After a week long hiatus, Top Chef All-Stars is back in action! Thank goodness, because I can't go through another Wednesday night of mindless channel surfing.

For their Quickfire Challenge, Tom Colicchio has challenged them to a mise en place race of sorts. He is timed while furiously chopping and prepping away. Each chef'testant then has to do the same and beat Tom's time. Tom knows his stuff, but even he admits he's rusty. I bet at least a third of the chefs beat his time.

This week's Elimination Challenge takes place in a Chinese dim sum restaurant deep in the heart of Chinatown. As far as I know from the preview video below, the chefs have to prepare dim sum dishes for some very critical diners: the locals. I don't know about you all, but I'm looking forward to all of the guests' comments, like, "What do you call this? Caucasian dim sum?!" (as per the preview after last week's episode).

This week's question (it's an easy one): Which season of Top Chef is your favorite? (And if you say Just Desserts, then we can't be friends anymore.)

Check out the preview videos below.

This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.