SFist is back, trying to wet your whistle with another short recap of Bravo's delightful Top Chef, a reality competition for people with knives that takes place here in San Francisco and is full of local guest stars. In our first recap, we introduced the basic premise, some of the chefs, and posited that candidate Stephen is the epitome of evil amongst sommeliers. If only he wore a monocle and had a goatee.

In any case, episode three was the best yet: Stephen was delightfully pretentious and bitchy, the immunity challenge actually mattered, and there was some great in-fighting . . .

The quickfire (a.k.a. immunity) challenge was introduced in accordance with the episode's theme of turning something ugly into something palatable. The challenge? Cook some octopus. Which starts out gross, slimy, and tentacle-y. Candice squeals. Dave forgets to use salt and pepper (GASP!)! Guest judge, Chef Laurent Manrique of Aqua, is astounded. Cynthia has used "the cork trick," wherein you put a cork into the pot with the octopus to make it more tender. It matters not; Chef Manrique isn't impressed with her dish either. The winner of the quickfire octopus challenge, and thus immunity? Red-headed spitfire Tiffani, who, heretofore, was one of our favorite contestants. Not so by the end of the show. She impressed Chef Manrique with bringing the octopus back to its Mediterranean origins.

Unfortunately, the "cork trick," was Cynthia's swan song; she leaves the show to be with her ailing dad. Respect. Rather than that just winnowing it down, the Top Chef powers that be summon back last week's loser, Andrea! Wouldn't it be cruel if the same person got eliminated two weeks in a row? Didn't happen, though. Still Andrea must know she's on borrowed time.

So, the challenge -- the gang is divided into two teams ("red" and "blue", for originality), and must prepare a menu centered around the disgusting monkfish (see above), a delightfully hideous creature . . . but the customers will all be children! Let the shenanigans begin!

Image from Wikipedia; Photographer: Alexander Mayrhofer; License: GNU-FDL

Hey, Kids! Don't ah look yummah? Eat me!