Top Chef Power Rankings

Case In Point

For those who felt the $10 challenge on Top Chef last week was obviously rigged, this is the exact dish (thanks, Mr. Vongerichten) I'm making for dinner tonight:

Dominic Armato

My itemized bill from Whole Foods:

4 bone-in chicken thighs	$2.18
1 lemon	$1.00
1 lime	$0.50
1 grapefruit	$0.67
loose greens	$1.12
1 red chile	$0.21
TOTAL:	$5.68

Out of my pantry, I'll be using some leftover sour cream, a spoonful of miso, half a cup of rice (not pictured), oil, salt and pepper. There's easily enough room under $10 there to get some more chicken (I'm only feeding two and a half, and am only using half the citrus and greens) and some sour cream. A tub of miso would put me over, but I'll let you decide whether or not you believe I could have come up with a tasty alternative. And I assume we can all agree that a cup of rice, oil and salt are pantry staples that, even if you added in prorated costs, would be dirt cheap.

Point being, $10 for dinner for four, even at Whole Foods, is not only doable, I just did it without even trying.

Top Chef - S4E8 Power Rankings

(Click here for the podcast version of this post.)

Can I get this out of the way right off the bat? I'd like to declare Art Smith my mortal enemy. Oh, sure, his Chicago restaurant is booked into the fall, and he devotes tons of time and energy and money to charity, and he's a champion of cooking and eating as a family, and everybody says he's basically the nicest guy in the world -- but insist that the only way to improve the chicken dish is to remove the skin? It's on, Art. Oh yes, it's on.

Let's just say this wasn't the episode for food nerds. Not that simple, quick, inexpensive, healthy meals for the whole family aren't important. They're vitally important and, truthfully, much more important in the grand scheme of things than the elitist little foodie minutiae that people like me get all huffy about. People need more of what we saw this week and less of... well... this. But there are challenges that let the chefs show off their skills in a manner that has some bearing on the final stages of the competition, and challenges they just have to survive. This week gave us two of the latter. And... surprise!... more controversy.

But first, Uncle Ben's 90 Second Ready Rice! I made my peace with Top Chef's product placement a long time ago, but even I found this one a little painful. That said, the people who take it as a personal affront and don't think this is the future of television in the commercial-skipping DVR era are kidding themselves. In any case, 15 minutes isn't a lot of time and it's nice to see who performs under pressure, so that's worthwhile.

The elimination challenge was cute and amusing and its heart was in the right place, but I'm not convinced it was a good challenge for this stage of the competition (though it was, admittedly, a lot better than what I predicted based on the teaser). Perhaps we're getting a little spoiled this season. Anybody remember the vending machine challenge or the "prepare to serve 20 people tomorrow but we're not going to tell you what kind of equipment, if any, you're going to have" challenge? I'm okay with variety. I like it, in fact. As much as some people scream and yell, I like the fact that every single challenge isn't fine dining in the Top Chef kitchen. But when you've gotten this far, (almost) everybody is extremely talented, and I hate to see somebody going home because there wasn't enough protein, or because the kids didn't dig it, especially when it looks like they weren't informed their audience would be 13 and under.

$10 for four is tough. $10 for four at Whole Foods is brutal. But despite the rumblings on some message boards, I say it's entirely doable. Especially since I'm sure this worked like similar challenges in the past, where Lee Anne provides the chefs with an abbreviated list of pantry items that will be available ahead of time, so they can plan accordingly. I've picked up a four pack of chicken thighs at the Whole Foods around the corner for just over four bucks, and protein is half the battle. Go with a few inexpensive vegetables, keep it simple, use the pantry wisely and this isn't the mission impossible that some seem to think it is. And yet, this is the internet where disbelief quickly devolves into conspiracy theory. A common sentiment seems to be that it must have been $10 per person, never mind that that's waaaaaaay out of line for the average family of four's food budget. $10 per plate x 4 people x 30 days = $1200/month, just for dinner. I even saw it suggested on one board that the tape confirmed a much larger budget. But while bettyjoan's sleuthing is after my own heart, I think this is a case of digging deep, but not deep enough. The register shot while the chefs are checking out does, indeed, show a total just over $50. But it's a tight cutaway shot that doesn't have any chefs in frame. It could have been shot at any time, it could have been B-roll they pulled from a different episode, it could have been a random shopper shopping -- we have no way of knowing. Talented editors splice everything together to create the illusion of continuity, but in the span of ten seconds you could have three or four shots that were all filmed weeks apart. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a high resolution screencap, and the lo-res is useless if you're trying to read anything other than the total. But it's semi-readable on television, and I got navel oranges, figs and half & half (among others). None of the dishes this week put those ingredients together, so I'm inclined to think the shot was from another episode, or from a roving camera that grabbed a few random register shots that the editors worked in. I do expect, however, that their budget was a little higher. They made at least six plates -- four for the kids, one for the judges' table and one in the kitchen for Tom, and probably a camera plate -- so you'd expect them to increase the overall budget appropriately. This would have the benefit of allowing the chefs to achieve a little economy of scale (making eight plates for $20 is a lot easier than making four plates for $10), but I don't see how that's some kind of perversion of the challenge's spirit.

All of that aside, however, I kind of feel like this was a non-week for the rankings. Aside from Stephanie's disturbing slide, I don't feel like we saw anything terribly relevant to the rest of the contest. Of course, Mark might take issue with the suggestion that nothing really changed this week, and there are those who will dramatically trumpet this as a shocking episode where Antonia reasserts her excellence, Nikki proves she belongs and doubts are raised about Richard and Dale's dominance, but I just don't buy it. Episode eight was a cute diversion, but it was a diversion. I don't think it told us much and hopefully we get back to the meat and potatoes next week.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Richard Quickfires 3 6 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 2 3 1 Richard may have been winless, and he may have flown low during the elimination, but I was a lot more impressed with his dishes than some of those that stole the spotlight. His tuna steak and tomatoes with truffle oil and yuzu vinaigrette looked beautiful, earned a shout out from Art Smith, and left me trying to figure out how truffles and citrus go together -- pretty much Richard in a nutshell. And in the elimination, his roast chicken with beets was also made with apples, avocado, black beans, ginger, lime, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, cilantro and basil. It really sounds good to me, it was certainly one of the more sophisticated dishes made, and while I didn't taste it, I have to wonder if he overshot the challenge somewhat. But he continues his march to the finals, and despite being out of his element I think he showed very well.

2 Dale Quickfires 1 4 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 4 0 I feel much the same way about Dale that I do about Richard this week. He didn't make a big splash, but he put great food on the table, and probably had an even stronger week than Richard. First off, I love the fact that he completely, if inadvertently, showed up Nikki in the quickfire. She's peddling light board takeout "Chinese" fare, and he's making a complex fried rice dish with pineapple, scallops, scallop paste, XO sauce and long beans. And his elimination dish didn't win the hearts of the little ones, but Lee Anne loved it and it sure looked good to me. He took the opportunity to get away from his specialty a bit, and turned out a great-looking complete dish with potatoes, apples, Dijon and a sweet and sour cabbage made with red vinegar and honey. Consensus seemed to be that it was delicious and a great use of the budget, just a little too aggressive for the kids. Whether that last sentiment was coming from the kids or the judges, I don't know - but we'll get to that later.

3 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 1 4 1 Cracking the top three for the first time this season, much to my surprise, is Andrew. It's more a function of Stephanie's troubles, but that's not to take anything away from a strong week. His quickfire didn't work. Trying to pull off fish crusted with instant rice in 15 minutes was a little bit of hubris at work, though you have to appreciate the enthusiasm and the admission that it probably wasn't the brightest idea. But technical issues with the crust aside, Smith seemed impressed by his almond and sundried tomato pesto with honey. There was a good dish in there. As Smith suggested, Andrew just needed more time to experiment with it. His chicken paillard with fennel, orange and apple salad, however, was tack sharp, maybe the most elegant of the nine, and a remarkable use of the money and pantry. The chicken was crusted with panko, parmesan, basil and cilantro before being fried, he did a lemon-chicken jus with garlic and Dijon, and the dressing for his salad was a simple but effective affair of olive oil, white wine vinegar, honey and lemon. It was classy but accessible, it had kid and adult appeal, and it was a complete meal. Whether or not it was his intention, Smith gave the impression that the only reason it didn't win was because of Smith's philosophical issues with what he calls the "chicken finger phenomenon". Okay, fine, Art, they were glorified chicken fingers. But they were really glorified, the dish worked in fresh fruit and vegetables, and none of the half pints made a peep about the fennel, which was probably new to them and odd for anybody the first time you have it. Are we rewarding practice or theory, here?

4 Antonia Quickfires 2 3 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 1 4 1 Right. Of course. Thanks, Antonia. The week after I rake you over the coals and say you deserve to be even lower, you get all charming, pick up a double win, and reveal that you're not only an executive chef but a doting single mom. Don't misunderstand, I don't take back anything I said last week. I just feel dirty about it now. I'm going to give her a bump here because a double win is a double win, but I'm going to do it grudgingly because that was about as unexciting as a double win can be. Admittedly, the rice in the salad is an interesting little twist that apparently works. But that aside, it's grilled skirt steak and greens with a simple vinaigrette. I don't doubt it was tasty, but I have to wonder if Art Smith was more in love with the idea of it than he was with the dish itself. And as to her elimination dish, yes, I get that it was easy and nutritious and fun for kids. But she stir-fried chicken, noodles and a few vegetables with a bottled teriyaki sauce. Let me be clear, I think this a great simple dish for families at home (even if I'd advocate some fresh garlic, ginger, soy sauce and sugar over a bottled sauce), but this is Top Chef. I don't care if this is the family home cooking challenge. Meat + vegetables + bottled sauce doesn't impress me. I'm giving you your fourth spot back for now, Antonia, but you're on notice.

5 Stephanie Quickfires 0 1 3 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 2 5 3 The only real news of the week is that Stephanie's disturbing slide continues. She's been on the bottom of three of the last four challenges, and she's narrowly escaped elimination twice. A lot of people are convinced she should already be gone. She tanked the quickfire with a rice and seafood pancake she didn't even bother to taste (the 15 minute challenge isn't the time to try something new, Stephanie), and then her elimination dish was almost universally loathed. Padma, with her "It's disgusting, I really detested it," quote certainly made her feelings clear. And Tom couldn't stop harping on what he called a "bizarre" combination of tomato and peanut (even if millions of West Africans would disagree). But despite those who feel she's been given a free pass to the finals because the producers reallyreallyreally want a woman to win, I think she survived on a split decision. Art Smith writes... "Peanut butter, tomato, chicken, and couscous, actually sounds bad but tasted great. She put combinations together like a child would but it had great flavor." In seemingly contradictory fashion, he also said on camera that it didn't taste that great, but given the context I think he was referring to the couscous at the time. So it looks like the guest judge saved her, backhanded compliment and all. I also love that Tom writes... "In retrospect, I think the episode was cut in a way that made it seem we took the greatest issue with Stephanie’s dish when in actuality, we debated long and hard about them all, and Mark’s emerged as the least favorite of the bunch." ...which sounds a lot to me like a polite way of saying, "Yeah, we have no idea what the hell Art was thinking." But for the sake of argument, let's suppose, for a moment, that they did let Stephanie ride on her previous performance a little bit. I don't see why so many people have a problem with this. The judges have said quite openly that while they judge each challenge individually, they're sometimes inclined to consider previous performance when it's a very close call, and I don't see how holding them to the letter of some imagined set of "rules" works to anybody's advantage. Well, anybody other than Mark, anyway. As long as it was close -- and Smith's comments poke an awfully big hole in the theory that she was the "obvious" choice for elimination -- I have no problem with them using her past performance as a tiebreaker. But all of this argument over whether or not she deserved the axe this week sidesteps the real question, which is what the hell is going on with Stephanie? The first time was a fluke. Last week was troubling. Now I'm starting to wonder if she really is cracking under pressure, and if she is, next week isn't going to be any easier for her. I'm not writing her off by any stretch of the imagination. I think she's coming back. But she's making it really hard to believe.

6 Spike Quickfires 0 2 3 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 2 Spike, meanwhile, just keeps plodding along, interspersing swaths of mediocrity with occasional nuggets of great promise. This wasn't one of his better weeks, and I've pretty much given up on the idea that he's going to make a move on the backstretch, but at least he didn't embarrass himself this week. His quickfire wasn't exactly inspiring. He stuffed his tomatoes with rice and veal and topped them with veal demiglace, port and a bit of rice vinegar. It was the 15 minute challenge, but still, you'd like to think he could come up with something a little more interesting than that. And it isn't as though it was an elimination challenge where you could argue he's playing for safety. It's a quickfire. Either you win outright and gain immunity, or lose basically nothing. There's no reason not to shoot for the moon. As for his elimination dishes, I'm going to set aside my annoyance with his rather liberal use of the term "pasta puttanesca" for a moment. And when I do, I'm not impressed. There are no recipes posted for his carrot soup or baked apples, and the pasta recipe looks incomplete (there are no capers listed, though they appear in the photo), but it looks like a typical overcooked tomato sauce unceremoniously dumped over naked noodles. 45 minutes is waaaaay too long to cook a sauce like this. I'm trying to set aside my mediocre pasta pet peeve here, I really am. And he checked all of the appropriate boxes. It was healthy, kid pleasing and cheap. But seeing pasta, which should be a gimme for a cheap and healthy family dinner, produced in such a lame fashion -- it hurts me.

7 Lisa Quickfires 0 1 4 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 3 2 Lisa's downward trend continues, with two bottom finishes this week. Those flashes she showed while teamed with Stephanie were downright tantalizing, but she's stopped turning out good food and even if she has a couple of good dishes left, her days are numbered. I was a little surprised to see Smith calling her out for a lack of originality, especially after praising Spike's dish, but it wasn't as though Lisa's dish was any great shakes either. It was pretty much boilerplate mass-market Southwestern, with tequila shrimp, corn, beans, peppers, rice spiked with cilantro and an avocado cream. Her quinoi crusted chicken with beans and edamame doesn't look too bad, but the judges hated it. Lee Anne seems to feel that it just needed a little salt and lemon. Because of her previous issues with approaching the challenge as stated, she's starting to second-guess herself now, trying to play psychic and guessing what level of seasoning the judges will deem appropriate rather than just tasting her food and making it good. But her attitude has become so toxic at this point that I don't think she can come at anything with a clear head. Between teaming up with Dale and working through the night, next week ought to be a laugh riot.

8 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 2 2 What, you thought because she was on top in the elimination I was going to let her out of the basement? Please. Though not in such stark terms, I believe I said it last week. This is how she cooks -- like a competent home cook, not a professional chef. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm in the camp that believes there's just as much honor in preparing a simple one pot meal for your family as there is in producing haute cuisine for an adoring public. But Top Chef isn't about rewarding capable home cooks (if it was, I'D be competing). Except for this week, when apparently it was about rewarding capable home cooks. But that's a completely temporary scenario. Butchered fried rice with way too much soy sauce and one pot roasted chicken and vegetables will get you through an episode with family and health-oriented Art Smith, but it won't get you thr-- wait, which episode are we on, now? Criminy.

9 Mark Quickfires 2 2 2 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 4 And so we come to Mark, who showed an awful lot of potential in week two, and not very much since. He put some good-looking food out there, and his flavor palette, coming from as far away as it did, made for some refreshingly interesting dishes. But really, nobody should be surprised by this one. His recipes on the website for this week are a total mess. The quickfire recipe is missing and the elimination recipe is all screwed up, and showing a photo of Nikki's dish to boot. So I'm mostly stuck having to take the judges' word for it. He was called out in the quickfire for overcooking his turkey, and might I add the fact that he overcooked his protein in a 15 minute challenge is hilarious. And while some have called it a bad idea to try to serve curry to kids, I don't like that line of thinking. For starters, while the chefs were told this was supposed to be a good family dish, I don't believe they were told outright that they were serving a roomful of kids. And secondly, I hate the school of thought that there are some foods that aren't good for kids. I believe -- or maybe I want to believe -- that they don't like what we don't feed them. My little guy is one and a half, and he eats everything I do. For the parents who are snickering and saying to wait until he's five, I reserve the right to shamelessly backtrack at some point in the future. But my point is, if you make good food, kids will eat it. There are parts of the world where children are raised on curries, and they aren't fundamentally different from American kids -- they're just exposed to them early on. But rant aside, it sounds like the problem is simply that Mark didn't make a very good curry. Without seeing the recipe it's hard to say, but a very sweet coconut milk curry that's heavy on sweet potatoes does sound rather off-balance to me. As a side or a component it sounds right on, but as a standalone dish, it seems like it needs something to ground it. Wild speculation aside, however, it doesn't really matter. The Kiwi makes an exit at roughly the appropriate time, and his accent will be missed more than his food.

Next week things get nasty again. We haven't seen the wedding challenge since season one, and it's absolutely brutal. The chefs will be up all night cooking an obscene amount of food, and they're already worn out and sleep-deprived. Add to this that the website teaser's title is "Pointing Fingers" and it looks to be a nasty episode all around. The episode-end trailer shows Dale cracking the whip, which would seem to put him in a team leadership position. That makes me nervous, given the judges' propensity to insist that the captain go down with the ship. But more likely, if Dale's team fails, somebody else who's barely hanging on finally cracks and saves him. Lisa, Nikki and *gulp* Stephanie seem like prime candidates to me, but it's hard to guess who best copes with a lack of sleep. I'm pretty sure Andrew will be okay, but that aside, it's open season and the battle for the top spot will be a war of attrition. I expect it will be a bloody one.

Discuss!

Podcast Clarification

Just to clarify, since quite a few people have asked, the podcast Power Rankings won't be replacing the written Power Rankings. It's just an alternate format for those who dig the audio, and I'll be posting them together going forward (though the podcast may differ slightly from the written version). The written word is the first priority!

Aaaaand, We're Live...

I'm probably going to regret this, but here it is anyway.

Skillet Doux in audio. First podcast? This week's Top Chef Power Rankings.

Am I one of the cool kids now?

Be kind, be brutal -- let me know if these are worth continuing.

Link after the jump.

Top Chef Power Rankings Podcast?

Y'know, being that I actually do voiceover for a living and have a studio set up at home, should I be doing the power rankings as a podcast as well? Would anybody listen to it if I did? Seeking input.

Top Chef - S4E7 Power Rankings

Pastry! Sausage! Controversy! Sleuthing! We get our first highly controversial elimination of the season, and the power rankings reach embarrassing new heights of obsessive thoroughness. More on that in a moment.

First, pastry. As mentioned last week, pastry freaks chefs out. Some of the most talented chefs are completely incapable of making a good cake. Though you might not think so at first, they're really completely different disciplines. Being a chef is about throwing things together, tasting, adjusting and improvising. Being a pastry chef is no less creative, but it's about precision, and there's a lot less room for on-the-fly improvisation. This is, however, season four, and most of the chefs seemed prepared, if a little out of their element. Chicago has an extremely high-profile pastry chef in Gale Gand, so unless she and Rick Tramonto are going to make an appearance later in the season (which would be nice), it's a little disappointing to see another NY import -- especially one who hasn't already been on the show. That said, I've eaten multiple times at both Jean Georges and Tru and, uh, sorry Gale... I enjoyed Iuzzini's desserts a lot more.

As to the controversy, while my annoyance didn't quite reach the same level of the comments I've been reading, I didn't like this call one bit at first. After watching the show I had the same impression that everybody else seems to have -- that Antonia and Lisa completely ignored the challenge and didn't use their primary ingredient. And while I could see the judges saying something to Stephanie and Jennifer along the lines of, "Guys, we know they strayed way off course, but you have to give us something to hang out hat on and you just didn't," I didn't like the precedent being set that you can basically ignore the parameters of the challenge and get away with it. Fudge them, okay -- but ignore them completely? I thought Antonia or Lisa should have gotten the axe.

But then, as I was doing my research for this week's rankings, I took a look at the recipe for their dish. And lo and behold, there's the Polish sausage, mixed in with the chorizo! Now, the recipes on the website aren't always entirely accurate. I've known them to omit ingredients or components at times. But it's one thing to erroneously omit an ingredient. It's another thing entirely to erroneously add an ingredient that was never there in the first place. So this got me wondering... despite the quotes from Lisa and Antonia that seemed to clearly indicate they were NOT going to use Polish sausage, did they end up using some after all, or did they amend their recipe for the website after the fact to include the thematic ingredient that was never there?

So I rewatched the episode, trying to pay very close attention to exactly what was said. Antonia clearly stated that they weren't going to use Polish sausage, but when was that interview done? If it was before they went shopping, which seems probable, they very well may have changed their minds. And while there are a lot of quotes that could be read either way, I found these two quotes from judges' table particularly compelling:

Ted Allen: "So, which is worse? Antonia and Lisa not really focusing on the main ingredient, or Jenn and Steph giving us something that was kind of a muddle on the plate?"

Tom Colicchio: "In Lisa and Antonia's case, you know, they downplayed the Polish sausage and introduced chorizo."

(My emphasis)

If they hadn't used Polish sausage, why on earth would you phrase it like that? Wouldn't you just say they didn't use the main ingredient, or they ignored the main ingredient? It sounds more like the kind of comments you'd hear if the sausage was there, but buried. Also, during the shopping scene, there's a very quiet, quick bit of dialogue between Antonia and Lisa:

Antonia: "Can we really mix Polish and chorizo?"

Lisa: "They're very similar."

So we know for certain that they at least considered using both. And finally, I caught something during the prep scene. I realize this is like the culinary equivalent of the Zapruder film (thanks to Ed Fisher for the screen capture!), but bear with me:

It's a lot clearer in glorious high definition than it is here, but in the hotel pan in front of Antonia? Sure looks like two different sausages to me. The three on the left are that nice, bright chorizo red, but the two on the right are a pale pink. Now, the finer points of tubular Polish meats isn't my area of expertise, but that sausage on the right sure seems like an awfully coarse grind for Polish sausage. So I decided to follow this through to its logical (if completely insane) conclusion.

I called the meat counter at the market where the chefs did their shopping (the Halsted & Waveland Whole Foods in Chicago) and asked if they had a house-made Polish. The fellow I spoke to replied that they do, indeed, make a Polish sausage and that I can find it in the meat case. I asked if it's a really fine grind, like commercial packaged sausage, or if it's a coarse grind. He told me it's the same type of coarse grind as their other fresh sausages.

My conclusion? Antonia and Lisa DID use a little bit of Polish sausage for fear of being disqualified if they didn't, but because they didn't want to, they intentionally buried it deep in the dish. It's not much better than leaving it out entirely, but for those who are hardliners when it comes to the parameters of the challenge, it makes a difference. I don't know this for a fact, and Tom said a couple of other things at the judges' table that sure made it sound like they only used chorizo, but you put everything together -- the recipe, the quotes, the photos, the judging, the Whole Foods meat counter -- and it just fits. I still think Lisa or Antonia probably should've gotten the axe. Even if their ingredient was on the plate, they clearly made an effort to hide it as much as possible and expressed outright contempt for the challenge, which is almost as bad. But I'm less annoyed with the elimination decision since it appears that Polish sausage probably was, in fact, worked into the dish. Did the sleuthing affect the rankings this week? Not really. But it was a good enough way to waste a Friday night.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Richard Quickfires 3 5 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 3 1 Ladies and gentlemen, the third contestant in Top Chef history to win both the quickfire and elimination in the same episode (yeah, I thought there would have been more, too). Richard gets his groove back, and you don't keep somebody out of the top spot after a week like that. In this quickfire, his banana scallops with banana guacamole and chocolate ice cream sound flat-out awesome. Slicing and searing the bananas like scallops is a fun presentation, but the heart of the dish is the "guacamole", which he made with tarragon, cilantro, basil, lime, chiles and ginger syrup. I realize that most people tend to be dessert purists who don't like it when savory ingredients sneak into their sugar and chocolate, but crossing that sweet/savory divide is where it's at for me, and apparently Johnny Iuzzini agrees. And then -- take note, Antonia and Lisa -- he throws himself into the elimination challenge and comes up with a creative and delicious way of handling a difficult theme ingredient. Tofu is often delicious, but it's tough to make it interesting. But once again, he finds a way to play with the judges' expectations and impress and delight them. I know I'm repeating myself, but the frequency with which he's been able to produce dishes that genuinely surprise the judges is the most impressive feat of any contestant this season. I can't think of any previous contestant who's managed to do that more than a couple of times over the course of the run -- it's tough to keep turning out creative dish after creative dish under pressure -- but between his peach taleggio pizza, jicama tacos, salmon with white chocolate and wasabi, banana scallops and the tofu steak, I count five times now where the judges' reaction has basically been, "I have no idea what this is or how the hell you did it, but it's fantastic." And had I included reactions that were surprised and pleased but not quite dumbfounded, I probably could've upped that number to seven or eight. The salmon scale episode was a fluke. Richard is doing exactly what he needs to do to win this thing, and the really impressive thing is that he keeps doing it week after week. Also, take note of the fact that he had a chance to throw Dale under the bus by tanking the challenge and surviving on immunity. Not only didn't he do that, he didn't even approach the challenge half-heartedly. He was genuinely excited to work with Dale, he gave it everything he had, and then jumped at the chance to give credit rather than fighting for it. That's class.

2 Dale Quickfires 1 3 1 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 2 4 0 It's time to reward Dale's emergence as a frontrunner, and he finally breaks into the top two. In case it wasn't clear just how strong he's been lately, since week three, his dishes have gone Win, Top, Top, Bottom, Win, Top, Win (the flub being that pork quickfire where he had a technical problem). And he isn't doing it by sneaking into the top, either. He's earning it. Halo-halo isn't something I have a lot of experience with, so I can't really judge just how creative his dessert quickfire was. I know some places throw some odd combinations at you, but I have a hard time believing that lemongrass-coconut water, braised mango with chiles, avocado shake, brûléed mango, kiwi caviar, five spice cashews, rice krispies, cilantro and chile rings is a typical version. What's really impressive is that, judging from the comments and the blogs, not only did he maintain a great balance with all of those bold, distinctive flavors going on, but also that he managed to keep it light and refreshing. It seems he was only edged by the fact that his was based on a common Filipino dish, whereas Richard's was kind of out of the blue. And while marinating the tofu in grilled beef fat was Richard's brainchild, I'm loathe to downplay Dale's role in the dish. He built the foundation for the tofu steak, and that was a team effort all the way. These guys are genuinely excited to collaborate and throw themselves into every challenge no matter how difficult or goofy it may seem. That kind of energy and enthusiasm, especially in the middle stages of the competition when so many contestants start to drag, speaks volumes their ability to keep creating and executing at such a high level.

3 Stephanie Quickfires 0 1 2 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 2 5 2 Some people aren't going to like this one. I know we'd all love to see a woman win this thing. And of course I'm behind the hometown hero. And I've had her in the top slot at times because of her elimination record and some really great looking dishes, but this week further bolstered my feeling that she just isn't the strongest competitor in the field. Her quickfire this week seems to have married chocolate and basil nicely, but it wasn't anything especially noteworthy. And then she gets herself into trouble again on the elimination challenge. Since Jennifer prepared the cheese and bread, it was pretty clear who was going to go, but this seemed like a team effort across the board. Criticisms were that there was way too much cheese and the balance was all off, that they made a poor choice of cooking method on the cheese and it left the dish unpleasantly greasy, and that there was generally way too much going on. On that last count, I have no doubt. The dish just seemed sloppy, both in terms of composition and presentation. That Stephanie seems unable to pull herself out of these occasional tailspins is troubling. Richard's trip to the chopping block, in contrast, was a dumb (though serious) oversight that he wasn't aware of until it was too late. But with Stephanie, it seems like her dish doesn't quite come together, she can see it isn't quite coming together, but she can't quite figure out how to make the necessary adjustments to save it. You see this tendency to get a little lost under pressure in her poor quickfire record, too. Also, I'm a little concerned that her peaks, while frequent, aren't as high as they need to be. It's as though she can bang out eights and nines all day (with the occasional clunker), but she isn't hitting those tens that Richard and Dale have been nailing. These top three are close enough that anything could happen (heck, they've all made their mistakes -- a poorly-timed gaffe could send one of them home next week!), but provided they all make it to the finals, I'm starting to think that Stephanie will find it tough to hang in there with Richard and Dale.

4 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 3 1 I'm as surprised as you. No, seriously. The battle for fourth place was a war of attrition this week, and somehow, at the end, Andrew was the last man standing. Antonia hasn't deserved the fourth spot for a few weeks, and this week was the final straw. Lisa certainly didn't show any better. Mark didn't embarrass himself, but he didn't exactly light it up. It seems like Spike was driving the soup, but he's been way too sketchy for way too long to merit that kind of jump without a HUGE week. And Nikki... well, yeah. So congratulations, Andrew, on looking less mediocre than the rest of the field! Actually, I'd like to give some love to Andrew. Despite how irritated I was with him after week one, the dude is slowly turning into my hero. He absolutely defines energy and enthusiasm. At the checkout counter with no idea what we're making? No worries, man, we're improvising! No appliances in the kitchen? Awesome, I can commune with my food! Lop off both of my hands at the wrists? Sweet, I've always wanted to try doing my prep work with my feet! I seriously think you could tell the guy that you're locking him in a closet with Velveeta, a match and a rock and he'd be all OVER that challenge. I thought his banana and chocolate ravioli looked a little clumsy, but I'm sure it was tasty enough. And then he and Spike rocked the elimination with a beautifully executed soup. Once again, Andrew seems to fare a lot better when he's on a team. My sense is that he's better at taking smaller assignments and bounding off to attack them with gusto. I think being a cog makes it easier for him to focus, which isn't going to help him much in the second half of the season. But for the moment, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and let him enjoy the fourth spot for a week.

5 Antonia Quickfires 1 2 1 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 3 3 Antonia has demonstrated that she works very cleanly and puts together solid, professional dishes. But she's shown three weaknesses that would put her even lower if those beneath her could get their acts together. First, as discussed in previous weeks, creativity is not her strong suit. She'll have a nice little twist here and there, but for the most part her dishes are very straightforward. Second, she's shown a propensity to serve dishes that, even if they're well-executed, are a little flat or tame from a flavor standpoint. And lastly, she's showing a serious amount of contempt for both the challenges and judges. Don't like Polish sausage? Deal with it. If you don't learn something from how Richard and Dale handled this challenge (do NOT try to suggest that green perplexed tofu was any better than magenta drunken Polish sausage), you might as well just leave now. Just because you can't think of a creative way to handle it doesn't mean it can't be done. And if you aren't hacking it, how about directing that frustration inward and trying to improve yourself rather than lashing out with contempt for the contest you apparently can't handle? What Antonia doesn't seem to understand is that she's lucky to still be around, and it's nobody's fault but her own. That's an attitude that isn't conducive to her continued survival. She'd better get over it quickly.

6 Lisa Quickfires 0 1 3 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 1 3 1 That goes double for you, Lisa. When everything blew up after Zoi's elimination, I thought Dale was an incredible jackass. And he was. But I'm actually starting to sympathize. I'm finding it hard to watch Lisa for an hour on television. I can't imagine what it's like to have to live and work with her in a closed environment for weeks on end. She snagged a top three mention in the quickfire, but her dessert was extremely similar to Stephanie's winning dish from the block party. It wasn't a strict repackaging, but -- let's just say it raised my eyebrows. As for the elimination, she isn't the least talented chef left, but she should be gone. I understand the logic -- Stephanie and Jennifer's dish wasn't exactly the best expression of its theme ingredient either, but at least their attempt was in earnest. And it seems pretty clear that if you set aside the thematic issues, the "Polish sausage" dish was a much better dish than the "ménage a trois", but I don't like the precedent that you can blow off the challenge and get away with it. While Antonia could potentially realize that they blew it and got lucky, my hunch is that this is only going to make Lisa more indignant and combative. She just doesn't get it, and I don't think she will. Also, the weirdness continues, as the self-proclaimed upscale Asian specialist still hasn't done an Asian dish since week two. Oh, and Lisa? Despite my low tolerance for people who get hammered and stupid, I'll take a "drunken schmuck" over somebody who's sober, bitter and nasty any day -- so long as we're throwing stones, here.

7 Spike Quickfires 0 2 3 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 1 2 Maybe it's because he finally got to bust out his soup, but it's nice to see Spike attacking a challenge. Two of them, actually, even if he didn't succeed with the first. Lee Anne says his soufflé was sweet to the point of being completely inedible, but Iuzzini really appreciated the effort. And then, in the elimination, a serious compliment from Tom. "This is probably the best seasoned dish we've had all season," in case you missed it. There are some who seem to feel that Spike and Andrew didn't belong on top. "They just made soup." But as wrong as Spike has been on so many occasions, here he's dead on. It's not just soup if you do it well. And it wasn't a whiz-bang creativity extravaganza, but it had a unique flavor profile and integrated the theme beautifully. Their soup was built with honey and miso, and they worked the vanilla into a dollop of cold crème fraîche, which put the theme front and center and also made for a temperature contrast. They didn't deserve the win, no, but don't underestimate the power of a great soup or the skill and creativity that can go into creating it. I think Spike can do well if he keeps his ego in check, and maybe a successful collaboration with a guy as enthusiastic as Andrew will set him on the right track.

8 Mark Quickfires 2 2 1 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 3 I don't think that Mark's doing anything wrong, per se, it's just that the remaining field is really strong (despite their faults) and he isn't doing anything to stand out other than occasionally working in ingredients I've never heard of. I suppose one upshot to coming in from the other side of the planet is that some of your common ingredients are almost unheard of here. Wattleseed? From what I read, it has a flavor that's reminiscent of coffee and chocolate, but I'd never heard of it before Wednesday. Mark's quickfire was rather elegant, but Iuzzini didn't feel that a plate of petit fours constituted dessert, and I'm inclined to agree. Pavlovas topped with a little fresh fruit is nice enough, but the presentation can't hide the fact that it's a very, very simple dish. Pavlovas are basically meringue with a center that has a marshmallow-like consistency, and they're very commonly topped with fresh fruit, so really the only creative angle was the wattleseed. But really, this was like making a butter cookie and adding cinnamon. It just isn't that much of a stretch, and there isn't much to it. His elimination dish with Nikki also looked solid, but we're entering the second half of the season with the strongest field to date. If nobody screws up, solid will get you eliminated. He's shown he can stand out in this crowd, but he hasn't done it since week two. My sense is that he peaked WAY early. I wouldn't totally discount a late charge, but it's looking less and less likely with every passing week.

9 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 1 2 The Slacker King took sixth place in season two and Nikki has now locked up no worse than ninth. But the field was one chef smaller back then, so for those paying attention, Nikki only needs to escape elimination three more times to out-Mikey Mikey. In the meantime, every time I have to bump her up a spot because there aren't enough chefs left to do otherwise, I die a little inside.

10 Jennifer Quickfires 1 3 0 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 1 1 Well, that success was short-lived. Even though her excessive displays of weepy devotion burned through much of my goodwill over the past couple of weeks, I dug her recipes and I'm disappointed to see my dark horse go. For what it's worth, Lee Anne agrees -- she went well before her time. She showed a little fire in her exit, but it struck me less as sour grapes and more as respectfully standing up for her dish. She didn't agree with it, but she accepted it. And though Lisa would have been my pick, with the given that the judges opted to punish their least favorite dish, Jennifer didn't have a prayer. While Stephanie was working up a vinaigrette and gastrique about which we heard no complaints, Jennifer was frying up greasy, oversized cheese and chewy, oversized bread. The bigger sin, as far as I'm concerned, however, was the innuendo. I'm no prude. I can handle the taboo. But when a full-grown adult dishes it out (no pun intended) at a junior high level, it's mostly just cringeworthy. Asparagus as erect phallus is grounds for instant elimination no matter how good you are. I realize that "turned-on" was part of their challenge, but the manner in which they presented it on both the plate and the menu wasn't clever... just dumb.

Next week brings us Art Smith, who I don't really know anything about beyond the fact that he's Oprah's personal chef and he's incredibly well-respected for his charity work. If nothing else, between him and Tom, it should be a banner week for the bear community. We get no hints whatsoever about the quickfire, but there's a huge pile of fresh vegetables on the table behind Smith. And the elimination looks to be an individual one (woo!), if you don't count the fact that every chef has a half pint in tow. Smith is all about foods for the whole family, so my guess is they have to come up with a recipe and coach the kids through the prep, without actually doing any cooking themselves. I suppose I see the logic. Can you come up with a delicious recipe that anybody -- truly anybody -- can do? But it's the kind of excessive gimmick that I've always hated on this show. If my guess is correct, the whole world could be turned upside-down. This is roughly Nikki's standard level of sophistication, so she might actually be okay again. Richard has control issues, which worries me more than a little. Andrew basically IS a kid, so I can see him rocking this challenge. But I'm hoping this one means curtains for Lisa. Patience isn't her strong suit, and we've all seen how she reacts when she thinks a challenge is dumb. Seems like the perfect setup for her ouster.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S4E6 Power Rankings

Can we all give a shout out to individual challenges? Finally, we get to see not only what these guys can do when working on their own, but we also get to see what ALL of them can do on their own. If you don't count last week, when there were only four dishes plated in the entire episode, this is the first time we've seen everything -- all 22 dishes. Needless to say, everything wrong is right again and a lot of questions have been answered. And how refreshing is it that all of the BS is out of the way within the first five minutes? Reality TV fans may be disappointed, but the food nerds are pleased.

It's a sports-ey, meat and potatoes-ey kind of episode (at least as much as that happens on this show), and we kick it off with beer. I'm friends with beer. I respect beer. But I'm no expert when it comes to beer, so I'll leave the finer points of the various brews to those who know what they're talking about. But judging from some of the chefs' reactions, I'm not alone in my relative ignorance. Reading around the web, some have seemed rather taken aback that a few chefs didn't seem entirely comfortable with beer. There seems to be a feeling among many fans of the show that every chef should know everything about everything, but that's just not realistic. Of course you'd expect them to have a fairly broad base of experience, and of course there are certain things that every chef should know (*ahem*... mayonnaise). But these folks have their favorites and their areas of expertise and their strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else. Koren Grieveson leaves a little to be desired in the on-screen personality department (Exhibit A for those who support sticking with the show's coastal go-to celebri-chefs), but by all accounts she runs one helluva kitchen (Avec being one of the shameful omissions of my Chicago restaurant experience), so we'll give her a pass.

Meanwhile, over at Soldier Field, it's great to see these guys doing their own thing in an elimination challenge, even if it isn't in a kitchen setting. This is a challenge that goes right to the heart of something that, mysteriously, some chefs on the show just never seem to comprehend. There's a line to walk here, and the judges expect you to walk it. You have to know your audience and make something that's appropriate to the setting, but just because you're "cooking for the masses" (a horribly condescending phrase that appears with unfortunate regularity on the show), that doesn't mean that you can get lazy and make uninteresting, sloppy food. It's a tailgate party. Do burgers. Do sausages. Do ribs. But do something interesting and fun with them, that's all. The chefs that understand this did well. The ones that didn't? Well...

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Stephanie Quickfires 0 1 2 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 2 5 1 Lest you forget, and lest Tom's little comment didn't clue you in, Stephanie has now been on top of the elimination challenge for five out of six weeks. Five out of six. Second place in that category? A three-way tie between Antonia, Dale and Lisa with three top elimination appearances apiece. Two solid dishes earning double props solidify her hold on the top spot this week. Her steamed mussels with cilantro vinaigrette and grilled bread were not only a refreshing way to handle mussels, and perfect for the challenge. The orange pairs with both the fennel and the beer, and I can see the cilantro vinaigrette, which she made using jalapenos and honey, giving it a nice little tart, spicy-sweet accent. This is a recipe I'd like to try at some point. Her elimination dish wasn't quite as exciting, putting pork with pears and potatoes, but it sounds like the rosemary vinaigrette both delighted and surprised. Anytime you can get the judges to enjoy something that originally inspired suspicion, you're doing the right thing.

2 Richard Quickfires 2 4 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 1 2 1 Both of his dishes actually struck me as more interesting than Stephanie's, and that's yet another thing I find encouraging going forward. He keeps putting out unconventional dishes and (mostly) pulling them off, and when you're an experienced diner who's had a dish or two, there are few things more exciting than trying something that's genuinely new to you. If he keeps surprising, the judges won't be able to help but give him the prize. The flipside being, of course, that if you bomb, you bomb. But Richard bounces back from his near-disaster, and actually looks pretty strong in a challenge that I thought might give him some trouble. Gail seems to imply that if it were her voting instead of the tailgaters, she would have put him in the top three for the elimination. So to my mind, he's unofficially getting credit for two top finishes. His grilled tuna quickfire sandwich is vaguely reminiscent of banh mi, but kind of pulls it back further towards the French end of the spectrum, pickling the vegetables with tarragon, basil and mustard seed. And for those wondering what his burger had to do with pate, it was made with veal and pork, seasoned with pate spice, and topped with cucumbers, fennel and curry mayonnaise. That's how you do a creative burger.

3 Dale Quickfires 1 2 1 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 1 3 0 Dale, meanwhile, continues to show strong since his week four coming out party. Yeah, he's cocky, but cocky and capable are a great combination for this show. I'm disinclined to hammer him too hard for the quickfire. His pork, sauced with a miso honey mustard and crusted with crushed pretzels, was headed in the right direction, I think. He just blew the execution, by his own admission, which is a rarity for him. And his tandoori ribs were both creative and universally loved. The seasoning for the pork is a huge grocery list, and the ability to keep that many flavors balanced says something. And Lee Anne blogs that she polished off an entire quart of his potato salad in one sitting after bringing home some leftovers. The guy feeds Gale Sayers, Richard Dent and Refrigerator Perry and wins his first elimination. For a Chicago boy, that's a pretty damn good day. Between the botched quickfire and his more recent ascension, he's not passing Richard this week despite the win. But he's threatening.

4 Antonia Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 3 2 Antonia gets a little bump this week, due to a strong elimination and Mark's less than stellar performance (more on that shortly). But I still think this week's showing is less impressive than it might seem at first blush. For starters, miso glazed cod? C'mon. Yeah, it's a great dish, and I'll always love it, but it was already trite by the time season ONE of Top Chef aired. Nevermind that her version was sort of a half-assed variant that slapped a little miso on the fish and lacked all the refinement of Nobu's version (which popularized the dish in the States). And her jerk chicken sandwich? I'll give her credit for what sounds like a nice combination of flavors, with jerk chicken, pineapple, bananas, maple syrup and bacon mayonnaise. But first of all, she made her bacon mayonnaise by blending chopped bacon with mayo. Please, Antonia. This is how you make bacon mayonnaise. And secondly? Cinnamon, allspice, soy sauce and scotch bonnet peppers is a pretty lame jerk. I say do it or don't. More and more, Antonia shows that she can handle herself, but that the range isn't there. I'm keeping her near the top because I can't find a compelling reason to leapfrog anybody past her and because I think she's one of the favorites to either sneak in or narrowly miss the fourth spot in the finals, but let's just say there's now a very clear break between three and four.

5 Lisa Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 3 0 Lisa had a pretty quiet week, but she's been hot lately and nobody else did much to distinguish themselves this week, so she gets her little bump due to Mark and we'll let her continue to hang out near the top of the middle for a while. My first thought upon seeing her bacon cheeseburger in the quickfire was, "Come on, you have to do something interesting." But checking out the recipe, it was a little deeper than it seemed. Nothing crazy special, but made with a little pork and spiked with things like oregano, mustard, garlic, sriracha and beer. A little uninspiring, perhaps, but not totally ridiculous. Her skirt steak relied entirely on the salsa verde, which was, again, just a little interesting and almost Italian, with capers, anchovies and basil. But we heard almost nothing about her dishes on the show, and Lee Anne (who had a rare opportunity to taste everything this week) didn't seem overly impressed by either. One thing I can't quite wrap my head around is the fact that she constantly talks about how she makes upscale Asian cuisine, and while she's used a couple of Asian ingredients, we haven't seen an Asian disn from her since week two. Is there suddenly going to be a major shift in her cooking style? At any rate, I think it still remains to be seen if those two golden weeks were courtesy of Stephanie.

6 Jennifer Quickfires 1 3 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 Anger pays off! The wallflower finally makes her presence known by busting out a rather inspired quickfire. I'm feeling a little vindicated since I've felt for a while now that once she broke out, she'd break up before breaking down. Although, come to think of it, she did kind of seem like she was oddly on the verge of breaking down in the first part of the show. As Lee Anne put it, "Dude, she’s not dying. She just gets to go home earlier. She can water the plants and feed the cat." That's nice that you want to "do it for Zoi", Jenn, but it's okay -- you don't have to take yourself so seriously. But okay, you get mad, channel it -- and she did. Even more impressive than the beignet recipe itself, which tossed shrimp, scallops and grapefruit in a ginger and beer batter before frying, was the fact that everybody marveled at how well it stood up. Not only were they still a winning dish after sitting and waiting through ten other tastings, but Lee Anne said they were still awesome and fresh-tasting a full hour later. Plus, how is she (other than Nikki, but we'll get to that -- ugh) the only one to do fried food with beer? Seems like kind of a no-brainer. Her elimination dish wasn't quite as inspiring, even if it was her ode to her dearly departed sweetheart (not to mention a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma for Richard Dent), but the awkwardness of quinoa tabouleh at a tailgate party aside, at least she had chicken skewers and creamy sauce part right. It'll be interesting to see now if she takes off a bit or fades back into obscurity. I think my ladylove has written her off exclusively on the basis of the shark fin, but me, I'm kinda pulling for her. Purely from a likeability standpoint, she's one of the two I'd kind of like to see sneaking into the fourth spot in the finals -- as long as she gets over this newfound weepiness.

7 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 2 1 Keep moving, Mark. We'll get to you in a moment. We're as shocked as you, but apparently Andrew can make something other than faux caviar. And he appears to be making up for lost time, because I think he actually prepared seven dishes this week. Let's review: Rainbow trout with raspberry gastrique, hento salad, pomegranate miso vinaigrette and peaches for the quickfire, and grilled shrimp with beer-mustard-honey sauce, potato-parsnip whip, chimichurri, apple-scallion chutney and crispy bacon for the elimination. He clearly has the energy to turn out some interesting, complex elements, even if I question his ability to pull them together cohesively. That's a LOT of stuff going on, and it didn't seem to quite come together for the judges, either. He seems to do better when he exercises a little restraint (or, perhaps more accurately, when his teammates exercise it for him), but he's getting more and more tweaked as the competition goes on, so I suspect he'll be dragged out by security sooner rather than later. Oh, and Andrew? It's a lot easier to remove a football helmet if you undo the chin strap.

8 Mark Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 3 And so we come to this week's big mover, which should come as no surprise. I realize that four spots is an awfully big fall for one week at this stage of the competition, but that's because it's long overdue. Since that strong week two, Mark's been headed steadily downward, and it shows -- not only in his cooking, but on his face for cryin' out loud. Is it just me, or does he look more and more stoned with each passing week? Every time they cut to his solo interviews, I keep waiting for him to reach down and pick up a king-sized bag of Fritos. It looks like next week's elimination is two-man teams, and I want him to be paired with Andrew SO BADLY. I'm not sure if their energy levels will cancel each other out and they'll become the ultimate focused superchef, or if it'll be more along the lines of matter and antimatter colliding, bringing the competition to an abrupt and tragic end on week seven. Anyway, both Koren and Lee Anne seemed to like his lamb with juniper and honey just fine, but what was that train wreck of an elimination challenge? Corn chowder and yakitori-style chicken skewers? He's been getting less and less coherent, and I think his brain is on the verge of completely disengaging. If they get a two week vacation in between episodes six and seven, he might be okay. Otherwise, this guy looks like he just doesn't have anything left in the tank.

9 Spike Quickfires 0 2 2 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 2 He sure hasn't shown it much lately, but I still feel like Spike is a sleeper. It's just that the guy's his own worst enemy. He could get away with being self-absorbed, but his stubbornness is going to bite him in the ass at some point. His clam tapas and charcuterie plate is a perfect example. He throws up his hands and says, "What? I'd like a nice charcuterie plate to go with beer", stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that sautéing a few clams and slicing some meats isn't exactly a good way to express his cooking skill -- which he does have, even if he exhibits it rather selectively. More likely, the beer just wasn't doing it for him so he blew off the challenge. It's not the first time he's done it, and it's not the first time he's gotten away with it, but that's a trend that won't continue indefinitely. Lee Anne says his wings were great, so he demonstrates yet again that he can cook something good when he cares to. There's just no knowing if he's going to decide to show up from challenge to challenge.

10 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 2 Ladies and gentlemen, season four's Michael Midgley! Except less funny. Nikki needs to hang in there a few more weeks to overstay her welcome in the same epic fashion, but she's demonstrating the same kind of dumb luck and ability to suck just a little bit less than one other person needed to hang around way, way, way past her time. Much as with Michael, I'm starting to wonder what the hell she has to do to get eliminated. I mean, is this really the best she can do? Over-breaded fried shrimp with an Asian slaw? Is there a sports bar in the nation that isn't serving this exact dish? You let the shrimp soak in a little citrus before cooking them. Whee. And the elimination? Come ON. My MOM can do store-bought sausage and peppers, and she won't run out! The "recipe" on the website, oddly enough, doesn't say anything about the sauce. So maybe there was some stroke of creative genius going on there, but I think that's about as likely as Midgley himself making the finals this season. She's the last of the totally hopeless scrubs, and she needs to be gone three weeks ago.

11 Ryan Quickfires 0 3 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 3 Repeat after me, chefs. "Do not ignore the challenge. Do NOT ignore the challenge." We're three and a half seasons in, and so many chefs still just don't get this. Stop, think about what the challenge is calling for, and adjust. If you go off and do your own thing, you might get away with it if your dish is awesome, but if you slip just a little, you're a goner. The judges don't like it when you ignore what they tell you to do. Is it such a hard concept? Even though Nikki did her best to do nothing, and Mark nearly got himself axed by inspiring pure disgust, Ryan hit the trifecta by producing a dish that was totally inappropriate for the challenge, doing a lousy job of it, and then standing on the chopping block and demonstrating that he had absolutely no idea what he did wrong. It's like the guy just never bothered to engage his brain (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and presume he has one). A lot of people feel it should have been Mark or Nikki (including me), but it's interesting to note that in his interview on the website, Kahan insisted that the decision wasn't a close one. Oddly enough, despite displaying a remarkable penchant for douchebaggery throughout the course of the season (did anybody self-identify as metrosexual, even when the term WAS popular?), I found myself respecting his exit. Yes, Ryan, we all know you're not "the shit", but it's nice to see that you've come to this realization. All snarkiness aside, though, he really did have a pretty classy exit interview, even if he misidentified what did him in (it's not because you went "too big", Ryan), and the more I watch him the more I wonder if his schtick isn't totally self-aware. In any case, he had to go soon, and now was as good a time as any.

At this point, I feel like the rankings have kind of settled in. We have a clear top three, and though some are more likely to get there than others, everybody has a legitimate shot at earning the right to be absolutely crushed by Stephanie, Richard and Dale in the finals. The only exception, of course, being Nikki. Next week should be interesting. For starters, we're getting a pastry quickfire, where people could really embarrass themselves. It's a truism that I'll never understand (though I feel the same way), but chefs, generally speaking, don't do pastry. That's for pastry chefs. And it isn't that chefs look down on pastry, it's that they're intimidated by it. It's as though they engage completely different parts of the brain. So expect to see a lot of flustered contestants in next week's quickfire. Sadly, what we've learned so far doesn't really tell us a thing about how they'll handle pastry, so all bets are off when it comes to predicting the quickfire. The elimination looks like another themed dinner with two-man teams. -- VERY MINOR SPOILER ALERT -- Looking at the previews, I think I can identify three of the teams. We've got Stephanie/Jennifer, Richard/Dale and Spike/Andrew (meaning, sadly, that my Mark/Andrew dream team will remain a dream for at least one more week). Richard/Dale hardly seems fair, and Stephanie/Jennifer is one heckuva strong team as well, so I'm betting on them for the top. There were clips of Spike and Andrew getting grilled, so I'll put them on the bottom, but it's hard to take a stab at the other bottom feeders, not knowing who of the remaining four chefs will be paired with who. I'm getting this eerie feeling that Spike goes and Nikki goes on to more completely fulfill her inner Midgley.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S4E5 Power Rankings

Aaaaaaand, it gets ugly. Welcome to the second act of the season, where the more objectionable personalities have gotten tired and stressed enough that they're starting to act out, but we're not deep enough into the season that all of the yahoos have been eliminated. In short, reality show drama has taken over, and it'll probably remain a focus until we're down to the last five or six contestants. Despite what the teasers may have you believe, however, the chefs did, in fact, cook some food in between screaming and throwing chairs.

What a great quickfire! She still hasn't updated her blog, but I bet that was Lee Anne's brainchild. Antonia mentioned seeing blindfold challenges on Top Chef before, but I don't remember anything like this -- is my memory that poor? At any rate, here's a very tough challenge. As a number of the gotcha studies when it comes to tasting have illustrated, even people who do this for a living don't always taste as well as they think they do. My only annoyance was the fact that the prices of the ingredients were so prominently featured. Expensive does NOT equal better. And if I wasn't 90% certain that Lee Anne was wrangling the ingredients, I'd be suspicious that they were simply working off of price rather than actual taste (Update 4/12: Lee Anne's blog is up, she was wrangling, and she agrees -- some ingredients were left out of the tasting because the cheaper version was better). Even then, I think the suggestion that all ingredients exist on a continuum of low quality to high quality is kind of a narrow view. The characteristics that peg an ingredient as "low quality" sometimes have their benefits. Wonder Bread isn't a good crusty artisanal sourdough, that's for sure, but I'm not going to try to make a breakfast strata with the latter. But still, the ingredients we saw were, for the most part, ones where you're rarely going to have a compelling reason to choose a lower quality for reasons other than cost or availability.

As for the elimination, can we get an individual challenge, already? We've had ONE. Yeah, I know, it's a lot of chefs, but trying to delve into who's doing what is getting ridiculous. You'll note that after Spike and Manuel mutually refused to throw each other under the bus last week, Tom was in the kitchen finding out what each chef was working on before they knew they were on the chopping block. It's something he's going to have to continue for a while.

There's very little movement in the rankings this week, partially because as the season goes on we have more track history to refer to, and partially because there was even less information to go on than last week. But there are still some significant shifts, starting right at the top.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Stephanie Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 4 1 I agonized over this one. I'm sure there are many who will call this a no-brainer, but I'm digging deep and I absolutely don't believe this is an obvious move. Yes, she was on the winning team, yes her shrimp received praise, yes she took control at the store and pulled her team together so they could get the job done. But first off, reading around, many people seem to think the elimination dish was her idea. I've watched that segment of the show three times now, and I don't buy it. She got them focused and she floated the idea of shrimp, but it appears from the tape we see that Dale and Lisa were complete masters of their own contributions. So let's look at what Stephanie did create, which was the grilled shrimp and deviled aioli. I don't mean to take anything away from a good dish well-executed, but a creative stroke of genius this one wasn't. For the praise her shrimp seasoning got, it was sambal -- a bottled chile sauce -- and some garlic and ginger. The deviled aioli was spiked with more sambal and some soy. Again, small creative choices can make for big results. I've always preached it and I absolutely believe it. And also, this is a single dish team challenge. She's a cog, not the whole machine, and by all appearances she was a damn fine cog. But for the many out there who seem to feel she was robbed of a trip to Italy, let's not get carried away, here. The second reason I had a really hard time moving her up was that quickfire. Yes, it's a really tough challenge. But six out of fifteen? Really, Stephanie? And for those who weren't paying attention, yes -- she DID choose imitation crab over the real thing. I can see how a lot of those comparisons would be tricky to make, but that one is just astounding. And worrisome. Still, Stephanie just keeps on banging out dishes that make the judges happy, in the top of four out of five eliminations so far. She's either doing it herself or keeping those around her focused. Either way, despite my reservations, I've got to give her the top spot this week.

2 Richard Quickfires 2 3 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 1 What's to say? Richard didn't lose the top spot as much as he surrendered it. Even a modest showing would have kept him there, but man, did he dodge a bullet. My hunch? He was feeling strong -- rightfully so -- and just got a little cocky and careless with a challenge that, by his own admission, is not to his strengths. And it didn't help that he and the judges seem to have a fundamental difference of opinion on whether salmon is a good protein to sous vide (I've not had the pleasure, so I can't weigh in). He's still my favorite to win this thing, but between the block party and the benefit, I think Achilles has exposed his heel. He doesn't like cooking in situations where he can't control things very carefully. That won't be an issue in the finals. He just has to make sure he doesn't lose focus and screw up before then. My guess is he knows he got careless, and the wake up call inspires him to come back strong. We'll see what happens.

3 Dale Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 2 0 Dale stays strong, but history is still on Richard's side, so I'm not giving him that number two spot. Dale's contribution to the winning dish was the pickled chili salad. So if I may now address the people who feel Dale was robbed of a trip to Italy (Dale included, apparently), let's look at what he made. His salad was seasoned with rice wine vinegar, mirin, sugar and sesame oil. If you're not familiar with Asian ingredients, that may sound exotic and creative. The reality, however, is that it's a boilerplate flavor profile. And it's a very obvious pairing with Stephanie's shrimp. Points for a very interesting pepper assortment, including Christmas bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos and lipstick peppers, but this was not an inspired stroke of creative genius. Again, I'm not saying he wasn't worthy of the win, I'm just saying let's not get carried away here. This was not as obvious a choice as so many seem to believe. One thing that puzzled me was Dale's reluctance to do anything Asian. Was he afraid of being pigeonholed, or was he afraid of doing an Asian dish for a guest judge who knows a thing or two about Asian? I think the former. But there's a little part of me that wonders.

4 Mark Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 2 Did I mention that Mark's week two is starting to look more and more like a fluke? Next week looks like an individual challenge, so I'm giving him one more week in this spot. I'd have dropped him already if Antonia and Andrew didn't also have a bad week. Mark's contribution to the elimination dish was a parsnip puree with vanilla, which sounds rather nice in my head. He felt it worked great with the salmon. Tom clearly did not. I'm having a hard time putting those two together in my head, so we'll just call Mark's contribution uninspired and let him tread water a little while longer. Give him points for politely but firmly standing up to the judges, though.

5 Antonia Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 2 1 I would have liked to ding her a little more, but the only person below her who showed well enough to make a big move upward was Lisa, and I'm not ready to pull the trigger on that just yet. Kudos for nailing the quickfire. Antonia seems quite proud of her palate, and she demonstrates that her pride is justified. Or so you'd think, until you taste her carpaccio, apparently. I'm a little reluctant to read too much into an elimination where the chef has immunity. Of course they still want to make a good showing, but why open up the bag of tricks when there's no danger? In any case, she was looking like a model of conventional consistency early on, but that's starting to wane with two consecutive bad showings. I had wondered if maybe she was trying to coast on technique for a while, but I think that theory's blown. I'm starting to believe that we've pretty much seen her best. Assuming she shrugs off these past couple of weeks, and I think she will, that's going to put her on the bubble for a four person final, but I don't give her any hope of winning.

6 Lisa Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 3 0 And our other big mover, if one spot can be called a big move, is Lisa. As irritating as she is, she's suddenly making some noise. She's been paired with Stephanie for both of those weeks so the possibility exists that it's reflected glory, but my suspicion is that she's actually showing us something. Cruising the boards and blogs, I see people who think Stephanie was robbed and people who think Dale was robbed, and the one thing they have in common is they seem to feel Lisa had no business winning. I'm here to step in and defend Lisa. Dismissing her contribution as "cooking bacon" is just silly. First off, does smoked bacon, maple syrup, rice vinegar and shiro miso strike you as a conventional combination? To me, that sounds delicious -- not to mention an umami bomb. So you have an interesting and pleasing flavor profile, and then she applies a neat little technique -- layering and slicing the bacon crosswise to get ridged sticks -- to make it just a little special. This is the kind of thing upon which great fine dining dishes are built: doing little, unusual things to common ingredients that make them stand out in an unique manner. Now, look at the dish without her bacon. Shrimp with chiles, garlic and ginger, aioli with chiles and garlic, pickled chiles. What makes that dish special? The bacon. It touches on the classic pairing of shrimp and bacon, but the miso marries it with the Asian palette of the rest of the dish, and it still stands as a delicious and unusual component on its own. You can make a case for Stephanie or Dale, but I think the judges made the right pick. Even before big showings in weeks four and five, she had a couple of less notable hits in the early weeks. I want to give her one more week, but she could just as easily be sitting at number four right now. I haven't seen the kind of refinement from her that she'll need to go the distance, but I think she's worked her way into true contender status.

7 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 2 1 Hey, look! Faux caviar!   (Try it one more time, buddy, I dare you. I doub-- I triple dog dare you.)

8 Jennifer Quickfires 0 2 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 Another quiet week from Jennifer (though if the teasers are to be believed, that won't be for long), but some troubling signs brewing beneath the surface. Though it isn't called out in the recipe, it's made clear on the show that she was in charge of the duck -- the duck that wasn't rendered properly and wasn't scored. Ming said it, that's cooking 101. Maybe the scale of the operation threw her off, but it's troubling nonetheless. I thought about dinging her a spot or two for it until I remembered who's beneath her.

9 Spike Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 0 2 And so we come to the problem child. Despite being on the bottom, despite narrowly avoiding elimination, I was actually encouraged by what I saw from Spike this week (setting aside his attitude, of course). Even if he chose to express it in a less than optimal manner by lashing out at Antonia, he was absolutely right -- he should have agreed less and insisted more. Because while Antonia and Zoi were merrily chugging along, he was the one ringing the alarm bells. He suggested a soup. He expressed concern that the carpaccio wasn't impressive enough. Though it was a quick clip, he questioned Zoi about the level of seasoning in her mushrooms. Did the judges address any of those issues at the judges' table? Ahhh, that's right -- they addressed ALL of them. The difference between Spike and your number one chef this week is that Spike didn't take control and steer the ship when he could see his team was headed in a bad direction. There's hope for him yet.

10 Ryan Quickfires 0 3 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 2 I'd love to comment on Ryan this week, but I have no idea what the heck he did other than throw out the pomegranate juice when he shouldn't have. I still have no idea what to make of him. He intersperses quiet, moderate successes with spectacular failures, so I wonder if he isn't showing lower than he should be. But you have to show something to move up the ladder, and I'm still not seeing it. The quickfire established that he has a sense of taste, at least.

11 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 1 Nikki, too, I'm completely unable to judge this week due to a complete lack of information. For what it's worth, her team's dish doesn't look bad on paper, it just sounds like it was weakly executed, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering who prepared it. I'm with Tom in that I'm highly suspicious of little paired drinks (even though I've been guilty of preparing them in the past). "Precious" was absolutely the right word. And given that it was a prosecco-based cocktail, I'm guessing it was Nikki's brainchild. We have no way of knowing, however, so I can't dock her for it........... ah, who the hell am I kidding, she's now in the very basement. Consider her duly docked.

12 Zoi Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 1 3 This ouster shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody (except maybe Jennifer), and yet the entire stew room with the exception of Spike seemed awfully taken aback by Zoi's departure. Add to this Manuel's comments in his exit interview last week, and it really makes you wonder. Maybe she was just phenomenally charming in person and people were sad to see her go. Maybe she wowed people cooking dinner in the house. But she sure didn't show much on the show. And her extended exit interview? TERRIBLE. Let's examine some choice quotes, shall we? "I feel like I really wasn't understood in this game." "They just decided to say... you're not standing out in some way, but that's their mistake, not my mistake." Translation: It's not my fault I didn't show the judges anything, it's their fault for not seeing what I didn't show them. "My team broke down, and I was the one holding the team together, but that wasn't made clear." Translation: It's not my fault the carpaccio failed, it was my teammates'. I was really the one holding the team together behind the scenes. Pay no attention to those mushrooms. "Anybody that met me in this experience would know that I'm a good person." "I'm not trying to come up with a concept, plate it, taste it and execute it literally within a timed circumstance and have it be judged by a panel of people that don't even know anything about me. So it's completely out of context." Translation: If you only knew what I'm like as a person, you'd understand that the food I served you didn't actually suck. "It's all a matter of interpretation... that's all a matter of the judges basically deciding who they think is possibly more creative, or more entertaining, or whatever. And I'm not really interested in being a celebrity or being entertaining." "I wasn't really worried about leaving, so I wasn't really that concerned with being crazy and fantastic and drama kind of outlandish about my personality. For me, being professional and calm is the way to be a good chef, so that's just what I was doing, but apparently that's not what they wanted to see." Translation: The reason I lost wasn't because I pitched a tent on the chopping block starting with week three, and it wasn't because I was responsible for what they considered to be the most important component of the dish that finally got me kicked out. It's all because I'm not a good TV personality. "What they're looking for the Top Chef to be is probably not me, and I'm fine with that. I'm actually okay with it. It would have been nice to be Top Chef, it would have been nice to get further along in the game, but I'm not willing to sacrifice who I am in order to further myself in this particular game." "I'm not in it to be the winner of the show, necessarily, I'm in it to be the winner of my life." Translation: I don't need you assholes and your stupid competition anyway. You can't fire me, I quit. Classy exit there, Zoi.

Up next: no clues about the quickfire, but an individual elimination challenge! Finally! Probably! Maybe! And it looks like they're serving tailgate food to Bears fans. Being from Chicago, Stephanie knows this crowd and a lot of her dishes have meat and potatoes appeal. I think we see her in the top again. This does not play well to Richard's strengths, and he might have another bad week before bouncing back. If Dale wants to get away from Asian a bit, this is his chance. I bet he does well, especially because his pork skewers at the block party demonstrated that he understands downscale food still has to be interesting and good, and also that he isn't going to condescend to people just because they're at a football game. And tailgate food just seems right up Lisa's alley for some reason. So I'll peg Stephanie, Dale and Lisa for the top three and we'll give Dale the win, with Jennifer running as a dark horse on the quality of her sliders at the block party and the fact that she's pissed. On the bottom... gosh, who's left? This actually seems like a challenge that Nikki could be up to, so she might take another step towards being this season's Midgley, mysteriously surviving much longer than she should...... nah, she screws something up. We'll throw mistake-prone Ryan in there as well. And nothing says 20 degree kickoff like faux caviar, so what the hell, we'll throw Andrew into the bottom three as well, with Antonia as the dark horse, mostly because I have a hard time picturing what she'd make for a tailgate party and bold flavors don't seem to be her strong point. I say Nikki goes. I hope Nikki goes. (Please let Nikki go).

Discuss!

Top Chef - S4E4 Power Rankings

Week four, and people are starting to fray around the edges. Folks are getting petty. The claws are starting to come out. Next week might be the week where character (or lack thereof) starts to put people in danger. But in the meantime, this was a very difficult week to get a bead on.

Start with the fact that there are no quickfire recipes posted this week. Makes sense, since it was largely an exercise in knife work, but it means that we have absolutely no idea what the six chefs who weren't featured did. Too bad, since this was really a great opportunity to get a good sense of who's technically sound and who isn't. Then, everybody pairs off. Are the strong chefs pulling the weaker ones up? Are the weaker ones dragging the strong ones down? Mercifully, the recipes posted for the elimination challenge called out which portions of the dish were prepared by which chef. If we can take them at their word, this made for some surprises.

The top half of the rankings were easy. The bottom half, plagued with inconsistency and breaks from the first three episodes, were agonizing. I thought it was going to be a couple more weeks before elimination predictions got tough, but this week turned everything upside down. At this point, I feel pretty confident that the top six will be the final six, Andrew being the only one who gives me pause. But as for the bottom six? Heck... any of them could go at any time. It all depends on who shows up.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Richard Quickfires 2 3 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 0 At the very least, the top two spots proved they belong. I think it's pretty clear who's in control of this competition. Based on some of the dishes that have surprised him on Iron Chef America, I think Ted Allen's the most likely to find something novel, so we'll set him aside for the moment. Tom, however, seems practically jaded at times, so to see him taken aback is a rare treat and it clearly says something. And all of this is to say nothing of the fact that Richard just stepped up and surprised Daniel Boulud. To make a dish that impresses these guys is challenge enough, but to create something that flat-out defies their expectations is truly impressive. Then look at his record. He has three of eight possible wins, and he's been in the top on three of four quickfires, which shows he thrives under pressure -- a talent that becomes increasingly important as the season wears on. Add to this that the guy has just the right attitude. He's confident without being cocky, and he seems genuinely eager to work with the others. And even though he self-identifies with molecular gastronomy, he's not an idiot about it. When his smoker went down, he didn't start freaking out because his dish was going to be all wrong without his special whiz-bang technique. He said it, and then repeated himself: "It's a bonus". He understands that funky touches like that can be great, but what matters is what's at the core of your dish. Stephanie's going to push him every step of the way, but this is starting to look like Richard's contest to lose.

2 Stephanie Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 3 1 That week two showing is looking more and more like a fluke. Here she is again, coming up big with a dish that's creative but satisfying. Stephanie's shown that she can get a little wobbly under pressure -- I'd feel better if she were nailing some quickfires -- but unless she trips and falls, the final matchup is looking like cleverly refined vs. creatively comforting. Her path to victory will have to involve turning out dishes that the judges can't help but love, while Richard pushes a little too hard and loses them. Note also how well she plays with others. As Harold Dieterle can attest, that's no small asset.

3 Dale Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 1 0 Well, it's about time. As predicted, Dale gets a little freedom and finally makes a big splash. I'd love to hear about his vegetable dish in more detail. Sadly, it's not to be, but when you get that kind of praise from Daniel Boulud, you're working flawlessly. As for the elimination dish, Richard was obviously in the driver's seat, but that recipe has Dale's fingerprints all over it. He was no passive bystander. This week was no fluke. Dale continues cruising from here, and my hunch is he doesn't drop any lower than three for the rest of the competition.

4 Mark Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 1 1 Mark went quiet this week, and his outstanding week two is starting to lose a bit of its luster. But by all accounts his dish with Ryan was really quite excellent, just not excellent enough. One thing gives me pause, however. The recipe on the website, if it's to be believed, gave him credit for the cranberry chutney, and that's it. But it's a weirdly incomplete recipe that makes no mention of the spring roll, for which the show seemed to give him credit. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and combined with Antonia's not-so-bad bad showing, we'll just drop him one notch and see what happens.

5 Antonia Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 2 1 Yes, she was on the chopping block, but one gets the sense that if they hadn't oversold the dish, she and Zoi would have been just fine. As such, I'm hesitant to drop her any further than necessary to move Dale up. The fact is, she's still executing, but again, a very straightforward dish. Yes, they used anchos for the romesco, and yes, the gremolata contained the full Simon & Garfunkel litany (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme). But still, it's a fairly conventional dish. She doesn't need to bust out the immersion circulator, agar agar and pocket smoker to win this thing, but unless she starts to show the judges something that's at least somewhat novel and interesting, she's guaranteeing herself fourth or fifth place. Either she doesn't have it and probably won't make the finals, or she's incredibly shrewd and is saving her silver bullets for the later challenges. My money's on the former.

6 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 2 0 I toyed with the idea of kicking Andrew past Antonia this week. But checking out his team's recipe gives me pause. For starters, I think his contribution was limited to making the faux caviar and running around like a maniac. And no matter how entertaining his antics may be, his faux caviar is almost exactly the same as the lynchpin of his charred squid ceviche that won him week two. To sum up, yes, he's been on top of the elimination challenge twice, but both times it was largely for the same thing. Still, he's performing well and Bayless loved his taco, so I'm keeping him in the top half, but I'm not giving him number five just yet. Now if he had actually presented the dish as an Oompa Loompa, it might be a different story.

7 Lisa Quickfires 0 0 3 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 2 0 And now we get to the bottom half of the rankings, where any clarity I thought we'd found last week has pretty much gone out the window. The other big mover this week is Lisa. Can we all agree that, while an awesome movie, Top Secret was a flat-out dumb suggestion? But allowing for the fact that she's a chef and not a film critic, we'll set that aside for the moment. Lisa's been very hit or miss. On one hand, she's produced a very nice eggs Benedict, a solid dish for the zoo event and she was half of the elimination dish that week that would have won if not for the fact that Richard basically schooled everybody. And on the other hand, she's been named among the worst on three -- THREE -- of the four quickfires. But I think it's too easy to assume that Stephanie pulled her up this week. Stephanie seemed to indicate that the dish grew out of Lisa's caramel sauce, and let me tell you, that recipe looks great. It's made with sugar, coconut milk, cream, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chiles, fish sauce and white soy. And the judges seemed to love it. I'm anxious to give it a try. So while Stephanie produced the apple dumplings and put down what I'm sure was a great reduction as a base for the dish, I get the feeling that Lisa is the one who really got this dish off the ground. It's too bad it wasn't selected as the winner, because then the judges would have sought clarification as to who did what and we'd know for sure. But in any case, Lisa had a good week (despite Boulud being unimpressed with her technique) and I'm giving her another look.

8 Jennifer Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 0 Is she still on the show? At this point, I don't care what she does, I just want her to do SOMEthing. This wasn't one of her stronger weeks on the recipe front, but it's still nearly impossible to judge where she's going. Has anybody ever gone this deep into the show without showing anything, positive or negative? She's never been on the bottom of a quickfire or elimination, and she's been on the top of each once, but both times it was as a member of a very large group. Everybody passes her going up or down, and she just kind of hangs out in the middle of the pack. This can't go on much longer... can it?

9 Spike Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 0 1 Yes, he probably should have gotten the axe, and yes, I only dropped him one spot, but I think I had him a little lower than he should have been last week. Also, regardless of whether or not the dish worked, I think the criticism that it was something you could get at any corner Vietnamese joint was overblown. Maybe Tom's local family run Vietnamese restaurant makes their goi cuon with apple soda, Mexican dried chiles and Swiss chard, but somehow I doubt it. Plus, I think you can make a plausible case that Manuel's influence dragged the dish down, even if it's hard to say. Either way, it's becoming increasingly clear that Spike's attitude could be his biggest liability going forward. Kudos for not trying to throw Manuel under the bus, but whether he's willfully ignoring challenge parameters or not stopping to consider whether what he's doing is appropriate for the situation, the guy just isn't focused. If he can get over himself, shut up and listen, I think he's shown a lot of upside. The teasers seem to indicate otherwise. Of course, they've been teasing us with that clip of Dale blowing up for four weeks know, so it might be summertime before we actually get to see the fireworks.

10 Ryan Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 0 2 Can somebody please tell me what I'm supposed to think of Ryan? It's like he's intentionally alternating great and horrible weeks with the expressed purpose of making a mockery of the power rankings. Padma, Mark and Aisha are all falling over themselves after tasting his carrot puree, and if the recipe is to be believed (though I have my doubts; see Mark, above), he was in the driver's seat on a dish that the judges really enjoyed. So do I embrace the sharp, creative Ryan or the bumbling "I'm making my piccata with breadcrumbs, gnocchi and tomatoes" Ryan? Well, consider this: in Bayless' blog after week three, he talked about how Ryan mentioned in a "brown-nosey way" that he'd worked for Bayless for a couple of days. Bayless didn't like him. Then this week, Boulud mentions that Richard and Ryan have both worked for him before. Richard sings Boulud's praises. Ryan says he worked with him only for a very short time because it "wasn't his style". To me, that sounds like code for a lot of things that don't reflect well on Ryan. Plus, for reasons only he can comprehend, he's totally thrown for a loop after being paired with Mark, either intentionally (jackass) or unintentionally (idiot) asking if he's from New Zealand or New England. Yeah... I'm going with bumbling idiotic Ryan.

11 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 1 1 Nikki escapes the basement, if only because she gets to do pasta again. And by all accounts, she couldn't even do her specialty exceptionally well. Plus, she's one of the three who Boulud singles out for criticism in the quickfire. She's still clearly near the bottom of the pile, but she doesn't quite have that aura of imminent doom about her that Zoi does.

12 Zoi Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 1 2 Zoi makes a nice showing in the quickfire, earning a shout out from Boulud, but then she jumps right back in the fire on the elimination. It isn't quite the squeaker that last week was, but this is now two weeks in a row that she's barely survived. The recipe lists Antonia and her as total co-creators (every other dish showed who prepared which elements), but I'm still not convinced Antonia wasn't carrying her at least a little. Plus, she just looks like she's ready to crack, and the pressure has caused her to turn a little nasty. Getting snarky about Richard in that scenario is just petty. And intentionally or not, by "promising" there's no way Richard's dish tasted good, she's basically accusing Daniel Boulud of having no palate on national television. A tip, Zoi... if Boulud says it works, it probably works. Deal with it. The question at this point is whether Zoi crashes and burns or manages to collect herself and show some more of the little bit of potential she's flashed. I think she's gone in very short order, but here's one little tidbit that I found interesting. In his exit interview Manuel talked about the chefs he thought would be standing at the end. He named three: Richard, Stephanie... and Zoi. I'm as surprised as you.

13 Manuel Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 1 1 Ahhh, Memo, you seem like a sweet guy, but you're gone before your time. Not that I thought he had long to live, but I figured he'd hang in there past week four. I'm sure a lot of people feel it should have been Spike at the bottom here, and I think I agree. But there's a case to be made for Manuel's ouster, and I suspect the judges felt one of these two had a chance to go deep into the competition while the other just didn't, and let that influence their decision. If I'm to play devil's advocate, yes, Spike was driving, and over four seasons the judges have always asked leaders to fall on their swords. But it can also be argued that Manuel's contributions -- the sea bass and the Swiss chard -- were the two items that stuck out as the dish's biggest problems. In any case, Spike goes on while Manuel's gone, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. You have to applaud him for what may be the classiest exit in the history of Top Chef, both on the show and in his exit interview. Buena suerte, Manuel. You're the first one I'm sad to see go, even if it wasn't for your food.

So now, looking forward, we know we have Ming Tsai and a very large-scale elimination challenge. Let's guess that it'll be an East Meets West quickfire, and since I can't see them having the chefs do individual preps for 350(!) people, I think we're looking at ANOTHER team challenge. On the top end, Richard makes some crack about the Blais charm wearing off, but for all we know that's from episode eight. Assuming it's East/West or modern fusion, Dale should rock the quickfire, and I wager he'll carry that over into the elimination. He's had his taste of the top and he's pumped, now. For the others, it's going to come down to who can handle scale intelligently, but I'm not sure that the manner in which they handled canapés and picnic fare is a good indication of how they'll handle banquet food. Stephanie's the only one among the upper echelon who's demonstrated poor judgment in that regard, and I feel an off week coming for Richard, so we'll say Dale, Mark and Antonia for the top three. All of this is meaningless, of course, if it's a team challenge, which it almost certainly will be. So, between our forth consecutive team challenge and the turmoil in the bottom half of the rankings, it's really hard to predict the bottom, but here goes. Spike has shown some affinity for Asian and handled scale very well at the zoo challenge, so I'm guessing he's safe. I want to think that Lisa and Jennifer have been solid enough at this point that they're probably okay. So I think we're looking at Nikki and Zoi for the ouster, and Ryan went bad-good-bad-good the first four weeks, so he's due for another bad week and we'll throw him in there as well. Insightful, I know. Zoi's on death watch, but Nikki's totally screwed up both of her large-scale challenges, so I think we have to make them co-favorites for elimination.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S4E3 Power Rankings

I'll be getting back to some actual food here shortly... honest! But meanwhile, time to finally get caught up on the Power Rankings. (For the record, the previous two weeks' rankings were written at the time, but sat on the shelf while I got all of the photos and tables and everything sorted out).

The rankings are starting to firm up a bit. The show itself can be mighty misleading at times, but put the show together with the judges' blogs and the online recipes and some clearer pictures are starting to emerge. There are still a few people flying low, but I don't expect that to go on much longer.

Nice to see our first local hero this week. His body language is weirdly robotic and he strikes me as kind of an odd duck, but there's no knocking Rick Bayless. Unless you have a DVR and keep replaying his "we do serve tacos, but with a twist, that's for sure" line, which sounds weirder and weirder every time I hear it. In all seriousness, though, the dude knows his stuff and is a passionate, enthusiastic ambassador of Mexican cuisine. As a side note, Chicago is strangely overlooked by many as quite possibly the best town in the States for regional Mexican. I don't purport to be an expert in that arena so I don't want to go too far out on a limb here, but my impression is that it's too easy to just say it's all about southern California. Unlike Los Angeles, where the Mexican population is largely removed a couple of generations from the mother country and more homogenous in terms of regional origin, the Mexican population in Chicago is quite diverse and more recently arrived, and thereby more reflective of regional Mexican cuisine. It's no accident that this is where Bayless makes his home.

In any case, a nice challenge for the quickfire, with a few annoyances. First off, who does Erik think he is? Sure, the soul of Mexican cuisine may be in its street food, but what, the nation of Mexico doesn't do upscale? Just a dumb, narrow point of view. And even if you think it's wrong, adapt and do the fricking challenge or go home. And I don't mean to let Spike off the hook on that count, either. Secondly, it sure seems that Lee Anne Wong has been doing a stellar job of running the Top Chef kitchen since taking over, but c'mon, Lee Anne... you're in Chicago and you have your chefs pulling tortillas out of the fridge for a taco challenge? They should've been hot and steamy and fresh from any of a number of local tortillerias you have to choose from. In most areas of Chicago, you can't walk three blocks without passing a Mexican grocery that stocks fresher tortillas than that.

As for the elimination, seriously, what a disappointment. I realize it's tough cooking out of people's pantries, but did you see some of those kitchens? The chefs who were talking about cooking for "middle America" obviously didn't stop to look around. Sadly, a lot of coastal chefs and food nerds still trot out the tired, condescending rhetoric that here in the heartland, we're all just simple meat and potatoes folk who are frightened and confused by ethnic and creative dishes. It's an ignorant assumption that hurt some of the contestants this week, and it will hurt them again if they don't wise up. And while carting food offsite isn't common practice for most restaurant chefs, really, it doesn't take catering experience to know that a lot of things they're making aren't going to travel well. A couple of pot lucks or a brain should be enough to send up the red flag on some of these ideas.

One last note before this week's rankings -- my top and bottom counts on the challenges are a little nebulous when it comes to team events. I'm not scoring Nikki a top elimination for being on the winning team with that mac and cheese, for example. If the top and bottom folks aren't explicitly named, I kind of gauge the judges' comments and score accordingly. It's somewhat subject to the editors' whims and a fuzzy way of doing it, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Think of it like boxing. My scorecard might not mesh perfectly with the other judges', but hopefully it's obvious that we were, in fact, all watching the same bout.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Richard Quickfires 2 2 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 1 0 A quickfire win and a quiet week from Mark throws Richard back into the top spot. In the quickfire, he did exactly what takes you to the top on Top Chef. He listened to the challenge, attacked it with creativity, executed with precision and won himself immunity. For the curious, his jicama "tortillas" with avocado and papaya were fairly simple, seasoned with coriander and cinnamon. Goes to show this is a guy who understands that fine dining is rarely defined by a laundry list of ingredients. Shades of Hung's Arroz con Pollo on the elimination challenge (his paella recipe couldn't have been more straightforward), but having immunity, it's hard to fault him for keeping his tricks close to his vest. And unlike Hung, it was refreshing to see that he had the good sense to take Tom's criticism and not get into a snit, regardless of whether or not he felt the judging was accurate or nitpicky.

2 Stephanie Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 2 2 1 I don't feel like Stephanie quite earned her way back to the number two spot today, but still, how can you rank the person who's won two of three elimination challenges any lower than second? She managed to eke out a win against lackluster competition, but even then I think there was at least one dish on the losing team that had her beat but was ineligible for the win. Her quickfire dish, which didn't make the show, was a grilled beef tenderloin taco with a truffled poblano vinaigrette. The plating was sharp, and give her full marks for attempting to take the taco upscale. Obviously, something about it didn't work for Bayless or we would've gotten a peek, but whether or not she pulled it off, it at least struck me as interesting -- though I question the use of tenderloin. Fine if you're going to marinate it, bury it in a luxurious sauce or kick it up with an intense rub, but lacking flavor and suboptimal for a taco. Or maybe I'm just bringing my own T-loin prejudices to the table, here. She didn't exactly reinvent the wheel on the elimination challenge (and it isn't even clear to me that she prepared the fruit -- that might've been Lisa), but the "sexy drink" sounded interesting (no recipe, sadly), and she made a very wise choice in going with a light and refreshing dessert on a hot day. Sometimes, it's all about context.

3 Mark Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 0 1 1 Mark goes quiet after making his big splash in week two, but he also doesn't embarrass himself, which is almost as good as winning this week. His quickfire taco, cut from the show, was a "mille feuille" (a rather loose usage of the term) with Tasmanian pepperberry dusted veal, avocado and tomato. I'm not familiar with Tasmanian pepperberry and a web search produced a couple of flavor descriptions that were, to put it charitably, vague. But while he went with an unconventional stacked plating that definitely had a fine dining look to it, I wonder if the dish didn't come across as underflavored. There's no recipe posted for his inside-out cookie but, oddly enough, there is a recipe for a simple spinach and goat cheese salad with grapes that was never mentioned on the show. My hunch is that he made both, but I just don't see anything to get excited about here.

4 Antonia Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 2 0 Still no splash from Antonia, but she continues to execute and receive praise for her dishes. Her quickfire was a nice looking crispy fish taco with tomatillo salsa and garam masala, and I suspect its exclusion was due to its lack of refinement. It wasn't taco truck fare, but it wasn't going to be featured at Topolobampo, either. Her bean salad was embarrassingly pedestrian, with canned beans, roasted peppers, Italian cold cuts and a balsamic vinaigrette. And yet, she executed it well and got some props from the judges. At some point, she's going to have to get a lot more interesting to stay alive. But in the meantime, flawless execution can keep her near the top for a while.

5 Dale Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 0 0 I was very tempted to move Dale past Antonia this week, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt just a bit longer given that she's had a little more share of the spotlight thus far. But I expect this to change shortly. Dale's quickfire was a soy-marinated tuna taco with avocado-yuzu puree, mango-jalapeno pickle and tequila cream. It seemed to me that fried corn tortillas would bury his raw tuna, so I wonder if that's why we didn't see it. But he took the challenge head-on, and his elimination dish was strong. Dale's been somewhat star-crossed thus far, his best dishes buried under criticism of his teammates. From reading the blogs, it sounds as though his grilled pork and pineapple skewers with smoked red curry BBQ sauce and marinated mushrooms and edamame was the consensus favorite, it's just that he was on the wrong team again. I know we're three weeks in now, but I keep reading his recipes and that breakout episode is coming. In the meantime, he slips a little again due to inaction.

6 Andrew Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 1 1 0 Andrew makes another decent showing, his duck tacos with plantain jam and cotija cheese tickling Bayless' fancy, even if he didn't come away with immunity. He went weirdly conservative at the block party, making red and white sangrias, but he didn't catch any televised flak, and the large team format and number of unmentioned dishes makes me wonder if he didn't do something else as well. In any case, his taco keeps him in the top half of the rankings, and I'm actually starting to like the guy. He threw himself into the event, and his defiance at judges' table struck me as overexuberance rather than douchebaggery this time around. My suspicion is that he's a good-natured fellow who has the potential to get a little carried away. We'll see if that happens.

7 Jennifer Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 0 And now, the best of the rest for the third week running... Jennifer! More of the same from her in week three. Recipes look great, but she's still avoiding the spotlight like the plague. Her taco didn't look to be one of her strongest dishes, with grilled coho salmon, tomatillo salsa, carrot-shallot pickles and cabbage. It makes me a little concerned that she might not handle the transition to cleanly executed fine dining that the later weeks will require. But her sliders, which were singled out for praise, were infinitely more interesting than Sara N's from last season (not that this should shock anybody). Though you didn't get the detail in the show, they were made from a mix of ground chuck, flank steak, turkey and bacon, and she served them with a tasty looking chipotle salsa and a fresh provolone cheese sauce. Perfect for the challenge -- block party chow, elevated. She's another one who has to catch some attention soon. I certainly don't have her pegged to go the distance, but I still think there's more to her than we've seen thus far.

8 Spike Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 0 Spike actually looked pretty good this week, relative to the rest of the field. His pork tacos took a subtle Asian angle, with the pork marinated in soy and the taco topped with mint, a mango sauce, fish sauce and sriracha (to go along with the tomatillo salsa). Bayless seemed very impressed by the flavors, but given Spike's reaction to being passed over, he apparently has chosen not to understand that ignoring the challenge's parameters isn't going to win you the prize. Labeling his elimination dish a "taco salad" is a little misleading. Looking at the recipe, it's actually a clean, sophisticated little dish with sautéed spiced chorizo, poached shrimp, avocado crema and a lime dressing that, again, works in some subtle Asian elements. Like Dale, if he's on the winning team, I suspect this dish gets more love. So if you set aside his problem with the sirloin tips last week, that's five solid dishes with the kind of clean, minimal appeal that will play well in the later stages. He has a shot at sticking around. Besides which, I get the impression that the s'more on a stick was his baby, and that's a great little repackaging of a classic.

9 Manuel Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 1 0 Manuel takes a pretty big jump here, but it's a passive one. He's making good if uninspiring dishes, but he sure seems like a one-trick pony and he's hanging around by not screwing up. His chorizo taco with nopales, picante verde and goat cheese certainly seemed nice, but it wasn't fine dining. And man, did he look crushed not to make the honor roll. Rightfully so. That's his house, to coin a suddenly popular phrase. I'm leery of BBQ that isn't low and slow, but his pork and chicken seemed tasty enough, even if it turns out that his chocolate "BBQ sauce" was -- I kid you not -- chocolate, ketchup and Worcestershire. Bottom line, if you count the Latin influences in his BBQ, he hasn't done anything non-Mexican since his pizza at the outset of the season. And while his food appears solid, it doesn't seem like the kind of creative Mexican that can allow him to ride a specialty deep into the contest. Yes, Ilan was all about the Spanish, but when push came to shove he got creative with great results. If Manuel doesn't break from his specialty very soon, look for the judges to call him out on it within the next two episodes.

10 Lisa Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 Lisa, however, is headed in the opposite direction. I thought she showed some signs of life last week, but this week she just came out flat. Even setting aside the textural issues with her skirt steak tacos, pairing it with caramelized onions and pineapple doesn't win you big points, and certainly isn't fine dining. And her contribution to the party was... cabbage-apple slaw? It seemed like a good enough recipe, but nothing noteworthy. She might catch lightning in a bottle and bust out a good dish or two, but I'm starting to think there isn't much there.

11 Ryan Quickfires 0 2 1 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 0 2 Ryan was pretty much brutalized again, but I'm still inclined to think he had a better showing than Zoi, and he's at least shown a little more potential with a couple of nice dishes last week. His tacos looked terrible. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see squash and chickpeas playing together. And jicama-tomato doesn't seem like an inspired combination for his slaw, either. Though Bayless came across as incredibly finicky in criticizing the paper on his plate, I don't think that's what actually put Ryan in the bottom three. Then you've got the elimination, where he makes minor changes to a Waldorf salad, and they're bad ones. He's flashed a little potential, but the guy is clearly in over his head and in imminent danger.

12 Zoi Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 1 1 Zoi has a really rough week, escaping elimination by an eyelash, and it looks like she isn't long for this competition. I'd put her in the basement if not for the fact that I'm so down on Nikki right now. Also, part of what saves her from the basement is that while her pasta salad was savaged (nevermind that she did pasta salad in the first place), it's clear from the recipe that she's at least trying. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill recipe, including roasted garlic, some unconventional spices and hummus(?!), of all things. But one has to question the wisdom of dressing a pasta salad with both a vinaigrette and a hummus. And the judges hated it. Her quickfire, which you didn't see, involved blackened NY strip steak, seared scallops, nopales, tomato and queso fresco in napoleon form. But unlike Mark's, which had some panache even if the recipe looked a little uninteresting, hers just came across as very clumsy. Not a good indication that she's going to last as the judges get pickier.

13 Nikki Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 1 1 Well, no matter how bad you are, if you're at the bottom and manage to stave off elimination, the only way to go is up. Her taco, cut from the show, was definitely unconventional, but without cooking it up I'm skeptical about the flavor profile. She did a shrimp taco with nopales, peaches, fish sauce and sesame oil. Maybe I'd have been surprised, but I just don't see that working. Then there's the mac and cheese fiasco. Even if you cut her a little slack for being unfamiliar with the non-Newtonian properties of Velveeta, she's still making mac and cheese with bacon. Whee. I think she's toast. Put her in a challenge where she can cook whatever she wants, and she might be able to stick around a little while longer by working in her comfort zone (whatever that is). But this is the second straight week that she was probably saved by being on the right team and she hasn't shown any ability to adapt at all, so I think we'll be relieved of her company in short order (ha).

14 Erik Quickfires 0 1 2 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 2 You only get so many lives, and being on the bottom for two quickfires and two eliminations in the first three weeks means you're probably going home. I think it's clear that Erik wasn't going far, and this elimination isn't a surprise at all. Even if he's capable in his milieu, his style is too reminiscent of sloppy in-your-face Chili's style excess, and he was completely unable to adapt, either through a lack of range or stubbornness or both. First, he stubbornly refuses to make his taco upscale, even though that's the explicit purpose of the challenge (and he flat-out insults a respected chef who totally deserves better in the process). Then, he stubbornly sticks to his pet corn dogs, knowing full well that they aren't going to travel well. The brain just wasn't engaged, and from the sound of his exit interview that might not have been wholly unintentional, but it wouldn't have made a difference for long, anyway. This week, last week, next week -- he went at about the right time.

So, now that I've gotten the backlog of rankings actually posted, we can get down the business of real predictions. Judging from the "next time on" segment at the end of the show (always a dicey proposition), it looks like we're getting our first fine dining elimination challenge. My guess is that it's a relatively unrestrictive challenge, probably with some kind of thematic element, and the judges are going to be looking for creativity and execution. Plus, the contestants aren't going to sneak anything by Daniel Boulud, even if he is sitting across from Richard Roeper (why?). So, working on this flimsy assumption of the nature of next week's show, here's what happens. The creative chefs who can execute with attention to detail come to the fore. Richard comes out smelling like a rose, as long as he doesn't get too cute and turn off Boulud. Dale finally makes his big splash, and either Stephanie or Mark round out the top three. I'll peg Spike and Andrew as dark horses for the honor roll. Jennifer and Lisa stay out of the spotlight for another week. Jennifer will make some good food, and Lisa might, but neither will have the kind of high-end refinement needed to stick out here. On the other side, the chefs who aren't perfectly crisp in their execution are in trouble, which means Ryan, Zoi and Nikki are on the chopping block, with Manuel potentially slipping in there as well if he can't lose the rustic and play up the class. My hunch is that Ryan is creative enough to stave off elimination, leaving Zoi and Nikki on the precipice. Even though Nikki's currently at the bottom of my rankings, Zoi has shown great weakness in exactly what will be expected of her next week. Add that there will be a lingering sense that she probably should have gotten the axe last week, and she's done.

Discuss!

Updated Monday, March 31st - VERY MINOR SPOILER

Dicey proposition, indeed. A preview video on the Bravo website seems to indicate that the elimination challenge for Episode 4 will be another team challenge. So predictions are probably already blown.