We're back! Well, almost all of us; one is missing, she of the misunderstood salt shaker, she of the very little personality for as much face time she got in episode 1, our dear friend Nimma. Re-bye, Nimma. Wait, who were you again?Quickfire: Padma takes the chefs to the Green City Market to pick out some fresh food. Make something yummy, the catch: you can only use 5 ingredients. (Salt, pepper, sugar and oil are not included in the 5.)
Mark runs around the market like an emu with his head cut off, borrows the Amazing Race tactic of telling anyone who will listen that he is in a hurry, hounds a market vendor to speed it up with his lettuce and receipt, and then promptly darts away. . . leaving his bag of lettuce behind. Whoops.
Back to the kitchen and the chefs are whipping around, pans and whisks a-flyin'. Wylie Dufresne, the molecular gastronomist, is the guest judge for this episode, so everyone get your pipettes, thickening agents, Marcel hair, and assorted food-goo ready.
Richard, in an attempt to wow Wylie, makes the ultimate cold remedy: chicken soup a la Halls. His use of eucalyptus is not really appreciated. Maybe if he were serving a koala with a cold, it would have gone over better.
Spike makes "Apples and Tips" which sounds more like a house of ill repute than an entree.
Andrew uses lamb, mint, peaches, onions, potatoes and balsamic vinegar. Wait, 1,2,3,4,5. . . 6. Balsamic vinegar, not being salt, pepper, sugar or oil, counts as an ingredient. Andrew tells us that he's scatterbrained. I'm glad he let us know because. . . hey is that a monkey over there. . . I never would have. . . I like cheese. . . guessed.
Mark the headless and lettuce-less emu makes sirloin with peaches, turnips and butter. He earns immunity and a compliment on his sideburns.
On to the elimination challenge! The Chefs draw knives. Manuel is first and he draws Vulture. Manuel doesn't want to eat Vulture. More knives are drawn, Bear, Lion, Gorilla. Andrew tells us that he wants to be a Lion because he is, in fact, a Lion (he roars to prove it.) Andrew draws a knife and pulls. . . penguin. Better turn that roar into an Ork.
The Chefs sort into teams by animal, 3 people per team. The challenge is to cater an event at the Lincoln Park Zoo for 200 people and their food must be based on the diet of their animal. (Zoi is concerned that she is going to have to cook decomposing roadkill and rats for Team Vulture) Luckily, they get handy-dandy little who-eats-what cheat sheets, or else I'd fear for these party guests.
The chefs go shopping. Spike molests vegetables. Nikki wants to put some food back in order to buy table decorations. She says she doesn't want to have a bare table. (Ha ha, she's team Bear. It would have been appropriate.) Back in the kitchen, Richard pulls out a variety of weird instruments and Erik looks confused. He doesn't understand foams and gels. Poor, poor Erik. Andrew gets Spike to touch his goo, and Spike says it's soft.
Your teams, with pictures again since we're still in that fragile, awkward, getting-to-know-you phase:
Vulture:
Manuel, Zoi, Mark
Team Vulture makes lamb meatballs, marinated anchovies on quinoa, and chicken. Manuel says nice things about his team and that's the last we see of him. Mark tells us that a vulture's diet is just like his. Mark turns people into anchovy believers. Good reviews all around.
Bear:
Dale, Spike, Nikki
Team Bear makes: Cranberry and pecan bread with cheese and honeycomb, salmon lettuce cups with veggies, and poo. Actually, they're stuffed mushrooms but they conjure so many reference to poo that they might as well have been. Guess what? No one wants to eat poo, not even if you put a lot of pecorino cheese on it. Apparently if you put a lot of pecorino cheese on poo, it makes it even worse. Maybe that's why the Bears didn't taste their poo before serving it, and, in fact, why they decided not to serve it. Until, of course, Nikki inexplicably decided to serve it to the judges. Judges don't like poo, either.
Lion:
Richard, Ryan, Erik
Team Lion makes bison tartare, beet salad, and Richard uses his whoopty immersion heater doohickey to treat a chicken to a hot tub. The bison tartare and beet salad get rave reviews. I don't recall anyone mentioning the sous vide chicken. Maybe it fell asleep in the tub.
Gorilla:
Valerie, Stephanie, Antonia
Team Gorilla makes olive blinis topped with marscapone and fennel, lamb with edamame, banana bread with caramel, pear and crab salad with chips. The crab salad was assembled ahead of time, and turned watery. The chips are flabby and they decide not to serve them. Valerie cooked the blinis ahead of time, not thinking that as they sat around for a few hours that they might get a little soggy. At least the banana bread is good!
Penguin:
Andrew, Lisa, Jennifer
Team Penguin makes a black and white menu with some kind of yuzu glacier (Andrew's goo) Squid ceviche with tapioca, and Thai shrimp and crab salad. They have a cute little penguin on their station. Wylie Dufresne digs the yuzu glacier, food goo nerd that he is, and everyone likes the squid ceviche.
The first teams called in to face the wrath of the judges are the Vultures and the Penguins. Somber faces all around, until Padma finally speaks. . . Congratulations! These are the top teams for this challenge. Hey, it's Manuel! He lets us all know that he and Zoi and Mark are all best friends and they shared the burden of the workload equally. Oh, Manuel, someone needs to tell you that the doormat does not go very far.
The Penguins get kudos for their black and white theme carrying throughout their dishes, and they get a thumbs up on the glaciers and the squid. Wylie crowns Andrew the winner. Hopefully he was paying attention this time. We wouldn't want him to. . . Hey, look, a monkey. . . forget.
Next, the Gorillas and the Bears are lead to the judges chamber. (Andrew delivers this pronouncement, and of course can not resist the opportunity to toss a "Da Bearsss" out there.) The mushrooms and blinis are what brought them there. Nikki is wearing strange dark-ish glasses perhaps in an attempt to pretend she's not there. Dale says that he's not trying to throw Nikki and her mushrooms under the Zoo Tram while he expertly throws Nikki and her mushrooms under the Zoo Tram.
Valerie takes the blame for soggy blinis. I guess there was rutabega in the blinis, too. Eek. Valerie says that wishes she could have prepared the blinis on-site, but didn't. Actually, she could have, but that's neither here nor there. Antonia is asked who, of Stephanie or Valerie, she would hire for her kitchen, and she chooses Stephanie (and the zzzzzhwiiiiing! of the Top Chef Knife of Back-Stabbedness sounds.)
Judges deliberate, which necessitates more poo talk. They have a decision, and. . .
At this point, the hereto unseen Team Monkey swooped in to gather up the poo-shrooms to fling at the losers. Duck, losers, duck!
Valerie is the boot for her limp blinis. Don't worry, Valerie. *pat pat* It happens to everyone.
Brief recap:
Winner: Andrew
Boot: Valerie
The moral: You can put perfume on a pig, you can put cheese on poo, but nothing, nothing, makes up for a flabby blini.
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