SFist Watches: Your Locals On Reality TV

At the Top Chef Kitchen it was Quick Fire Challenge time. Ming Tsai was the guest judge, although it turned out he wouldn't really be judging anything as the challenge was a taste test. The chefs were blindfolded and had to tell the difference between cheap and expensive food items. Ryan was first up and did well, guessing both the high end versions of bacon and maple syrup. Things sped up after that and it was hard to really tell who was doing good and who wasn't. Ultimately, Stephanie did the worst, Ryan and Jen were runners-up, and Antonia did the best.

For the real challenge, the chefs would be cooking for the "Meals On Wheels Chicago Celebrity Chef Ball." "Celebrity chefs" at the event would be cooking the second through fourth courses, which meant the non-celebrity chefs of "Top Chef" were responsible for the first courses. The theme for the event was the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. The chefs broke up into four teams. Ryan and Jen were on Team Air, and Zoi was on Team Earth.

Jen immediately went the bird route for the air theme, but Nikki didn't seem too keen on the idea. On Team Earth, Zoi and Spike wanted to make a squash soup, but Antonia, no doubt high from her Quick Fire win, deemed a soup "not enough quality." They decided on carpaccio instead. Which ties in to the earth theme how, now?

At the store, Antonia kept on with her "quality" approach, while Spike worried that they'd be called out by the judges for just serving raw beef and a salad. Antonia has immunity. Why is anyone listening to her at all? Meanwhile, duck seemed to be on the menu for Team Air.

In the huge on-site kitchen, Richard La Douche of Team Water decided to sequester his team into a corner of the kitchen so they could cook their fish-in-bags-in-water in peace. Tom Collicchio seemed less than impressed when he heard about their course. Team Air had a mini-crisis when Ryan didn't reserve some of their pomegranate juice for their planned cocktail, and Team Fire was miserable, having both Dour Dale and Lisa "The Complainer" Fernandes on the team.

Serving time! Team Water was first, and it seems Richard was more concerned with getting his fish into their fancy little air-vacuumed bags than he was with actually cleaning the fish, as there were scales left on a lot of the pieces. The judges also seemed a little ticked that there was more of Twitchy McTwit's "faux caviar" on the plate--again. Team Fire was next, and while Collicchio thought the shrimp was too spicy, the other judges liked it.

Team Air's duck breast with citrus salad and a pomegranate prosecco aperitif was next. Alas, it didn't seem to go over well, as the table complained that the fat on the duck hadn't been rendered, and no one seemed to like the tiny cocktail that came with it. Last was Team Earth's beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli. Everyone thought it was bland, and Collicchio didn't think there was anything earthy about it. Things were not looking good for our locals.

Judging time! Team Fire was called first, and declared the winner. Lisa's bacon was deemed the dish's biggest attribute, so she won a trip to Italy, much to the chagrin of Dour Dale. Teams Earth and Water were then called into the judging room.

Team Water was immediately called out for their uncleaned, scaly fish, and Richard La Douche acted totally surprised that some scale were found, even though his team found scales on the fish even before they sent out their plates. Collicchio didn't think sous-vide was the way to go for salmon as it ends up mushy. None of the other elements of the dish seemed to impress anyone either.

On to Team Earth, and their bland dish. Antonia's "excellent palate" didn't seem to catch the under seasoning of the dish, but no matter, she had immunity! Zoi explained that as a team, they didn't want to overpower the flavor of the meat, but obviously took that too far. She actually went on and on about how she's not one to under season, and yadda yadda, which lead to Gail pointing out that actually, there was too much rosemary in the dish. When asked to explain how they came up with the dish, Spike mentioned that he had originally wanted to do a butternut squash soup, and Antonia again said she was totally against doing a soup for 80 people. Guest judge Ming thought soup was a "brilliant" dish, and pointed out that it's a good test of a chef's skills, whether he can make a good soup or not. So, thanks ANTONIA, for your worthless contributions this week.

Back in the holding pantry, chefs began bickering and whining. Spike admitted he should have put his foot down and demanded BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP! Jen tried to sooth Zoi by telling her she's a force to reckoned with, and an amazing chef. Meanwhile Collicchio thought both Zoi and Spike should be eliminated since they let Antonia run the show. They also thought Richard was clearly delusional for thinking that salmon was good in any way. Alas, they decided Zoi's light hand with the seasoning was the biggest disgrace, so she had to pack her knives and leave...

But not before leaving the holding pantry in chaos! Spike and Antonia started screaming about BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP, and Jen yelled at Spike for putting his "teammate in the ground" (well, they were Team Earth!) and then Dour Dale said "That's weak shit!" about Zoi going home, and Lisa told him he was just making it worse, and Dale yelled at Lisa about how she gets to bitch and whine all the time, and then he grabbed his crotch and said the minute he starts to say shit about shit she starts to talk shit and that's bullshit!

And then Jen kicked a chair.

The end.

All images from Bravo's "Top Chef" site.