Well, last night's episode of Top Chef: D.C. sure was a doozy that had me whistling Dixie! (Sorry, I've got nothing — just trying to make fun of Angelo.) It was actually rather exciting, leaving most of us biting our fingernails at the end, both and eager and fearful to see who'd be given the boot.

The blindfolded relay Quickfire challenge was lukewarm: Both teams performed well, but there was no excitement or originality to the dishes. Each chef'testant acted as a line cook robot, simply trying to execute the team leader's vision without any added pizazz or interesting techniques. In my humble opinion, It's okay to change the dish a bit. (Unless that means over salting it, then it's not okay.)

As for the Restaurant Wars challenge, the expected outcome was totally unexpected — at least for most of us viewers. We were set up to believe that Angelo's team, EVOO, was going to go down in flames, and that Shaft's (Kenny) team, Twenty One 21, was running smoothly and headed for success. Instead, the episode did a one-eighty and left most of us shocked and crying in the corner (or maybe that was just me).

This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.