Ahhhh…. Last night was the latest installment of Top Chef. Something to MAC about, finally! It almost feels like normal.

Except I have to talk about these people. Sigh. And to think I once harbored such hopes for Sam and Ilan. But this whole group, except perhaps Elia, have really sunken in my estimation. I don’t want them to, but they’ve just devolved into Junior High Land and are not leaving it. (And next week looks even worse!) Not only that, but their cooking isn’t exactly looking inspired.

So, we’re left with six. They actually did a pretty good job with the Quickfire, I thought. The guest judge was rude, but apparently he’s known to be that way. I just wanted to smack the ten faux-hawked hairs off his head and tell him to be nice. And they wonder why the cheftestants are acting like immature children. Be a better role model, dude.

Anyway, after being forced to use mayonnaise, Italian dressing, or barbeque sauce in their snack dish, Sam and Marcel end up the winners of the Quickfire Challenge. They don’t get immunity any longer, so what they win is the honor of being the ones to choose their teams for the Elimination Challenge. Marcel, to the shock of absolutely no one, picks the only person who hasn’t dedicated his life to making Marcel’s miserable, Elia, and he also picks Cliff. This means Sam has Ilan and Mikey.

Their job? Open a functioning restaurant in 24 hours. Yeah. I know. And they wonder why they turn out half assed prepared food. Aaaaaanyway. They each get half of a restaurant slated to open later that month and they must paint, decorate, plan a menu for and essentially get ready to open and serve 24 people by that same time the next day.

Initially, Marcel’s team calls their restaurant Medi, for a Mediterranean menu they plan to serve, but after meeting with their designer, totally change things up in the cab ride home and go for an upscale diner instead. Apparently Elia makes these mind blowing hamburgers for the cheftestants and they decide to make those the cornerstone of their new menu, which features a “Best of” list of diner food, bumped up to gourmet expectations. They call their restaurant M.E.C. which, I’m guessing, is each of their first initials.

Sam’s team decides to call their Italian restaurant Lalalina, which is a composite of their three girfriend/wives names. Awwww. They seem to have a pretty rock solid idea of what they want to do, so they meet with their designer, then set off to do their shopping and prep. Mikey is in charge of all the hardware, Sam and Ilan buy the food. Only, they don’t manage their money too wisely, so they end up with no wine. For an Italian restaurant. This is not good. Mikey is called, and he doesn’t buy the wine glasses, meaning he has left over money. The Music Of Impending Importance chimes, so we know this is going to be a problem. (I wondered why they didn’t take the leftover money from the hardware to buy wine, but after reading the chef blogs - yes, I know, I have no life - they reveal they were only allowed to spend their budgeted money for what it was allocated for.)

So, off everyone goes in the race against the clock to prepare both food and the front simultaneously. Cliff decides to run the front for his team, saying that this is what he does for his restaurant back home, so it makes sense he’d do it for this challenge. Elia is a bit heartbroken as she feels this is her strength. And, I suppose, because she always gets stuck doing the slave labor cooking and never gets to do the customer related part, which I think she’d be good at. But, off they go.

For Sam’s team, they send Ilan up front. To be fair, none of the three of them have any experience doing that, and it might have been a nightmare with Mikey up there, but I think Ilan and Sam’s talents would have been better used in the kitchen as a team. On the one hand, it did seem that Sam was a bit over bearing in hand-holding Mikey through the event, but the editing made it hard to tell if he really needed such hand-holding, or if Sam was just patronizing him and assuming he couldn’t handle it. I’m thinking a little of both. Still, Mikey would have likely done much better with the customers, and certainly better than nervous, quiet Ilan did.

It’s time to serve the public. They filter in and get their first look at the menus, after which they will pick where they want to dine. Everyone wants to go to Lalalina, and people only go to M.E.C. when the first restaurant is full.

Judges head to M.E.C. first, where Cliff has become totally overwhelmed with the job he supposedly does every day at home. Yeah. I’m thinking he has hostesses who really do that and all he does is wander around and ask people if they’re enjoying themselves, grand poobah style. This actually involves work, which seems to be over Cliff’s head. He takes out his stress by being patronizing and condescending to their staff support, as well as his own team.

So, the judges are seated and they wait to be waited on. And they wait. And wait. Cliff is so overwhelmed trying to keep up with is customers, that he doesn’t even really acknowledge their presence. Bad move. They finally get their food and they are unimpressed with the opener, which is undercooked chicken, (never a good thing to try and kill your customers) but enjoy the second course of tempura, though they wonder if it’s really upscale diner food. Are singularly unimpressed with the Best Burger Ever (I thought it sounded delish - they said it tasted like meatloaf. I think that sounds YUM-EE, but what do I know?) and totally hated the dessert, which…lemon on an Oreo cake? Yeah, blech!

Now the judges head over to Lalalina. Customer service is far better, even if Ilan is more or less in automated robotron mode. They are disgusted to find a left over olive pit on the table and wonder why there aren’t plates for them to put pits and bread on. (Mikey.) And they also wonder why there is no wine list in an Italian restaurant. (Sam and Ilan.) But they are served relatively quickly, and they love the opener meatball appetizer. This is followed by a veggie fettucine dish they all hate, and then a pork dish that the guest judge is just plain rude about, although they agree it tastes okay, just that it’s not cohesively planned. They singularly hate Sam’s dessert, and Gorgonzola and watermelon, Sam? Really? Yeah, double blech!

All in all, despite a few highlights from both teams, the judges are totally unimpressed with their efforts, and, I think, embarrassed in front of their rude guest judge. So they trudge back home and decide what to do about this underwhelming challenge.

They discuss, agree there were scant highlights and a whole lot of lowlights, then call each team in, Sam’s team first. They immediately tell them that just because they were called in first, does not mean they won, and proceed to ream them out one by one. With tails tucked, they are sent out with instructions to send the other team in, who then get their comeuppance. Elia hates getting reamed out, and you can tell this leaves her very shaken. I feel for her, because I think she performed very well in this particular challenge. Cliff is a total ass, and when asked who should go home, says “Pick one of them” in a totally dismissive, rude way. You know, Cliffie? I enjoyed you a lot at first, but wow. Not so much anymore. You lost me with the whole Mia thang, and you’re just not climbing back up in my estimation.

The judges finally deliberate and decide there will be no winner of this challenge, only a loser. They call in all six cheftestants, and one by one, excuse those who can leave. At least Elia gets the benefit of being the first to be sent to safety, followed by Ilan, and then Marcel. This leaves Sam, Mikey, and Cliff in the bottom three. And even though, in this particular challenge, I say Sam and Cliff both made bigger individual errors, it is Mikey who finally gets the boot.

The only real uplifting moment is during Mikey’s good-bye clip, where, beaming in that true, twinkly-eyed Mikey fashion, he compares himself to the humble pig from Charlotte’s Web. Awww, Mikey. We love ya. But Top Chef you are not. Bya!

Next week? Hijinks on the homefront and it looks like things totally get out of hand. There’s a shock.

Don’t forget to enter this week’s SHaQ Attack! Check out Tuesday’s post for the details. Winner announced tomorrow!

And new Grey’s Anatomy and Men in Trees tonight. Woo hoo!!

Tags: Writing //