby barrels at a Christmas Classic next week. Also, I always keep a few copies of Ethel Merman’s disco album on hand to give as gifts to people who have pissed me off this year (and for those family members who just don’t know any better)…

the day disco really died

My point is, pressure situations can drive normal people to do abnormal things, especially if you’re on a reailty TV show and you’re worried that you’re going to come off like a complete fucknut when you serve raw fish or wet bacon or tasteless eggs. Some people take that pressure and start giving themselves pep-talks out loud, which are annoying, but sometimes can be useful (I have to admit, I do this, but mostly in the car where no one can hear me saying “Girl, getcho shit together and turn this motherfucker OUT!” and then singing Patti LaBelle songs). Other people, well, they become nasty shrieking harpies who manage to crazily incinerate most of their popularity with the viewers in 2 or 3 minutes of screen-time. And their names rhyme with Jitter Ben. And still other people skate through by pooh-poohing everything and then pretending that their carotid artery runs through their fingertips…

while surreptitiously mining for boogies

But we’ll come back to Miss Turtle Soupmaster later on, we’ve got a show to talk about. This week’s episode starts off much like last week’s, with empty sets and serious-sounding music, eventually settling on the chefs in the Stew Room directly in the wake of the Great Bitter-Jen Freak-Out Of 2010™. If the Useless Turtle looks guilty here, perhaps it’s because she knows she might have come up with an even worse idea than soggy bacon and unseasoned eggs (after all, she did admit to having helped conceptualize that little breakfast abortion) and maybe she’s realizing that she will long run out of body parts to superficially injure before the Finale comes, so she might have to, you know, cook something.

Meanwhile, the departure of his one and only Vegas castmate has really affected Sexist Pigshit’s mood…

but not his appetite

He seems pissed that Jen is gone instead the Jamie Turdle, since Jen was a much stronger chef. Then we find out for sure that Turdle’s decision to go to the hospital for two lousy stitches was a choice she made, not a mandate from the medic on hand, because LowFatSo’s berating her and telling her she should have shut up, taped the gaping wound closed, and continued with the challenge…

“In fact, that’s what I’m gonna do to your vagina if you ever pull that bullshit again.”

Even more damning is the fact that Turdle just sits there and takes it. You and I both know if this were an untrue accusation she would be screaming at the top of her lungs at LowFatSo and threatening her with violence from the Lesbian Mafia. Instead, she just stares sadly at the 23 millimeters of slightly-bloody gauze wrapped around her finger. I hope that right there is her main masturbatory finger.

In any case, as the sun rises on a slightly less-bitter world, the chefs walk in to the Top Chef Barbie Dreamhouse Kitchen™ to find…

Indian Barbie™ and her best Gaysian

KIDDING! Just because you stand with the posture of a drag queen running for Miss Gay Kwik-E-Mart 2010 doesn’t make you a big ol’ cocksmokin’ hommasexshul. That’s David Chang, and he’s a mouthy New York chef who has a restaurant group he named MoMoFuckYou, which makes him kinda cool in my opinion. He’s also partially responsible for the crowning of JerseyMoobs as last season’s Top Chef, which makes him kind of an asshole, too…

albeit an asshole with a divinely waggly sardonic eyebrow and a Drag-Queen-With-A-Juicy-Secret™ Smile

Seriously, can’t you see that same purse-lipped expression on the face of Miss JuJuBee if she had just watched Tyra Sanchez get drunk and fall off the stage (again!) during the show at Club Schlong’s? In any case, several of the cheftestants are in awe of Chag Queen’s restaurant group, and especially of the fact that he co-owns the upscale Manhattan restaurant Má Pêche (which means “My Dick” in English, as in “you can all suck it”) and also because he can do an eerily spot-on Margaret Cho impersonation.

Let’s move on. Scar says this week’s QuickFire Challenge will test their skillz against the clock, and proceeds to split them into four teams based on the random order in which they arrived in the Dreamhouse Kitchen. This means we get OranJello, FahBeeOh, ChesTiffany and (ugh!) Sexist Pigshit coming together, which leads FahBeeOh to interview how great they all are, even if OranJello “wayre heez pantz a leedle too tight-a.” Oh shut up, weak link, you’re the Cindy Birdsong in this particular LaBelle combination.

Anyhow, the next team is comprised of Dung v2.0, TurkeyHair, Bitchani and Beaker, so we’ve got a yin-yang thang going on, followed by an all-girls squad of LowFatSo, Turdle, Bunny Foo Foo and Gayle. who is just dying to squeal with delight. He better not, cuz the Chag Queen would most certainly join him and it’d take 10 minutes to get the two of them to stop jumping up and down. Anyhow, this leaves an all-boys group consisting of AssBurrito, Lunch Tray, BlazeHawk and EvangelAss, who immediately jokes that the best AssBurrito’s gonna be able to do is open a bottle of wine for them…

whatever would go best with cracked cheekbones

He’s totally right, but still, they don’t even know what they’re doing yet. EvangelAss’d be eating his dirty-haired words if it turned out to really be some kind of wine challenge. But it’s not, because this is a variation of the now-standard mise en place race. This time, instead of each team member being assigned a separate leg of the race, the teams have to simultaneously prep three different ingredients (rack of lamb, garlic cloves, and artichokes) to the satisfaction of Madame Chag Queen and her ultra-high standards. THEN, each team will be responsible for making one dish using all of these ingredients. Wellnow, that sounds easy enough, where’s the challenge?

Well, it turns out that the first team to finish prepping all of their ingredients gets to run and hit an As-Seen-On-TV Tap-Light™ which in turn will start the countdown of a fifteen minute timer. This means that every team who finishes their mise en place prep work after the first one will have less and less time in which to prepare their dish. That’s a pretty awesome challenge…

also awesome is the fact that I used to have one of these in my closet to help me find my underwear

The winning team does not get immunity. Instead, each team member will be handed $5,000 in cold hard erection-inducing cash…

aaand Beaker just got her first boner

Ronda and Juanita look very uncomfortable now, because you can’t spirit-guide someone who has a hardon, there just isn’t enough blood left in their brain to take directions. Anyhow, the teams pick stations and apron colors, and start the race! Over at Team Assholes’N'Awesome, Sexist Pigshit says he and OranJello are attacking the lamb, ChesTiffany’s hacking apart artichokes and FahBeeOh is smartly using two large cutting boards to smash apart the maximum amount of garlic cloves at once. Pigshit reminds us of his Greek Food handicap background and says this qualifies him to handle the lamb like an expert. We will soon see.

Lunch Tray is not quite as confident over at Team Boyz Club, saying that at his restaurant they have actual butchers who do this kind of thing…

and then he makes another one of his awesome Tray Faces™

Of course, TurkeyHair is giggling like an HSN hostess on nitrous-oxide and yelling out loud how much fun this all is. The rest of his Team Yin-Yang look rather grim as they slave away at their ingredients, but his spirits are high because he learned this awesome technique to get lamb off the rack by just hammering it downward from the bones so it comes off quickly, which is great and all, but that’s not going to win this race for the team, so I don’t know why he’s so impressed with himse– OK, well duh, this is TurkeyHair, of course he’s always impressed with himself.

Checking in with Team Chix With Dix, Gayle says he’s going to slice up the artichokes (clearly the job that calls for someone ultra-BUTCH) while LowFatSo and Turdle smash garlic cloves and Bunny Foo Foo hacks away at the lamb. He mentions that he doesn’t believe Bunny has ever lived down the Season 3 mise en place relay in which it took her 37 minutes to dice one onion (and she cried the entire time)…

but of course Gayle remembers it vividly, and reminds everyone at every opportunity

He should really shut it, because LowFatSo is peeling one garlic clove at a time, while FahBeeOh is walloping through forty with each mighty clap of his cutting boards, and now Team Assholes’N'Awesome gets the approval from Madame Chag Queen that their garlic is finished to his satisfaction. The other teams all start shitting their pants, and BlazeHawk from Team Boyz Club starts yelling at AssBurrito to start smashing the garlic the way FahBeeOh did. He’s still not fast enough to please EvangelAss, who pushes his way into AssBurrito’s workspace and starts wildly chopping shit up with his knives, sending hunks of garlic clove flying everywhere, and ensuring that no one will want to get near his stank ass the rest of the day…

although I bet the scent of EvangelAss overpowers garlic any day

Meanwhile, Team Yin-Yang is taking their sweet time to do everything else, regardless of TurkeyHair’s awesome meat-beating secrets. Dung v2.0 is complaining that he can’t help out on the garlic because his hands are all full of lamb fat (I guess using a moist towelette is beyond him). Bitchani is running each individual clove of garlic through a handheld slide-slicer thingy (I forget the technical term, someone please help me out) and Beaker is apparently working on the artichokes with Dung and listening to Ronda and Juanita babble back and forth about who actually said no one wanted Camille Grammer around without Kelsey. In the midst of all this, Sexist Pigshit calls for Team Assholes’N'Awesome’s lamb to be checked by Chag Queen. They pass! Now they have two parts completed before ANY of the other teams even have ONE.

Finally, Team Chix With Dix calls for their garlic to be checked, and they pass… but immediately thereafter, Team Assholes’N'Awesome calls for their artichoke hearts to be checked… and they pass, sending Sexist Pigshit rushing to the front to hit the Tap-Light and start the 15 minute countdown. More shit sprays inside more panties as the other teams realize their time to cook is now dwindling away. Bunny Foo Foo is trying to remain calm, though, reminding us that just because someone has more time to cook, it doesn’t mean their dish is going to be any better-tasting…

“After all, you can make Easy Mac™ in only 4 minutes.”

Boyz Club gets their artichokes done, Yin-Yang gets their lamb, followed by the Boyz and THEIR lamb. However, when EvangelAss calls for Chag Queen to check their garlic, he pronounces the pieces too large and makes him re-chop them. Finally they finish and are the second team to start cooking their dish with 12:12 left on the clock.

Chix With Dix finally get their lamb and artichokes squared away at 10:41. They decide to serve a raw lamb carpaccio due to lack of time because then they don’t have to waste any of it actually cooking stuff. I’m hoping those lambs weren’t raised near Chernobyl. Meanwhile, BlazeHawk has appointed himself as the leader of the Boyz Club because “there’s just no time for it to be a democracy” as he’s barking out orders to everyone else…

just so you know, Blazey, the editors hate your hair, too… that’s why they keep cutting it out of the frame in your interviews… they are trying to do you a favor

Finally, with only 8:40 left, Team Yin-Yang gets their artichokes and garlic okayed, and also decide to make a raw lamb carpaccio due to lack of time. Great, now Scar and Chag Queen have two chances to catch ringworm. Over at Team Assholes’N'Awesome, OranJello’s calmly plating their dish and saying he feels really confident about it, which I think we all know by know means they are not going to win. I will blame Sexist Pigshit in advance for this failure. Oh well, time’s up, lets see how Team Yin-Yang did…

they certainly know how to make a rectangle

And hey, they used all three of their ingredients… but not as many times as Team Boyz Club did!…

when in doubt, make shit 2 or 3 different ways

Chag Queen asks about their spice combo, and EvangelAss mentions it has garlic, fish sauce and lime juice, which seems to please the Chag Queen because he tells them “Nice job.” and the Boyz Club nearly erupts with joy…

what a boner quartet looks like

They approach Team Chix With Dix and Scar says “Hello, ladies!” completely forgetting that Gayle is standing there, too…

ah, gays… we never mind if you lump us in with the girls

For realsies, if that had been EvangelAss or Sexist Pigshit or Dung v2.0, there would have been much yo-yo-yo-ing and self-junk-grabbing done to prove they weren’t one of the “ladies”. Then Scar and Chag Queen would have barfed, and I bet lamb carpaccio isn’t that attractive when it’s all lovely and chewed-up amongst little bits of artichoke. With that thought in mind, let’s see how Chix With Dix dish turned out…

welcome to Carpaccio: Legacy

They get no reaction, and Scar and Chag Queen finish up with Team Assholes’N'Awesome’s full fifteen-minute fantasy…

and what a shocker, a dish that Sexist Pigshit makes has yogurt in it

It doesn’t help that when OranJello begins describing the dish, he calls the lamb “beautifully cooked”, which sounds a little presumptuous. Especially when it looks like it’s slathered in Thousand Island dressing. FAIL. It becomes even more obvious that they lost when we have Sexist Pigshit interviewing that he feels good about the dish and is already counting that $5,000 in his pocket. Yeah, I strongly suspect he’ll still be buying 8-balls and hookers on his own dime at this time tomorrow.

Sure enough, Chag Queen doesn’t like their dish, saying that their use of thyme and dill “blew out” the flavor of the yogurt. OranJello is super embarrassed, what with them having had the most time out of everyone to prepare their dish, and seems puzzled that it didn’t work…

the Citrus One struggles to understand the meaning of the words “least favorite”

Well, if they had left that overly-spiced yogurt shit out (I’m looking at Sexist Pigshit here) then perhaps they would have won. Anyhow, also not a favorite is Team Chix With Dix, and also because of overseasoning, the parmesan and parsley overwhelmed everything else on the plate. This means the favorite dishes were from Team Yin-Yang (who finished last in the race and had less time to cook than everybody else) because their crapaccio was such a “unique” way to serve the lamb raw, and because of it’s hidden complexity… and Team Boyz Club. Chag Queen says he really enjoyed their “bold flavors” which is a phrase that Hoser from Season Five has ruined for us all. In the end, the Boyz Club takes the prize, winning no immunity and $5,000 each for EvangelAss, Lunch Tray, BlazeHawk and AssBurrito, who is already planning out his next shiny-tie-and-oddly-collared shirt purchases. Naturally, BlazeHawk thinks this win means he’s gained trust from his teammates because he steamrolled over them took the lead and made a winning dish come together. I bet if you asked the other three fellas, they’d all say the same thing…

about themselves

Let’s move on to the Elimination Challenge, K? Scar says that New York City is considered the Restaurant Capital Of The World™ by “many people” (I’m guessing mostly New Yorkers) and that the chefs will be able to experience one of four “elite restaurants” as an insider. I hope this means they get to be waitresses, i would love to see Sexist Pigshit being forced to get Diet Cokes for a tableful of New York Lesbians. But no, they’re going to be eating the food of some award-winning chefs, and then the next day they will have to create a dish that these highly-decorated chefs would love to feature on their own menu. Let’s draw knives to see where everyone gets to go!

Team Assholes’N'Awesome draws Chag Queen’s very own restaurant Má Pêche, which excites OranJello to no end because, SURPRISE, it’s an Asian-influenced restaurant (Vietnamese-French to be exact) and he calls the food there “straight up yummy”. Team Chix With Dix draws Townhouse, which belongs to David Burke, whom you may remember from Season Two of Top Chef Masters, not because he won, but because he makes things like salmon lollipops and has an entire line of insanely-overpriced “Flavor Sprays” and a non-working website with which to sell them…

remember this bullshit?

I still have to admire Big Burke for his monumental balls, he created a line of diet foods, and then slapped a picture of his fat ass on the label. In any case, it’s Team Boyz Club’s turn to draw, and they land an Italian place called Marea, which is co-owned by another fatboy named Michael White. Lastly, Team Yin-Yang chooses wd~50, the restaurantal experiment headed up by none other than the man who managed to lose during both seasons of Top Chef Masters, the sweet but greasy-haired Wylie Dufresne, a.k.a. The Doof!…

seriously, when you can stand next to the dirty New Zealander cheftestant (Mark) from Top Chef Season Four and make him look like a Pantene Pro-V commercial, you need a better hairstyle

Still, The Doof is a nice guy, he’s pretty good natured and down-to-earth, especially for someone who does so much of that molecular gastronomy stuff. Most people who engage in that type of cooking tend to be, well, out-and-out assholes…

whose names rhyme with LurkeyNair

Oh yes, make no mistake that TurkeyHair is excited about getting to dine at wd~50, although not totally as we will find out in a few minutes. In any case, Scar reminds them that they will all be working as individuals this time, they are now competing against their fellow teammates… and two people will be going home. I geeve you three-a guezzes who eez no so eggside about have too cook Viednameeze-Frendch food-a…

firzd two guezz doan cound

Well, that’s what happens when you cook yourself into a bit of a culinary corner, you can’t always expect a perfect match-up like OranJello with Asian, or TurkeyHair with molecular gastritis, or Turdle with whatever the hell kind of food she’s good at. FahBeeOh’s just pissed that he didn’t wind up going to Marea.

So the diners get changed up and head out to their respective restaurants to start dinner. OK, I have to admit, I would so totally enjoy the experience of eating in a really fine restaurant. Especially if I’m not the one paying for it. But yeesh, in this economy, when I can get bulk mac’n'cheese by the case for less than $30.00, it’s hard to justify eating someplace where you are charged for every individual pea having been hand washed and lovingly dried before being lightly shoved in a blender and expertly smooshed into a purée that I would never eat because I don’t like peas. So let’s watch several people we don’t know do it instead…

Starting out at Má Pêche, Mama Chag Queen comes out to greet Team Assholes’N'Awesome, and when he explains that the premise of the place is French-Vietnamese food, ChesTiffany is unable to conceal her instant knee-jerk dislike reaction…

maybe she forgot that’s the owner standing directly in front of her

I can’t decide if she’s being an asshole or awesome here, so let’s just say assome. At least to start with, but as the meal progresses and OranJello begins to dominate the conversation talking incessantly about how brilliant the food is, ChesTiff becomes annoyed and wishes he would STFU. One one hand, I can totally see her point, cuz OranJello’s descriptions and dissertations would mean nothing to me, I’d be starting to throw sugar packets and silverware and lit candles at him myself, but on the other hand, this is exactly the kind of food that really gets him excited and he’s clearly in heaven having a chance to enjoy it and wants to talk about it with someone… and all he’s got is ChesTiffany (who couldn’t care less), Sexist Pigshit (who only cares about Greek food and misogyny) and FahBeeOh (who’s shitting a pasta brick because he only knows Italian and has no idea how to emulate or be inspired by Franco-Vietnamese flavas).

Let’s see how dinner with the Boyz Club is going over at Marea, where FahBeeOh would kill to be assigned. EvangelAss is already spouting that their group has the best restaurant of the four (even though they’ve only been served water so far) and how lucky is it that he just happens to say this within earshot of the owner Michael White?…

he better have extra strong lips, cuz that’s a lotta ass to kiss

Eh, I’m betting that Moby White has lived in NYC long enough to be able to spot a sycophant like EvangelAss from far, far away. Anyhow, their meal begins with an appetizer made of sea urchin on crostini, and I guess this must be Night Of The Easily Annoyed Black Chefs™, because Lunch Tray is getting pissed that AssBurrito keeps urging him to try it, even though Tray clearly says sea urchin is not his favorite food. It turns out that AssBurrito eats at Marea quite often and is emulating OranJello in his discourse and admiration of the food. I’m kinda not liking Lunch Tray when he complains that AssBurrito’s prior knowledge of the place makes him “kind of arrogant” and insists that he’s “not gonna be educated” by AssBurrito because he has his own palate, dammit!

OK, sorry, but that just sounds childish and needlessly obstinate. If AssBurrito eats at this place a lot and is well-versed with the food and it’s methodology, wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn whatever it is he knows about it? Especially if he’s familiar with the menu and can make recommendations of things to try…

although it looks like endorsing the sea urchin may have been a mistake

As their meal progresses, BlazeHawk is noticing how simple and elegant everything is, and this worries him because he has a tendency to forget to use the “edit” button in his dishes. Also, he tries to make everything look like a scallop.

Next, we zizz on over to wd~50 where Team Yin-Yang is dining in a much less formal setting (possibly a chef’s table in the kitchen). The Doof comes out to greet them and promises a great menu. Beaker is understandably nervous here, because using xanthan gum and liquid nitrogen and thermal immersion circulators does not clearly speak to the kind of love-cooking she does. However, instead of getting all pissy and digging in her heels, she’s opened her mind and hopes to use the experience as an opportunity to “marry classic and modern” cuisine…

behold the goddess of love-cooking

You have to hand it to Beaker, because the Doof’s food is not easy to get inspired by, especially when the first thing he serves is an “aerated fois gras mousse”…

that strongly resembles cork board

Meanwhile, TurkeyHair can barely sit down because his hardon for this place is so big and painful, and he’s feeling so inspired. Next to him, Dung v2.0 is recalling that he read somewhere of The Doof’s love for eggs, and has decided if he’s going to make something risky, it might as well be with an ingredient that Wylie loves to eat (and therefore might be slightly more forgiving on). Unfortunately, as the meal wears on and more and more strange and beautiful courses are laid out, Beaker finds herself wondering whether or not she’s going to be able to pull this off and becoming more and more nervous…

or maybe she sees Ronda and Juanita making obscene gestures at TurkeyHair

Our last group tonight is Team Chix With Dix, and they’re settling down to a meal at Big Burke’s Townhouse after the big man himself comes out and greets them, promising that he has “treats” in store for them…

that is, if you consider getting a fish served with your martini a “treat”

This is followed by “Scallops Benedict” and “Sea Urchin Sabayon” and “Angry Lobster” and Turdle’s starting to look downright scared of the food they’re being served…

perhaps because she’s realizing they’re not going to be impressed by one of her signature soups

Gayle’s not worried, though, cuz he says his style is already wacky and he thinks Big Burke’s playfulness and whimsicality are awesome. Not as excited are LowFatSo and Bunny Foo Foo, both of whom are clearly overwhelmed by the elaborate plating and crazy combinations…

btw, Bravo, way to FAIL on spelling Daddy Tom’s name right

I guess Miss Andy must be letting his one-night-stands have internships at the network again. I’m pretty sure that who’s maintaining bravotv.com as well. In any case, the following day the groups all return to their respective restaurants to begin the two hours of cooking time allotted to make their inspired dishes. Remember, that’s only two hours… BlazeHawk.

Sexist Pigshit makes sure to reinforce his negative image in the kitchens at Má Pêche, dismissively snotting that ChesTiffany’s raw fish dish with 2 elements on it should probably take her about “8 minutes to make” and therefore his only real competition there is going to be OranJello. What makes it even more insulting is he said this just after he got done asking Tiff to taste his food… and she had the courtesy to refrain from spitting it out and running full speed, screaming and gagging, towards the bathroom to drink some Dran-O. Anyhow, he says if he can beat The Citrus One “at his own game” it will make the win even better…

shut up and have another sammich Pigshit

Over in the Big Burke Townhouse part of town, Team Chix With Dix is desperately trying to live up to the impossibly high standards of a man who could convince people to pay $6 a bottle to spray chemical flavoring onto already-naturally-flavored food. LowFatSo hopes to take peas and carrots and turn them into “a two Michelin star dish”. The only way i could see that happening is if she forms them into the actual shape of a Michelin Star. Gayle, on the other hand, is happily using some kind of urine-colored popcorn butter in his dish, and I can’t wait to see what it’s going to become.

In the wacky land of wd~50, Beaker is calmly putting liquid nitrogen on something (sadly, it’s not TurkeyHair’s screaming face) and is reminiscing about the time that she and Bunny Foo Foo tried to sous vide some meat and it didn’t work out so well (a.k.a. The Deep Dark Day That Hoser Became Top Chef) so instead of trying to push the envelope into super-far-out regions of space, she’s working within the comfort zone of her comfort food and hoping her dish will be something The Doof would consider putting on his menu. Can I say again how much I love this woman?…

and her double goggleglasses look

Things are not as calm in the kitchens of Marea, where AssBurrito seems to be having a helluva time getting the Vita-Prep™ blender to work properly, much to the eye-rolling derision of Lunch Tray, EvangelAss and BlazeHawk, who says AssBurrito is “out of place” and “looks like he’s never gonna make it”…

but then he finally found the “liquefy” button, and everything turned out all right

I swear, AssBurrito is the only man I’ve ever seen who looks more uncomfortable out of a tie. Anyhow, their time finally runs out, and a taxi has pulled up and disgorged Scar, Daddy Tom, Anthony Dis-Dain, Moby White, and an incredibly plain woman by the name of Kate Krader who is unfortunately sporting an Eddie Munster hairline…

and a face to match

Poor KraderFace, she seems really sweet, and she’s a colleague of Gail Simmons’ over at Food & Whine Magazine, so I’m sure she’s good people, but her lizard-like eyes scare me a little. Anyhow, let’s get it started with Lunch Tray’s dish…

which looks like a dinosaur that got smushed by a falling load of bricks

Next to present is EvangelAss, who uses as many Italian-sounding words in his dish description as possible…

and let’s be clear, that’s pronounced “veen-a-GRET-tuh”

I think he forgot to add the Italian words for “this is a hot mess”. In any case, after EvangelAss comes BlazeHawk’s dish…

who cleverly served his food on an appetizingly bloodshot eyeball

They do know they have a choice of plates, don’t they? Oh well, let’s see if AssBurrito’s Vita-Prep troubles followed him onto the finished dish…

no, but serving the food from the sawed-off skull-top is another epic plating FAIL

Hope none of the judges have allergies. They dig in, and Scar says the skin on EvangelAss fish is nice and crispy, and Daddy Tom agrees. But Moby White says texture is very important to him, and he is not liking how “loose” the dish is. Dis-Dain says EvangelAss didn’t do himself any favors by calling it a “caponata”, because it gave them the expectation of something completely different.

KraderFace pipes up to say she thinks BlazeHawk’s dish is elegant and tasty, and Moby White agrees. Dis-Dain thinks it’s beautiful and sends my jaw dropping when he calls it “flavor forward”. Now that’s a buzzword I haven’t heard before! I’m in love and I think I will make sure to use it very loudly the next time I bite into a McRib.

They try AssBurrito’s salmon dish, and it’s never a good sign when Daddy Tom compliments your garnish. KraderFace complains that the amount of fennel in the dish is really aggressive…

while making an appropriately aggressive testicle-ripping hand gesture

She should never frown. Ever. Dis-Dain goes even further and exclaims “It tastes like a head-shop!”, which makes Daddy Tom laugh, and Scar look guilty all over again. As for Lunch Tray’s swordfish, Moby White thinks it’s aesthetically pleasing in it’s simplicity, Daddy Tom is enjoying how nicely cooked the fish is, and KraderFace says his mushroom panna cotta is delicious…

even if it does resemble digging into a pile of cold gray snot

They’re finished here, and KraderFace is rasping about how nice the meal was…

while Moby White and Scar fervently wish she wouldn’t frown anymore either

They hop back in a cab and start heading over to Má Pêche, where FahBeeOh is currently complaining that him having to make Vietnamese-French food “eez lige too ask an Ayzhun Gromma too mayge frehje pazta an ossobucco and pleeze mee! Zo eef yoo reely guyz donna wanna me heer, ees ohkay, I underestandeet!” Yes, FahBeeOh, this entire challenge was engineered just to get rid of yoooooooou, mwuhahahahahahaha! Putz.

OranJello’s been exhilarated to work in Chag Queen’s kitchen these past two hours, and he’s so inspired that he decides to add some white chocolate to his surf’n'turf platter because he thinks that’s a really ballsy move. Nooooooooooooo, Citrus, it may be ballsy, but it also sounds stupid! Aiyee, he sure knows how to make everyone worry!

Team Assholes’N'Awesome come out together (for the last time, thankfully) and begin to present their food to the Judges, who have replaced Moby White with Madame Chag Queen. They begin with FahBeeOh’s dish…

which has all the finesse of a 70′s back-alley abortion that somebody spit on

Dear. God. In. Heaven. Without even seeing any of the other dishes, i call him as the loser for this bunch. Now we get ChesTiffany’s Eight Minute Special™…

which actually only took four minutes

Sorry, but eating a geometric series of circles and lines does not look very hearty or filling…

and Daddy Tom looks like he’s not hungry for Math On A Plate™ either

Then again, maybe math is secretly what Chag Queen is all about, which is sooooo stereotypical. Anyhow, here’s Sexist Pigshit’s dish…

which looks a lot like ChesTiffany’s dish, only in 3D

Lastly, we have OranJello’s crazy white-chocolate overturned Christmas Tree…

all it needs is some twinkling lights and scattered presents

I am so scared for how they’re going to react to this… but then Dis-Dain says he thinks it’s really creative and flavorful, and KraderFace says the idea of white chocolate on fish sounds crazy but it actually works and is exciting. Chag Queen himself loves the salmon roe and feels the flavors, while bold, were in balance with each other, calling the whole thing innovative and stylish. The Citrus One, crouching by the kitchen door and listening, just jizzed in his Jockeys.

As for Sexist Pigshit’s offering, I was hoping they’d hate it, but Dis-Dain also finds it flavorful (but not “flavor-forward”, so HA) and likes that it’s not over-the-top. Chag Queen points out that except for the salmon, almost all of the other components are ones that were served to Pigshit during the previous night’s dinner, so he proclaims the dish “solid”. I think he should have proclaimed it “a rip-off”. Daddy Tom just likes the eggplant, so…

yay, another solid meh

Next, they dig into FahBeeOh’s massive mushfuck. Daddy Tom says he’s having a hard time trying to figure the dish out. Chag Queen goes balls to the wall and says it’s heavy and contains a lot of ingredients that he would never put together, while Dis-Dain says he’s sensing a talented chef who got “hopelessly lost”. Mayhap this is the last time I have to transcribe that stupid accent.

Finally, they grab their protractors and compasses and dive into the matrix that is ChesTiffany’s Tron-like fare. KraderFace says it’s good, but is missing something to elevate it. Chag Queen snorts that it’s clearly something that you would see at a lot of other restaurants, so I guess she gets no points for originality. He does say, however, that all of the food was tasty and there was nothing he would be embarrassed to serve on his menu, which is really nice of him considering he pretty much just called Tiff’s dish boring and repetitive.

The judges cab it over to Townhouse to meet up with Big Burke for more wacky whimsyness at the hands of Team Chix With Dix, and back in the kitchen, Gayle’s nerves are starting to show as he feeds Bunny Foo Foo every single one of the 4329 ingredients in his dish and breathlessly asks for her opinion of them. Remember the pee-butter for your popcorn? I hear him now mentioning something about french toast as well, so WTF? Let’s see exactly what kind of culinary genderfuck he’s been up to…

ok, words cannot describe, but let me try: insane, suicidal, A.D.D., fucked

Once again, without even seeing any of the other dishes… Let’s check out LowFatSo and her version of the now-dreaded pea purée…

ah, scallops on a bed of Lymon

If nothing else, I’m betting Big Burke will like her bright primary colors. Then we get Bunny Foo Foo’s dish…

which is sadly yet another entry into the Let’s-Make-Everything-Look-Like-A-Scallop category… zzzzzzzz

Seriously, what in the blue fuck is so goddamned fascinating about scallops that everyone on this show wants to make everything look like them??!? You know what else looks like scallops? Biscuits! Moon Pies! Beef Medallions! Crab Cakes! Finger Sammiches! Hockey Pucks! Pretty much anything you can form into a flat cylindrical shape! (((deep breath))) Sorry about the rant, but this kind of bullshit really pisses me off (and we can thank BlazeHawk for it, cuz I think he was the first one to do it with bananas in Season 4). So. Not. Original. Bunny.

Also riding along on the Unoriginality Express is Turdle, who has *gasp*…

shockingly presented them with soup

Plus salad, don’t forget her salad. When she brought the plates out, she had these glass fishbowls containing smoke placed upside down over the soup bowls, I guess to infuse the smoke into the soup. After they dig in, Dis-Dain asks if having the smoke actually added anything to the flavor of the soup. The consensus is no, and Big Burke thinks Turdle could have been more creative and had “more wow factor”. Perhaps she should have used menthol smoke.

They dig into Gayle’s scary funhouse dish, and Scar immediately clocks it as being a sweet dish with a big hunk of veal stuck into it. Big Burke says he actually likes the combination and what Gayle was thinking about, but the french toast is “too sweet”…

congratulations, Gayle, you just managed to make something too sweet for a fat guy

Next they’re trying Bunny Foo Foo’s “Scallibut” dish, and it now becomes obvious that KraderFace is new to the show, because she calls it “a brilliant idea” and “so smart”. Barf. Big Burke says the look of it is something they could definitely put on the menu, and Scar praises the fish for being perfectly cooked. As for LowFatSo’s Lymon Fantasy, Daddy Tom immediately says she wasn’t shy with the salt shaker, but Big Burke says he actually likes “assertive seasoning” and finds the colors playful, so he would definitely feature this on his menu.

Back in the kitchen, LowFatSo has Turdle taste her dish and asks if it’s too salty, and Turdle says no, but admits that she likes salt. Turdle, in turn, is worried that her amazing soup dish might be too simple, as Bunny Foo Foo is tasting it and saying there’s hardly any smoke flavor in it at all. Or, you know, effort…

too bad it can’t win you Top Chef

The judges take off for the last stop, which is wd~50 and Team Yin-Yang. It’s there we find out from Dung v2.0 that TurkeyHair actually “had beef” with Wylie Dufresne, which is absolutely the most ludicrous way he could have put it. These are chefs, not rappers, it’s not like there’s going to be a knife fight or anything fun like that. Anyhow, Dung isn’t completely sure it’s true, but TurkeyHair himself says that at one point, one of The Doof’s sous chefs accused him of “culinary plagiarism”. Choosing not to address this charge, Turkey goes on to say that he used to get really upset when he would find out that other chefs had been doing the same dishes as him (because, of course, he’s so awesome that he thought of them all first) and now he thinks it’s just sooooo ironic that he’s cooking in a challenge where he has to create a dish in wd~50′s style… “I mean, it’s too much, you can’t even write this sort of stuff!”…

yes, we could, but it would be incredibly boring

It is absolutely incredible to see just how intact Turkey’s hyperinflated ego remains, even after all these years. I might be a big fat nutbag myself, but I suspect that it is not uncommon for him to run into people in the culinary world who do not care for him. At all.

He’s about to add Bitchani to that list. You see, she has used the liquid nitrogen to flash-freeze her melons (get your minds out of the gutter) and now she realizes this was probably a mistake, texture-wise, but she admits she can’t seem to stop herself. Naturally, this is TurkeyHair’s cue to start acting all superior, saying she’s “showcasing technique just to do it, she’s not really thinking about the diner at the end of the day…” Yeah, I know. This coming from the guy who seems to think “the diner at the end of the day” wants to eat food with 38 separate kinds of spit-foam squirted on it.

Quietly working in another part of the kitchen is Dung v2.0, who has decided to make a sunny egg dumpling with braised pork belly. In a surprising change of demeanor, Dung v2.0 admits he doesn’t have a clue about The Doof’s special cooking techniques, and thinks it would be unwise for him to try learning them now (in two hours) so, like Beaker, he’s going to try to stay true to himself and just use Wylie’s weirdness as an inspiration. We’re about to see how that turned out, since Dung v2.0′s the first to present…

his food in a chamber pot

Then it’s Bitchani’s chance to talk about her busted-ass dish…

perfect for your next trip to outer spaaaaaace

They catch a glimpse of The Doof’s face while Bitchani is presenting, and the news there is not good…

someone would rather eat liquid nitrogen straight from the canister

Next up is Beaker and her lovefood…

which is really only enough for a quickie, but that’s still better than nothing

And finally closing out the creepshow is TurkeyHair’s oh-so-expert (yet-desperate-for-approval) spin on the wd~50 experience…

wouldn’t “anti-flatbread” be the same thing as just plain “roundbread”?

I dunno about you guys, but that looks just like every other plate of lamb and cucumber yogurt that’s ever been on this show, but let’s hear about Bitchani’s failure first. Dis-Dain says she clearly lost control of the dish “on the launch pad” and that the melon is an “intruder at the party”. The Doof wishes she had edited a few things off the plate. As for Dung v2.0, Wylie’s already in love with the runny-egg yolk, and Dis-Dain commends him on taking such a risk. Daddy Tom says the broth “tastes like breakfast”, almost like buttered toast. KraderFace thinks the whole thing works on a lot of levels.

Next thing you know they’re trying Beaker’s skrimp’n'grits, and The Doof thinks it’s a little bit safe, but really well-prepared. KraderFace says it was smart of her to be true to her own style, rather than fail at something that she wasn’t familiar with. Too bad Beaker didn’t get that advice three seasons ago.

Now they’re having a chance to dig into TurkeyHair’s oddly pedestrian offering, and Dis-Dain echoes that thought, saying it’s a lot more “restrained” and “timid” than he thought it was going to be. Daddy Tom says the cucumber was bland. The Doof says while TurkeyHair clearly embraces all the special equipment in his kitchen, “I’m not sure in this case he’s used those techniques to improve the dish.” Or, let me put it another way… TurkeyHair is showcasing technique just to do it, he’s not really thinking about the diner at the end of the day. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Let’s head on over to Judges’ Table, this time with Dung v2.0, OranJello, LowFatSo and Lunch Tray, who are this week’s high scorers with their respective chefs. The winner gets a random six-night vacation to the Hilton Hotel in New Zealand, which has nothing to do with New York, but I suspect maybe this trip was laying around from last Season Seven (that Sucked) and they had to get rid of it somehow…

too bad the winner has to take KraderFace along with them

KIDDING! But wouldn’t that be hysterical? Especially if KraderFace showed up with her bikini and a biiiig bottle of Hawaiian Tropic? Anyhow, tonight’s big winner is… not OranJello… but…

dung, dah-dun-dun-duuuuuuung!

Dis-Dain wants to know if Dung v2.0 was aware that The Doof was such a “notorious egg slut” and he admits he did know that. Great, now he gets to go to New Zealand. Oh, and he gets $5,000 for air fare, too. He should fly coach, then he’ll have enough money left over to hire some egg sluts of his own!

Coming in as the Bottomsies tonight are Gayle, FahBeeOh, Bitchani and AssBurrito, and as they leave to go face Judges’ Table, LowFatSo quietly calls out after them, “Don’t pull a Jen.” LOLOLOLOL. In fact, they are quite the opposite, because FahBeeOh’s fully aware he fucked up and thankfully doesn’t try to argue the point. AssBurrito immediately admits to his having completely blown it by putting way too much stuff on the plate (and DIs-Dain agrees, saying there was so much herbal essence that it became perfumey). Bitchani also agrees that she became overwhelmed with all the crazy stunts that were possible in The Doof’s kitchen, and wishes she had held back a little. And as for Gayle, he describes Townhouse as “food with jazz-hands”…

which makes it all the more sad that he sucked

Daddy Tom says Big Burke’s food often starts with a classic dish and goes off from there, but they couldn’t tell what the root of Gayle’s french toast veal was supposed to be. I mean, other than hatred of the people eating it.

After some more rehashing of how these four sucked, the chefs going home tonight are AssBurrito… and Gayle. WHAT??!?!? How in the hell did FahBeeOh not get sent packing for that gloppy non-Vietnamese-French mess???…

and yes, I was making this same face after I stopped screaming at the television

Gayle says he’s disappointed and embarrassed to be going home this early, plus he’s never actually been eliminated before since he was a runner-up on his season. Hey girl, keep ya head up, at least it ain’t last or second-to-last place (hahaha, Miss Elia and Bitter Jen!) As for AssBurrito, he appears to have gained a little perspective on his fabulousness, saying the Stephen from Season One would have killed in this challenge because he was actually cooking a lot more back then. He goes on to praise how fierce the other competitors are, admitting that he “simply wasn’t up to par with the rest of the chefs.” Then Gayle goes out like a good gay, with a smile and a joke, saying maybe he’ll come back for Top Chef 16: Senior Edition…

and then he gives us all one last sideways eye… *snif*

Well, there you have it! What did you guys think of this episode? Should FahBeeOh or Bitchani have gone home instead of Gayle and AssBurrito? Would OranJello and AssBurrito have annoyed you talking so much about the food during dinner, or would you have told them to shut it? And do you think TurkeyHair is capable of “culinary plagiarism”, or is he the victim? Or just an asshat?

Thanks again for taking the time to read, I appreciate the investment very much, and here’s a little Christmas kitty porn in return…

Chica and Chunky wish you the ‘Gasmiest of Holidays!

I was thinking that perhaps we might have a break from the show this coming week because of the holiday, but nope, a new episode will air on Wednesday night (Christmas Eve Eve Eve) and I will do my best to recap when I’m not holidaying all over the place, but things may be a little late, so please have patience, K?

love, J-Mo