Welcome to our thoughts on Wednesday's episode of Top Chef on Bravo, which we hope will help psych y'all up for tonight's episode. We must say that this episode was a vast improvement over the previous one, and we're again psyched to continue watching season two.

You might even say this episode kicked four teeth and a gigantic ass.

Sorry, we hate to keep bringing up that phrase, but we can't remember ever hearing anything so funny. See, the "Quickfire Challenge", which is an immunity contest, was to create an ice cream. Some of the chefs went a little nutso (anybody using BACON, we're looking at you); a few went fairly time-tested/generic; a few were decidedly unimpressive (gee, Marisa, you're a pastry chef; we thought you'd have a better showing) . . .

And a few were just RUDE. To hilarious effect, to be sure. See, the judges for these ice creams were the folks attending Seaside Lagoon, a natural lagoon turned into a park sorta thing down in Redondo Beach. We love Seaside Lagoon; we actually grew up pretty close to there and have fond memories of field trips and celebrations at the watery playground.

We don't recall anybody ever letting us sample ice cream. Nor do we recall anybody ever telling one of the moms present that with her "four teeth and gigantic ass" that she probably didn't need any more sugar.

Hee-haw! Emily (who we described last week as Martha Plimpton's lookalike; we'd like to revise that now to "evil twin") did just that. She let loose with the "you don't like my 'calming lavender chocolate,' thus you are an ugly, tasteless hick" smack.

"Calming" ice cream? Ever seen the ice cream man drive by? "ICE CREEEEAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!! ME ME ME, ME FIRST, ME FIRST!!!!!" may ring a bell. The tots don't encourage each other to queue up in an orderly fashion. They rush the truck for ice cream and cram it into their mushy little faces! Calming lavender, our ass.

So Cliff wins. AGAIN. Cliff, who claimed he'd never made ice cream. But you know what? He's smart, he knows that people like cookies and nuts and cold, creamy stuff . . . and that ice cream is nothing to be "calm" about. He's bright, in touch with flavor, skilled, and we like the way he's conducted himself. Cliff's latest victory has helped propell him into one of our top three faves (with Elia--natch--and Ilan).

Ironically, it's the winner of the main elimination challenge that turned out to be someone we soured on. Controversial opinions from your Top Chef correspondent after the jump.

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