SFist Watches: Your Locals On Reality TV, Pt. 2

Almost immediately off the bat, Zoi and Jennifer announced that they know each other in San Francisco, and are, in fact, a couple. So much for the conspiracy theories. Some of the chefs called bullshit, but we'll see if it leads to the drama Bravo was no doubt hoping for when they cast them.

Padma and Tom Colicchio gave them their first Quick Fire challenge, which was to make deep dish pizzas. One would think this would be a fairly easy challenge since they were just stuffing their faces with deep dish pizza, but it proved extremely difficult for some of them. Once they were done, they had to pack their pizza in delivery bags and bring them over to a fancy house for judging. And one of those judges turned out to be Rocco DiSpirito, who answered the door to the obvious delight of some, and utter bemusement of others.

Ryan's pizza featured grilled escarole with riccota salata and butternut squash. Padma declared it "very nice." Jennifer made a "harvest pizza" with grapes, bacon, fontina cheese, and rosemary. Rocco liked the way she made the crust. We didn't get to see the reactions to the other SF chefs, but Zoi was placed in the loser group. They were all then told that the fancy house was their new home, and much drinking and socializing followed...at least for most of them. Nimma pronounced that she was not there to have fun and promptly went to bed.

The next day in the Top Chef Kitchen, the winners of the Quick Fire challenge drew knives and had to pick a chef from the losing group to cook against. The person picked would then choose a dish from a list of classic dishes. Jennifer chose Nikki, who picked lasagna. Ryan picked Valerie, who picked chicken piccata. That left Erik and Zoi, who had the last choice on the board, the dreaded souffle.

From the beginning, it was obvious Ryan had no idea what chicken piccata is. It's like he confused it with chicken cacciatore, as he put both tomatoes and potato (in the form of gnocci) in it. But let's move to the judging, which included both Rocco AND Anthony Bourdain. At the SAME TABLE! How were they able to eat while constantly rolling their eyes at each other?

Jennifer and Nikki came out with their lasagnas. Jennifer went the northern Italy route, and included autumn vegetables, a meat sauce, and mint verde. Nikki made her own pasta, with a sheep's milk Gouda and cheese sauce. The judges liked them both, but knocked Jennifer for some undercooked rutabaga, and gave points to Nikki for the homemade pasta. Nikki FTW.

Ryan and Valerie presented their piccatas. As mentioned, Ryan's included tomatoes, gnocci, and breaded chicken. Ooof. Valerie came close to the right idea, but switched the citrus from lemon to orange. Bourdain didn't like either of them, and Colicchio immediately called out Ryan for breading the chicken. Rocco thought they both missed the mark by not having an acidic butter sauce, which is what piccata IS! They begrudgingly gave the win to Valerie. Ryan voiced in interview that he had worked hard since he was 11 years old, and now America was going to think he's a flop. Got that right, buddy.

Finally, Erik and Zoi presented their souffles. Erik went the savory route, with a pepper jack souffle, with avocado creme fraiche, black bean puree, salsa, and crispy tortillas. Also known as: nachos. Zoi made a sweet rice pudding souffle with candied figs, fennel, and a side of espresso. The judges immediately questioned them on their experience with souffles, and they both admitted it had been a long time (read: they've never made souffles in their lives). The judges thought they were both failures, but thought Zoi's was the better tasting failure.

Both Ryan and Erik were called in front of the judges as losers, along with Nimma, and Mark. Erik admitted he had made "glorified nachos" and wasn't proud of it. Ryan kept insisting that when he was a kid, chicken or veal piccata included a big plate of starch. WHAT? Colicchio told him he had made something more like a milanese, and basically told Ryan he obviously didn't know what that classic dish actually was. Rocco said "it wasn't only his gnocci that were dense." Ouch. Even Bourdain thought that was harsh.

But, in the end, Erik's nachos and Ryan's breaded chicken were better than Nimma's salty shrimp and cauliflower "scramble," so she packed her knives and went.

Programming note: There is a local girl named Tiffany on the new season of "The Bachelor," which premieres tonight on ABC at 9:30 pm. And, *sigh*, yes, we will be covering it in next week's post.

All images from Bravo.