Top Chef Week Three

The guest judge tonight was Rick Bayless who is a well-known chef in Chicago and who is known for Mexican food. The quick fire challenge was to turn a taco into a fine dining dish. The winner of the quick fire was Richard who served jicama tortillas. He not only got immunity for the elimination challenge, he also will have his tortillas served in Chef Bayless's Chicago restaurant.

Chef Bayless also liked Andrew's dish who seems to be consistently doing well in this game. He liked Spike's dish too! After the quick fire challenge they divided into two teams red and blue. A procession of cars drove them to a neighborhood where a block party was to be held the next day and they were told to go door to door to ask people for groceries. We watched them go through people's pantries grabbing food, wondering if the home owners expected them to take so much, 7 bags from one home.

The blue team decided to go classic Americana and the red team decided to go up scale. The judges of the elimination challenge were Ted Allen, Padma, Tom and Rick Bayless. What no Gail this week? We noticed that Richard seemed to be working really hard even though he had immunity. They prepared the food at the Top Chef kitchen and then the next day transported their dishes to the block party. When they arrived at the block party they hurried to prepare the dishes and served them for the neighborhood folks gathered at the block party where I am sure the contestants were mini celebrities.

Eric knew immediately that his corndogs were soggy because of the tightly closed box they were transported in. Obviously fried foods can't be precooked and once again transporting fried dishes ended up with soggy food because of the steam in the box. Fried foods need to be done at the event if you want to serve them at all. Nikki worried about her Mac n' cheese dish because she used Velveeta cheese and when it was transported it dried out and fused together into a Mac n' cheese block, not good.

The blue team's menu was Paella, barbequed pork, cinnamon and sugar wontons, Mac n' cheese, a sexy lavender drink, and cookies with smiley faces that were all served on picnic tables to the neighborhood of people who were mostly complimentary. The red team served taco salad, burgers, pork skewers, smores on a stick, chicken Waldorf salad, corndogs, pasta salad, and bunches of dips. The red team socialized with the people there so much that they had the blue team thinking they were so self-confident they must be winners. The red team's smores looked good and fun. The blue team platted the food and tried to stick by the "upscale feeling."

At judges table Padma called in the blue team and immediately said they didn't think the food was up to par and they were disappointed, but the blue team won by a small margin. In particular they loved the cinnamon sugar wonton and they loved Stephanie's drink. They named Stephanie the winner of the elimination challenge which is a second win for her, although she was close to going home last week. After choosing the winner, the red team was called in and the judges told them they did not like the corndogs, nor did they like the Waldorf salad because it was soggy. Tom hated Zoe's pasta salad which was something she didn't want to make at all, she felt she should refuse to make it but wanted to get along with her team and made a dish she didn't feel comfortable with. In the end Eric, an executive chef from San Francisco, was sent home. From the beginning Eric called himself a "soul chief" and he never really was able to do anything that inspired him. I don't think we ever got to see what Eric could do at all. Every time they had to draw a dish he got something he either didn't normally work with or something he didn't believe in. We never got to find out what he excelled at, it just didn't happen for him. Sorry Eric, you seemed an interesting guy who had a bad run of luck. Today the judges were hard on everyone, hope next week brings out more talent in the contestants than what happened this week because it was really difficult and we suffered in sympathy with them.