As painfuly snoozeworthy as last night's episode of Top Chef: D.C. was, at least they're utilizing more locations and themes in D.C. for the challenges.

The Quickfire Challenge focused on Ethiopian cuisine, because many restaurants in D.C. make up a fair amount of the numerous ethnic eateries in the city. And, who else would they have to represent this challenge than the celebrity chef poster child for Ethiopian food, Marcus Samuelsson? (Thank goodness he left his denim shirts at home this episode). So, the chefs had 30 minutes to whip up a tasty Ethiopian-inspired dish, all but three of them having had no prior knowledge of this cuisine.

What was ironic about the Quickfire results, was that the chefs who made two of the three favorite dishes, went into the challenge blind, being in the aforementioned majority of those with no experience with the Ethiopian flavor profile — one even going on to win the challenge and immunity.

This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2010.