What a steamy episode this was! I think the title says it all, but you'll have to listen to our podcast to hear it for yourself.
The Quickfire Challenge this week was the infamous blindfolded taste test. Kelly Choi blinfolded each cheftestant and they had a variety of ingredients to taste and guess – hoisin sauce, ketchup, peanut butter, dashi, poppadum, etc. Surprisingly enough, Mr. Italian himself, Chiarello, took the win for this challenge. I especially enjoyed the blindfolding part, and apparently so did Keller.
Surprise! A bunch of old Top Chef has-beens enter the scene to team up with the chefs and help them cook a buffet spread for 200 "Hollywood insiders" (who or what they were inside, I had no clue). To my happy delight, we got Fabio ("This is not Top Scallop!") and Jamie from the last season, Elia and Ilan from season 2, Richard, Spike and Antonia from season 3, and some other guys I only kind of remembered. Each chef picked their teams and got to work. But an even bigger surprise was in store for them (go figure) – they had to not only move their buffet outside (read: not good for a raw bar) but also lose a team member before service. Of course the show is going to try to screw everyone over by the final episode!
Highlights: Dale getting all up in Chiarello's face while Chiarello tries to keep it together and not curb stomp this dude, Anita Lo cursing for what I think was the first time on TCM, the power duo of Bayless and Blais combining their powers to whip up a creamy avocado ice cream, Chiarello being a douchebag throughout most of the episode, Keller smoking out the night before the challenge, and Jay Rayner is badly in need of an extreme makeover. Drama! Action! Excitement! (And the podcast is even better.)
Hear the steamy podcast after the jump:
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2009.