Top Chef Masters: Please Get This Jerk Off My TV Screen

Hi everybody! I’m back from L.A., and I had a wonderful time there watching Flipit’s improvisational musical comedy performance as a pregnant teenager in Iowa named Andrea who has a pair of singing lesbian mothers and gets married to a sex-addicted abortion doctor that patronizes prostitutes. No, I’m not even kidding, just ask ChickBomb, she and Monamonzano were there, we compared notes later on and agreed, if anyone has the body to play a pregnant teenage girl, it’s Flipit. I told him so, too, and quick as a flash he mentioned that he’s going to have to miss the performance next week and wanted to know if I could fill in for him playing Andrea in her third trimester. Then we both giggled and hugged and called each other “Fatass!” and when his back was turned I poured Visine in his drink. Kidding! It was a roofie…

…which is certainly not something I’d ever do to anyone in this group…

Yes, it was a very touching moment between two chunky gay guys. Sadly, since Big Gay Art is gone, there were very few (if any) touching moments on this week’s episode of Top Chef Masters. But, there was an awful lot of buggery bastardly bullshit going on, and I’m afraid I might have misjudged Dung v2.0′s previewed tantrum. I hate it when I’m wrong, but at least I’ll admit it. In any case, this one was pretty juicy, so grab some extra-absorbent paper towels as we make the jump…Now that we’re down to just four Masters (Le Mullet, BayLeafs, NoNita Mann and Smirky McFuckwad) and my BoogaBear Big Gay Art’s been sent back to Table 52, I’m rooting for, well, anyone but Smirky to win. I knew that my instinctual dislike of him was right on target, and the proof of that will be coming in buckets before too much longer. However, before we get to that, there’s a Quickfire Challenge to be played. Bok Choi says this is the last one of the season, and that they’ve saved “the best for last”…

…she’s going to see which one of them will become the most submissive power-bottom?…

Nope, this is the Quickfire where they have to taste things blindfolded and guess what they are. Please let them be using bull-jizz, chicken-twat or shrimp-shit as one of the items, and please let them only be used on Smirky. Bokky reminds us that in TC Season One, that wacky Andrea chick won this challenge by correctly identifying umeboshi plums (whateverthefuck they are). Look like I’m not the only ignorant one, ‘cuz Smirky laughs and mutters “I’ve never even heard of it!” Ohhh, just you wait, Mr. Dickface, you haven’t yet begun to hear it.

Back to the Quickfire, Bok Choi’s got 20 ingedients they’ll need to taste and identify, and whoever gets the most correct wins 5 stars, the next highest gets 4 stars, then 3½ and the last place gets only 3 stars. As they’re sent off to wait for the challenge to be set up, BayLeafs says he’s actually relieved he won’t have to be running around in that hot-ass kitchen sweating to put together a dish in 30 minutes or less. And the first one up tonight is Smirky! I hope he smokes or has a cold or partial brain-damage and can’t taste anything…

…”Derrrrrrrrrrrrr”…

Smirky admits that he’s been working with only Italian food and ingredients for so long that his palate is likely only experienced with that kind of flavor profile and is worried he’s going to suck monkey balls (which I’m sure he knows the taste of all too well). His fears are justified, because he is completely unable to identify hoisin sauce, shiso (a Japanese variety of mint), poppadom (an Indian cracker) and chervil (an herb related to parsley). OMG, those are so totally easy! What kind of food ignoramus hasn’t had a shiso and chervil salad on top of poppadoms with a little hoisin dressing? I say kick him out now.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he misidentifies mascarpone cheese as sour cream (okay, that one I could sorta see since they’re both kinda made from crème fraîche.) On the plus side (for him, anyways) he does correctly name peanut butter, corn, hummus, oregano and coconut water. When he finishes and Bok Choi asks him how it was, he says “Horrifying!”…

…I think she agrees…

Smirky’s not smirking so much any more and says he feels that for sure he got “hosed” with this one. We can only hope. Meanwhile, Le Mullet’s taking his turn and shows a little bit of his PePé LePew side when he says that Bok Choi putting the blindfold on him was “ze baist part ovv ze challenche!” Then he gives a lusty little laugh. YouBear gets it right with the peanut butter, corn, ketchup, and maple syrup, but he misidentifies the chervil as parsley (I call shenanigans, they’re related!) and the poppadom as potato chips (okay, I have no defense for that)…

…I have no caption for this, I just thought it was funny to see how seriously Kelly takes her job…

Bayleafs goes next and says he’s trying to think of it as a party game. He does actually get some of the harder ones correct, such as smoked paprika and poppadom (as well as a softball freebie like ketchup). Hilariously he misidentifies the shiso as chervil (???) the chunks of mango as plums (!!!) and the hoisin sauce as ranch salad dressing! (??!?!?!?!?) He knows when the employees back home see this they’re going to be making merciless fun of him (right up until he threatens to fire them). Last one to go tonight is NoNita Mann…

…who is quite likely sporting a pair of very hard nipples right about now…

NoNita’s afraid she’s going to embarrass herself if she draws a blank, which she immediately does on the hoisin sauce. Hey, at least she didn’t guess and say it was Thousand Island or McDonald’s Special Sauce or something equally silly. However, I fear she’s overthinking it, because she misidentifies the peanut butter as tahini (which is kind of a sesame paste). Oh well, at least she gets almonds, poppadom, and ketchup right, and even goes so far as to identify dashi, which is a Japanese broth made out of kelp. Blech. In any case, NoNita believes she just tanked, which is the same thing that Smirky said. Did they really? Or are the producers going to pull a fast one on us?

Everyone gathers together to hear the results. It turns out Le Mullet only got five out of twenty correct! Sacrebleu! Wow, that’s pretty rough! Bayleafs and NoNita Mann didn’t do much better, as they only got six correct. I’m starting to get a very bad feeling in my considerable bowl of a belly as Bok Choi looks at Smirky with a getting-ready-to-give-bad-news-expression on her face and tells him that he got… SEVEN correct!…

…this is immature but appropriate…

Aaaaugrrrgh! Smirky wins it! Five fuckin’ stars! To be a teensy bit fair to him, he actually isn’t acting like a douchebucket about it, he’s just as surprised as everyone else and seems almost humble and a tad embarrassed. However, this is the last of the humane behavior we’ll see from him for the episode, after this it’s all downhill. So anyhow, here’s how the scores stand as of now…

…still immature but also still appropriate…

Le Mullet knows he’s in deep merde going into the Elimination Challenge in last place, so he better pull some fine food out of his French âne or he’ll be wikki-wikki-wikki-ing his way back to Vegas. Anyhow, regarding this last Challenge, Bok Choi insists it takes more to make a great chef than having an awesome palate (or, you know, a palate that’s right on the money about 25% of the time) and edutains us that the very word “chef” actually means “chief” or the leader of a team. And a good leader knows how to hire the right kitchen support staff, communicate with said staff and make sure they execute the chef’s culinary visions to their satisfaction (or I guess beatings will occur… I’m a little unclear on how professional kitchens really work).

Choi-Choi goes on to say that the following day the Masters will be preparing a buffet lunch for 200 “Hollywood Insiders” (read: unemployed actors and/or possibly writers who could use a good free lunch because they’re starving) and that first they’re going to have to “hire” their team from some “experienced chefs” that have been assembled for their choosing. And ohhhhh, it’s like a who’s who of Top Chef’s wackiest!…

…looks like someone’s been reading up on Flipit’s recaps of last season regarding how stupid some people’s haircuts were (and has been properly, if sheepishly, restyled accordingly)…

“I’ve never felt older in my life!” whines Smirky privately as he casts a (no doubt overly) critical eye over this motley bunch that includes: TC Season 2′s Betty “Batshit” Fraser (who’s only 2 years younger than Smirky the Geezer, which should make him feel better), Elia “La Loca” Aboumrad and winner Ilan “Illyawn” Hall. Representing TC Season 3 we have C.J. “Giraffe” Jacobsen and Brian “Troll Patch” Malarkey while TC Season 4 contributes Dale “Dung v2.0″ Talde, Antonia “Poison Pork” Lofasa, Spike “EvangelAss” Mendelsohn and Richard “Bitterhawk” Blais. TC Season 5 gives us Alex “Too Boring For A Nickname” Eusebio, Jamie “Turtle” Lauren and Fabio “Fabio” Vivani. I guess there wasn’t anybody available from TC Season One because, well, they’re probably all working…

…looks like someone still can’t afford that desperately needed neck implant…

Nice to see ya anyhow, Turtle! Try not to suck. Bok Choi says the Masters will each get 2 minutes to interview each cheftestant before choosing their teams and sends Turtle, Troll Patch, Giraffe and La Loca to each of the Masters to begin their speed dating. While Bayleafs, NoNita and Le Mullet all greet their cheftestants and begin asking them questions about their skills, poor Turtle finds Smirky barking at her to “go find a knife, a cutting board, 2 carrots, bring them back to me…” I guess he wants to see her special dicing skills or something…

…looks like someone’s about to get recircumcised…

Turtle says Smirky scared the shit out of her! What?!?! C’mon, girl, man up! You’re a lesbiana! You don’t just roll over and take that from a douchebag who’s treating you like a first-year culinary student and sending you off on a lame mise en place task and yelling at you “Tell me about your background as you’re going!” Ahh, I guess she must have heard me, because Jamie calls back “Can’t hear you!” and mutters under her breath “Can’t find any carrots, either.” You go, girl. You don’t have to re-audition to be on this show, you’ve already paid your dues. The other cheftestants are all looking at each other and exchanging “Oh-shit-we’ve-got-an-asshat-in-the-house” expressions. On the positive side, this behavior has quickly helped Turtle to come to the following conclusion: “I’m not working for this guy, he’s scary!”

Bayleafs has a different approach, he’s asking each of the cheftestants how well they can relate to his Mexican flavors, “Because if they hate the flavors that I’m doing then it’s gonna be a disaster!” This makes sense, and it seems as though Le Mullet’s using the same technique by asking Batshit what her experience is with French cuisine. Her response?…

…to show him that it only goes as far as what’s stuck in her teeth…

If I didn’t know better I’d swear those were a set of flippers (see DearCrabby’s excellent work over on Toddlers & Tiaras for a complete definition). Oh, and lookit how cute this is, it seems as though Turtle and NoNita Mann have more than just the Carpetmunching Connectionâ„¢… apparently Jamie used to work for her back in 2000 when she first started up her restaurant Annisa. They hug and then NoNita wants to know who Turtle thinks she should choose, and Jamie suggests Richard Bitterhawk and Dung v2.0.

Meanwhile, Smirky’s still being a giant turdmuffin to everyone, yelling at Batshit Betty as she approaches him, “Is that the fastest you can move? Let’s go, cutting board over there!” I guess maybe his criteria for whether or not he wants you on his team is to carve his likeness in a carrot? If that were the case and I was the one he was barking at, Smirky’d find a penis-shaped veggie-dildo shoved up his butt faster than you could say “crudité!”…

…don’t think I wouldn’t do it, too!…

I’m not sure when he decided that this show had suddenly become “Who Wants To Be Smirky’s Sous-Chef?” but this shit is completely ridonk. Now he’s ordering Giraffe to “Go find a garbage can and a vegetable that can display your knife skills to me!” The other cheftestants are hearing this and Evangelass is shouting “No, C.J., don’t do it!” Fabio jumps in with “Ay can tayill thad thees dood ees Eetaleeyan cozz heez mekeeng-a ayvreyboddy ronning aroun heem like cheeken weet no hedd!” Mmmmkay, grazie Fabio, I guess that’s your little way of saying Italians can be big buttwipes?

So why is Smirky being such a fuckstain? I mean, say what you will about the cheftestants, but many of them are executive chefs and restaurant owners and I would think they deserve just a smidge more respect than being treated as if they were newbie kitchen assistants or dishwashers. Well, he really doesn’t have an explanation other than there’s $10,000.00 at stake for his charity and “They just have to give me the best culinary hours they have.”…

…Sure, Michael, if they all hate you then they’ll do their best to help you win… that’s exactly how people work. Schmuck. …

Meanwhile, Bitterhawk is making the rounds and kissing ass. He’s telling Bayleafs that he has no experience with his “genre” of food (because tacos don’t generally fall under the realm of molecular gastronomy until after you eat them) but that he’d love to learn. Bayleafs recalls having judged a Quickfire Challenge that Bitterhawk won and thinks he’d like to have him on his team. He moves on to NoNita Mann who asks him how he did on his season of the show, and he replies “I was runner-up. I should have been the winner, but, you know…”

…”I choked. And I have a stupid haircut.”…

Ohhhhh, lovely, it’s EvangelAss’ turn with Smirky, who immediately tells him to go find a carrot. Spike decides to take control of the situation and instead of scurrying off to get his hands on a vegetable to dice he stands his ground and says “Actually, do you wanna get to know me a little bit better?” Over in the cheftestants pool, Illyawn is impressed, whispering to La Loca Elia “Look, look! He’s saying ‘no’!” I hate to say it, but I have to give EvangelAss some points for ballsiness, everybody else pretty much just bit the pillow for this jackass. He insists “I know how to brunoise a carrot, chef!” Smirky retorts, “Do you? But *I* don’t know that!” and insists that he pretty much shut up and do as he’s told, which sits about as well with Spike as you might imagine…

…”It sucks to meet someone like me!”…

EvangelAss interviews that Smirky’s “full of himself” and “thinks he’s God” (sound familiar, Spike?) and doesn’t really want to work with him. There’s no danger of that, because even as he’s pitching Smirky that if he picks him they’ll surely win, all he gets in response is a smirk-filled “Then we’re done.” Smirky interviews “There’s not a rat’s chance in hell he would ever set foot in my kitchen for this challenge.” I think that feeling is mutual, Mikey-boy! Unfortunately for you, I think it carries over to everyone else in the room as well.

As an added bonus tonight, we get a fun segment in which everyone mispronounces Smirky’s last name Chiarello… instead of “KEY-a-rell-owe” he gets “SEE-a-rell-owe” and “CHEE-a-rell-owe” and even “CHAI-a-rell-owe”! That last one was from BitterHawk Blais who says anyone that would stand there and ask you to tell them their own name should never have it pronounced correctly, and (correctly) thinks it’s quite insulting…

…then again, so is your hairstyle, which is why Bravo made sure to cut it out of the camera frame…

Now the time has come for the Masters to pick their teams, and Batshit Betty says that everybody loves Le Mullet and is dying to be chosen by him, but “Nobody wants to be with Chef Michael Chiarello.” which really sucks because guess who gets to pick first since he won the Quickfire? Fuckin’ Smirky. You will note that everybody’s avoiding eye-contact with him. Aaaaand he picks his paisano Fabio (natch!), Troll Patch, and Giraffe (who looks like he just won the chance to give birth to a future kidneystone).

Rick winds up with Bitterhawk, Latino Alex and Batshit Betty (who is the second-to-last to be chosen and is flashing back to her schoolyard days when nobody wanted to play with her, either) NoNita chooses her homegirl Turtle (snatch!) Dung v2.0, and Illyawn… and I must say that I find it tres interesting that an actual winner of the show was chosen third-to-last, you’d have thought he’d have been snapped up in the first round. Oh, except he’s kind of a dickface, too…

…that there on the side of his head is the Chinese ideogram for “douche breath”…

What is it with this show and the dumbass haircuts? Anyhow, Le Mullet goes for Poison Pork Antonia, La Loca Elia and gets stuck with EvangelAss which he calls a “cruel move” on Bayleaf’s part and laughs good-naturedly. Personally I think he dodged a great big fluctuating estrogen Bettybullet and should be grateful. Spike, on the other hand, instantly proves me wrong by insisting that he’s complimented he got chosen last because he believes nobody wanted him “outshining their food”. He said some other equally delusional things, but I couldn’t tell you what they were because I was doubled up on the floor laughing and shaking like a big fat bag full of Jell-O.

Bok Choi is still standing there and gives the teams 30 minutes to plan their menus. It seems as though Bayleafs, NoNita Mann and Le Mullet immediately open a dialogue with their sous-chefs and start brainstorming ideas. Shockingly, that’s not the case over in SmirkyVille, where the Italian Dictator has seized power and is barking out exactly what he wants the menu to be…

…Il Douché…

Smirky says they’ve only got 30 minutes and he doesn’t have time to get an understanding of what his team’s culinary strong points are. It’s too bad he wasn’t given a couple of minutes to, you know, talk to them and get to know them a little before he picked them. Oh wait, he was, but chose to make them play “Salad Shooter Olympics” instead. Troll Patch insists he’s fine with this, “It’s his ass on the line, I’ll do whatever he wants, it’s what a sous-chef does.”…

…hopefully a sous-chef also learns how to ease up on the bronzer a bit…

They get 45 minutes and $2000 to split between Whole Paycheck Market and Restaurant Depot, and nothing really happens here except for a lot of frantic running around and yelling at each other via cell-phone. Back in the Top Chef Masters Gee-No-GTE-Kitchen they now have 3½ hours to prep. Smirky’s still playing Big Boss Man and barking at his team “Don’t worry about anything in the fridge right now. I will feed you product, I will give you recipes and directions!” I’m kinda surprised he’s not making them do pushups or sing cadences.

Meanwhile, Dung v2.0 and Turtle are stowing NoNita Mann’s perishables in one side of one of the fridges when suddenly Smirky insists he “called” that one before they did. I never once heard the word “Dibs!” come from his lopsided stroke-victim’s mouth, but whatever. Affecting his best patronizing tone he turns on Dung v2.0, “So you want me to go [use the fridge] in back, is that what you’re saying young man?” Ruh-roh, that’s the quickest way to bring out the angry young black man in our volatile little DungBall, who immediately bristles, “Who you barkin’ at?” and tells us he felt Smirky’s snide use of the term “young man” in this context was “belittling”…

…and we all know how much short guys hate to be “belittled”…

“I’m not here for that!” he tells us, right before we head back to him going off on Smirky, “You don’t even know me, so why’re you gettin’ up in my face about this shit?” Smirky tries to play it cool, replying “You don’t wanna go this way with me.” OMG, no he DI-ent! Dung v2.0 loses his shit and starts yelling, “What’re you gonna do about it?” The others just keep working, but they’re allllll listening and Latino Alex interviews that Smirky was being a douchebag and had it coming to him.

Smirky, naturally, doesn’t see it that way at all, and tells us “For the first 20 years of my career I ate three Dales for breakfast.” Oooh, does that mean he sucked off three asian guys every morning? “He is way outta his league. But my thoughts are my wife saying ‘You idiot! Don’t let your macho Italian self get in the way here!’” I’ll bet in reality she only says the first part of that. Meanwhile, our tiny bespectacled young man has fully transformed into Dr. DreDung as he screams ‘So whatchoo gonna do ’boutit?!?”…

…if he starts crotchgrabbing there’s gonna be a throwdown…

Crap, i guess I was kinda wrong in thinking Dung’s tantrum was totally unprovoked. He and Turtle were only using half the fridge, they showed him gesturing to Smirky that the other half was still open for him to use, and so what if Smirky had to walk a few extra feet to another refridgerator, he didn’t have to be such a dickwad about the whole thing. Granted, Dung overreacted, but that’s pretty much just his way.

Back over in SanityLand, Le Mullet’s happy as une palourde française with his team, saying that he applies the same mentoring methods with his 300+ employees in his restaurants and feels like he has their respect in return for his cooperative guidance. However, he notes “Michael hadda tottolee deefairent approash!” and they show him continuing to micromanage every teensy thing his team is working on. Batshit Betty says everyone was taken aback by his behavior, “We are accomplished chefs!” She’s got a point…

…well, you know, except in her case…

NoNita Mann’s decided to do a “raw bar” with oysters and clams on the half-shell, and with only a half hour left she’s set Turtle about cleaning those items. Strangely, Turtle seems to be kind of at a loss, saying she doesn’t feel like she really knows what’s on the menu (duh, oysters and clams) and further makes an odd comment about “not being responsible for anything” other than washing the shellfish, which kinda sounds like she’s blaming NoNita for not giving her enough to do.

It seems as though NoNita’s not so pleased with the Turtle and her slow-ass tendencies, either, saying she’s taking way too long to wash off the clams, and she confesses to us “There’s a lot of things I forgot about her… she gets overwhelmed with details and then forgets the big picture.” So much for lesbiana solidarity.

It’s Elimination day! The’ve got 2½ hours to complete their food, and everything’s going along swimmingly…. that is, until Bok Choi shows up with the news that there’s been a change of venue, and instead of being in the dining room, the lunch has been moved to the terrace of the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. Funnily enough, the cheftestants just keep on working because they’re used to being fucked with in mid-challenge like this. The Masters, on the other hand…

…are not rolling with it so easily…

Bokky gives them 30 minutes to pack up all their food to move it to the hotel where their final 2½ hours will really be spent. Smirky. Is. Devastated. “I’ve got 20 pots on, I have things in the oven, everything has to be stopped. My lamb’s come up to a simmer already. My day is unravelling in front of me like a yard sale.” Huhwha? Yard sales unravel? Well, I don’t get that part, but the rest is sweet, sweet music to my ears.

Bayleafs, by contrast, just quietly started directing his team to pack up everything (thank GOD they have the Glad Family Of Productsâ„¢ handy to help them transport their food and keep it fresh!) and kept on moving. Bitterhawk Blais is super-impressed by this, especially since he notes that some other chefs were running around the kitchen losing their shit. Okay, really just one other chef, Smirky’s really whining now, “I need two gallons of milk and I can’t find my laaaaamb! The rice is gonna get ruuuined!”…

…BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!…

I can almost see his thought-bubble right now, and it’s a run-on repeating phrase that looks something like this: “notincontrolohjesusnotincontrolohjesusnotincontrolohjesus” Bayleafs, on the other hand, just shrugs and says “It’s a Top Chef world, and we’ve just got to make the best of it.” That’s turning out to be difficult for NoNita Mann. She seems to be satisfied with Dung v2.0′s and Illyawn’s work, but Turtle needs to open 125 oysters and a like number of clams, and once again, she’s kinda going on 33â…“ RPM when she should really be at 78. Kids, go axe your MeeMaws and Grampaws what that means.

Oh, fuck me ’til I cry, here comes Bok Choi again to ruin their day! She asks them all to stop what they’re doing and follow her out to the terrace where they’ll be serving their lunch buffet… and all of their stations are in direct sunlight. This is killing Smirky, because he’s got mayonnaise-based dishes that are likely to turn violent if left out in the sun, and NoNita’s also crapping a cactus, “I would never make a raw bar menu for an outdoor event in direct sunlight.” Yup, not real good idea unless you’re planning on serving Botulism Bites with a Slice’O'Salmonella. She’s so totally screwed…

…not even her Magic Doo-Ragâ„¢ can save her now…

So Choi-Choi’s being all coy and pointing out the serving stations like she’s on The Price Is Right or something, and then she drops another bomb! They have to cut one of their sous-chefs from their team right now! The look on Turtle’s face is ♫ priiiicelessss ♪…

…maybe she’s having déjà vu from her last day at Annisa?…

Fabio interviews, “I’m-a zweateeng lika mountaen goad adde beetch, an’ sheez taelleeng ozz thad wee havv too ged reed ovv won chaif!” I’ve never seen a mountain goat at the beach, but I guess that kind of thing must happen in Italy a lot, otherwise it would make no sense. Kinda like Fabio. In any case, Smirky decides to get rid of Troll Patch (prolly because he was afraid of the man’s bronzer melting off and dripping into the food). Le Mullet takes this blissful opportunity to send EvangelAss packing with a casual “no hard feelingz!” and one of those silly A-frame Man Hugsâ„¢.

Bayleafs decides to unload Batshit Betty (“I was gonna rely on her to help make our table look really beautiful”) and I suspect he’s relieved to be rid of her starey-eyes and too-white shark’s-grin. Also unsurprising is NoNita taking the chance to eject Turtle, and she flat-out tells us that Jamie promised her she could get those oysters and clams open like a natural-born mothershucker, but she lied and now they’ve lost a lot of time.

Too late to worry about it now, because time is running out and they’re all carrying food out to their stations. Bitterhawk Blais says he thinks that Le Mullet’s team is actually one of the better organized teams, “Michael Churrello’s food looks like a wedding from 1987, it’s awful!”…

…no, this looks like a wedding from 1987… and you’re right, it is awful…

Despite that pesky sunlight, NoNita knows she doesn’t have time to do an about-face on her menu, so she’s forging ahead with the raw bar anyhow. Besides, the SLS Hotel is just a hop, skip and an ambulance ride away from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, so everything should be cool. Time is up and the “Hollywood Insiders” have begun to filter in and head straight for the free food.

Here comes Bok Choi with FugTaser, NerdMosexual and Gramma Gael Greene in tow, and they’re heading to NoNita Mann’s table first…

Her spread includes a noodle salad, pork spare-ribs and the ever-popular raw bar filled with gently-spoiling shellfish. I’m hoping that perhaps whoever pitched the idea for the GEICO Cavemen to have their own sitcom has several helpings from it. FugTaser loves the braised pork rib and Gramma calls it “tender” and “heavenly”. Fuggie continues on that this late in the game the Masters really need to be showing the full range of their skills, and besides the nice glass noodle salad and the beautiful pork rib, there doesn’t seem to be much else there. Then try the clams, Fugwad!

Moving on to the Il Douché buffet…

He’s got three different antipasti dishes, risotto three ways (one of which is with shrimp) prime rib of swordfish, goat milk (from the beach!) braised lamb shank, plus two desserts. Way to go Chef Boyardee! Right away Gramma says she’s not “mad” about the flavor of the risotto, but thinks it was well cooked. NerdMosexual complains that his shrimp is “a bit too briny”. As far as the swordfish goes, NerdMo’ says it tastes all right, but it looks oddly like it was cut with a bread knife, and Gramma pipes up that to her it looks rather grainy, as if it was old swordfish. Wellnow, we really shouldn’t automatically discard the value of an item out of hand just because it’s old, should we Gramma?

After they throw away most of their 1987 food (no wonder the swordfish looked grainy and old!) they head back over to see what Le Mullet’s got going for them…

Holy Guacamole! Eighteen dishes? He must have saved some meth from his DJing days. Anyhow, he’s got a fourneau of a carrot, some oysters, a Vietnamese gazpacho, red beets with comte cheese, a rack of lamb, and for dessert he has pie and some little gorgeous nibbly things in teensy glasses. Fuck. Me. Please. FugTaser wants to know how many weeks he’s been working at this, and Le Mullet graciously gives credit to his team (down to just La Loca Elia and Poison Pork Antonia).

Starting off with the gazpacho, the Critics all notice that it’s packing a serious punch of heat (Gramma Gael’s nose even appears to be running, but that could just be leftovers from her coke-binge-days). Gramma goes on to say it seems like the whole $2000.00 budget was spent on that one plate, the food is that good, and FugTaser says he’s certain that Le Mullet could not have pulled this off without a great support team. Awwww, shucks, and he didn’t have to see their ability to cut up a carrot first!

For the finale today they head on over to Bayleaf’s station…

Of course, Bayleafs has pulled out a “luxury guacamole” followed by a tortilla soup, a pork dish, plus sautéed shrimp. The best he saved for last, as their dessert is an avocado ice cream being made by Bitterhawk Blais and his trusty tank of liquid nitrogen! Bok Choi calls the food “beautiful” and apparently NerdMosexual agrees…

…though he wouldn’t say that if he were to get a good gander in a mirror…

Gramma loves the appetizers and NerdMo’ says the tortilla soup “tastes like Mexico”. FugTaser thinks Bayleafs was smart in picking Bitterhawk to be his sous-chef because while the avocado ice cream was made using modern techniques, it still feels like Bayleaf’s dessert. Back outside, Bitterhawk, Alex and Bayleafs are sharing in a kum-bah-yah moment as Smirky’s quietly fuming and trying to figure out how to blame his failures on Fabio and the Giraffe.

That feeling continues at the Critics Table. Bok Choi asks Bayleafs what his favorite part of the challenge was, and he answers that it was getting to know his team of cheftestants, and loves how they let him know immediately that they were there to help make him look good. Smirky looks jealous. NerdMosexual compliments Rick on an elaborate feast, and Gramma says she really liked his combination of shrimp with nuts and figs…

…and I strongly suspect that Gramma really just likes to put things in her mouth that resemble balls…

FugTaser thinks his decision to allow Bitterhawk Blais to make the ice cream using liquid nitrogen took “cojones” (only with his British accent, he mangled the pronunciation as “cauew-hauew-ness”).

As for Le Mullet, FugTaser says after they finished his staggering array of 18 dishes he wondered “Didn’t you care about us? Couldn’t you have come up with a complicated menu?” and grins expectantly at his own little joke. Which promptly crashes and burns because nobody laughs. Le Mullet simply says he wanted a wide variety of things for people to taste, so he did as many as he could in the time he had…

…”He didn’t lahff at my joke.”…

Poor FugTaser. I hate it when I toss out a lead balloon, too. At any rate, they continue to heap praise all over Le Mullet, and Smirky’s looking more and more pissed the more they talk about how Frenchy’s dishes tasted like a million bucks and were just so perfectly seasoned and they loved the fantastic progression.

As for NoNita, Gramma says the ribs were fabulous. NerdMosexual wants to know if she rethought her idea of doing the raw bar once she found out they would be serving seasons in the sun, and NoNita just looks him dead in the eye and says they didn’t have time to change things up. She’s got a point, out of all of them, she was the one who most got hosed by the change of venue and the whole “no-shade-for-the-cooking-stations” thing. That hotel charges over $1000 a night to stay there, don’t tell me they couldn’t have afforded a couple of collapsible sun-shade-ramadas to help her out. I smell sabotage.

Glancing in Smirky’s unsmiling direction, Bok Choi asks an unsettlingly direct question: “Were you happy, Michael?”…

…clearly he was thrilled…

In a dead, dead voice devoid of all emotion he mumblies “I thought it worked out just fine.” Funny, your face says you screwed the pooch. And gave it a blow, hand and rim job. NerdMosexual wants to know what Smirky thinks his most successful dishes were and he answers the rice and shrimp. Ah ha! NerdMo’ was laying for him! He disdainfully says he felt the shrimp was “unnecessary” and he didn’t like it. FugTaser brings up that there was “a general question mark over the swordfish” regarding it’s “curious texture”. Smirky gives some kind of lame excuse about having only one electrical outlet, and he chose to use it to keep the swordfish warm and therefore didn’t have a place to plug in an electric carving knife. Added to the list of things the fine SLS Luxury Hotel apparently doesn’t have: extension cords. He says without the electric knife the fish got “furry” and Gramma Gael helpfully adds “And mealy!”

OMG, Bok Choi’s actually critiquing a dish, telling Smirky that she normally loves olive oil cakes (saying they “excite” her when she sees them on a menu) but that his were “sodden with oil” and wants to know if he was happy with their texture. Ahhhhh, here’s where he finally gets his chance to blame someone else! He says the cake could have used “another 14 minutes in the oven” and that he had instructed his dumbassed dickheaded sous-chefs to cut slices from the outside of the cake where it was more cooked…

…hey, guess what, Smirky? She totally believes you!…

That makes liars out of both of us! Going back to her direct approach, Choi-Choi asks him how it was working with his sous-chefs, and here’s what Smirky has to say about that: “My colleagues have more guts than I do, cuz I wouldn’t know how to say ‘Here, why don’t you go and take a dish.’” Oh, I see. So your failure had nothing to do with your iron-fist tactics in the kitchen and unwillingess to acknowledge that these people could, you know, actually cook? Well, that gutsy gamble sure paid off for Le Mullet and Bayleafs.

The Masters get sent back to the Cone Of Alcohol Consumption while the Critics rehash their successes and failures, and Smirky’s still bitching about the fact that his sous-chefs didn’t follow his directions to take slices for the judges from the crustier and more beautiful end of the olive oil cake, “They didn’t do it.” he mutters angrily. Hey, here’s a novel idea. How about bake a cake that’s good all over instead of just on the crusty ends?…

…Yup, sucks to be you…

Oh, and speaking of suckage, here’s this week’s stupid survey…

…4. NoNita Mann (duh!)…

Okay, we’re back, and the scores tonight will determine who will be in the Final Three Masters. Starting with Bayleafs and Le Mullet, Bokky says they have the high scores (wow, didn’t see that coming!) and will definitely be in the Final Champions Challenge. Bayleafs started with 4 stars, and he gets 4½ from the diners, NerdMosexual and FugTaser, while Gramma Greene only parts with 4 stars.

As for Le Mullet, he had only 3½ stars from the Quickfire, and got the same amount from the diners, which seems like a pretty low score and it looks like Bayleafs is gonna win this one… except he gets a perfect 5 star score from all three Critics!…

…Aaaaugh! Snaked by half a star!…

Oh well, at least he’s humble about it, and his charity is the Make-A-Wish Foundation, so that’s all right. Now it’s down to NoNita Mann and Smirky McSmugMug. NoNita started off with 4 stars but only got 3 stars from the diners and NerdMosexual, while Gramma and FugTaser were slightly more generous with 3½ stars. I don’t like this at all. Smirky, on the other hand, started out with 5 stars, and got 3½ stars from the diners, 3 from NerdMo, 4 from Gramma Gael (!!!) and also 4 from FugTaser!…

…Aaaaugh! The Smirk lives on another day!…

Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit dammit! Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck-fuckity-fuckfuck! Fuuuuuuck! This is where I fall to my knees in the rain with my fists upraised towards the heavens and a slo-motion “Noooooooooooooooooo!” comes booming out of my mouth. I’m gonna miss you and your bone-dry personality, NoNita. I really wish you were going to be in the Final Three. NoNita says she’s gonna miss working with the other Masters and believes that ultimately food is about sharing and “not about winning or losing”. Hey, how about tell that to Smirky before you go, K?

Later tonight, on the Season Finale of Top Chef Masters we get to see this…

…Gay flames attacking Smirky!…

I hope he loses an eyebrow or two. Plus, for the very first time we’ll get to see all five Top Chef winners at once, plus Gail Simmons, Daddy Tom and Scaaaaaar! I wonder if she and Bok Choi will have a little catfight of their own?

What did you think of this episode? Did you feel like they booted NoNita unfairly, or did she throw in the towel on herself? Will anyone ever tell Bitterhawk Blais that fauxhawks are over? And what would you pay to see Smirky get hobbled by Kathy Bates? Thanks again as always for reading and even more so for your comments.

OH, and before I forget, as the BF and BFF and another F and Flipit and I were having dinner on Sunset Blvd on Friday night, a camera crew proceeded to enter and start filming the table directly behind us. I didn’t recognize the two people sitting there, but they looked like they were having a very serious (and extremely boring) conversation. It turns out they were filming an episode for the new season of “The Hills”! At one point Flipit leaned over to me and said “The back of your head is going to need an agent!” and my good friend Garilyn dared me to lean back and smiley-bomb their shot! I almost did but good sense prevailed at the last minute. I just thought you’d get a kick out of the story (and warn you that you may see the back of my head on the next season of “The HIlls”). I’ll be back in a few days with the Finale recap and then I’ll be bringing you the new season 6 of regular Top Chef!

love, J-Mo