- The editors of TV Guide magazine came up with a list of shows, which are used as inspiration for a TV Dinner quickfire challenge. The remaining chef''testants are then put to the test as they visit Tom Colicchio's restaurant, Craft Steak in Las Vegas to cook for Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Natalie Portman and friends.—Bravo Publicity
- Jen tries to recover from a disastrous night in restaurant wars while Robin is thrilled (and a little surprised?) to still be there.
Off to M.
Quickfire Padma greets them with Vegas chef Paul Bartolotta. They're doing a TV Guide challenge, cooking based on TV shows. They draw knives for the shows. They get 60 minutes.
Robin gets Sesame Street and admits she's never seen a whole episode. Michael V. has Cheers and plans a spin on bar food. Jen has the Flintstones. She looks for meat on the bone but finds none in the kitchen, so she goes with chicken instead. Eli has Gilligan's Island, which predates his TV watching by about two decades. His dish involves Malibu Rum. Bryan V. got MASH and is going with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Kevin got The Sopranos. He mentions that his family all lives on the same street and his grandmother cooks them all breakfast every morning (!!). He's thinking family food.
Jen's upset to realize she burned her food. They serve in TV tray china.
Jen serves chicken roulade with garlic cream, pea salad and carmelized peaches. Mike I. serves his Seinfeld-inspired menu and mentions he's never seen the show, because apparently he lived under an unfunny rock during the 90s. He made sausage and peppers, mushrooms and cheese, puree of spinach and warm fruit salad. Kevin made braised meatballs with polenta, roasted cauliflower and roasted pear. (Padma likes the pear.) Eli made macadamia nut crusted shrimp with sweet potato puree, herb salad, cherries and bananas. (Apparently there was a lot of fruit in the kitchen.) Michael V. made chicken tender parmesean with braised Swiss chard and cherry pie. Robin made a burger with egg, crispy kale, carrot salad and almond laced cookie with chocolate ganache. Bryan V. presents his meatloaf with mashed potato, asparagus and apple tarte tatin.
Least favorites: Jen (who's not surprised) and Robin. Best: Kevin and Bryan.
The winner is Kevin (who made meatballs for the Italian chef). He doesn't get immunity but his dinner will be made into a TV dinner.
Elimination Challenge They'll be cooking at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak at MGM Grand. They'll be serving four judges and seven guests.
Back at the house, Jen doesn't feel like she's at the top of her game. They all plan for how they're going to cook their meat. They head to the MGM Grand.
Everybody starts looking over the meat cuts in the walk-in freezer. They're packed with dry aged steaks and great meat. Tom arrives.
He announces they have a guest in town. In walks Natalie Portman. The dudes are happy to see her. Natalie says she's adventurous with flavors and cuisines, but... she's a vegetarian.
Tom says Natalie will be judging, too.
Robin thinks she'll shine since she loves cooking for vegetarians.
They head back to the walk in and start picking over vegetables. Everybody wants the morel mushrooms and eggplants. Jen gets the little eggplants.
Mike says 20 of his more than 60 dishes at his restaurant are vegetarian, so he's not worried.
Kevin says he goes vegetarian for Lent every year and knows how to cook satisfying.
Robin goes ADD over all the vegetables and plans a dish she's never made before.
Mike I. is going for a play on scallops using leeks.
Michael V. takes all the asparagus and gets to work.
Mike I. finds his leeks weren't over direct heat.
Jen is upset not to get the eggplant she wanted.
Bryan worries he's behind.
Mike I.'s leeks aren't where he wants them with minutes to go.
Robin doesn't get fresh garbanzo beans on three of her plates.
Dining time. Robin serves first. She made stuffed squash blossom with beet carpaccio, garbanzo beans and chermoula (a Moroccan spice mixture). They think the chermoula is salty. Tom doesn't get any beans and thinks the seasoning is strange.
Eli is up next. He serves a radish salad with confit of eggplant, lentils and garlic puree. Gail loves the eggplant but Paul gets a bite of lavender which reminds him of soap.
Back in the kitchen, Eli warns Mike I that Natalie is there with a group of super hot friends.
Michael V. is next. As he races to plate he says he thinks Natalie will love it but not know exactly why. He serves asparagus salad, japanese tomato sashimi and banana polenta. Natalie loves the polenta but Gail thinks there are banana lumps.
"It makes me smile and laugh and I'm comfused," Natalie says. One of her friends calls him Picasso. Padma and Tom laugh that this is the second time Michael has been compared to Picasso.
Jen thinks her plate of food is too small as she serves charred eggplant with braised fennel, tomatoes and verjus nage (a sauce with butter) that she sauces on their plates.
Her hand shakes like crazy and she spills some, worried about being in the bottom. Gail thinks it tastes beautifully but isn't an entree.
Mike I. serves whole roasted leeks with onion jus, baby carrot puree and fingerling potatoes. Tom thinks the leeks are undercooked. Natalie's friends think it's pretty, but not perfect.
Bryan races while plating and some food doesn't make it onto the plate. He serves a pretty skimpy looking artichoke barigoule (white wine sauce), confit of shallot, wild asparagus and fennel puree with a garlic blossom. Padma calls the garlic "like a little prick on the edge of my tongue" and Natalie laughs like Beavis and Butthead. Padma says that the garlic blossom, even though it's tiny, when paired with the sharpness of the shallots, become "big in my mouth". The diners make some risque remarks and laugh.
Kevin serves a heaping pile of duo of mushrooms, smoked kale, candied garlic and turnip puree. It looks like a brown pile. Paul thinks it's hearty and Natalie calls it a "manly vegetarian meal."
Jen, Mike I., Bryan and Robin are worried. Jen thinks she has a "very high chance" of going home.
We get a peek at them dining at Paul Bartolotto's restaurant and Kevin stuffing his face in the 30 second clip.
Back in the stew room they swill Quickfire wine and sweat. Padma comes for Kevin, Michael V. and Eli.
Judges' Table (including Natalie)
Tom tells Michael he had a "very very successful" dish and Natalie says it's rare food can make you laugh, like "who is his dealer and does he want new clients?"
Gail tells Eli his dish was beautiful. Tom thinks it's also fun.
Natalie raves over Kevin's smoked kale and Tom calls it a "mouthful of flavor."
Natalie announces the winner...Kevin. Padma tells him he gets a suite of GE appliances, just like the ones he's been using in the Top Chef kitchen.
Michael pouts, saying he could have made Kevin's dish in 20 minutes. He admits he's pissed.
They ask for Robin, Jennifer and Mike I. (Only Bryan V. doesn't go before them.)
Chopping Block
Natalie asks Mike I where his protein was. Tom blinks at Mike's claim that his pot was buckled.
Robin babbles about how she'd never made anything she made that night before and sounds all over the map. Tom says so. Gail says her sauce was very strong.
Padma tells Jen she didn't see two hours of work on the plate. Jen says she was nervous when she was serving. Tom says her performance is starting to suffer the longer she's there.
Back at judges' table, Tom says he loved the challenge because it made them roll with the punches. Tom says at this point in the competition some people start to fall apart psychologically and that's what Jen's doing. He says she's second guessing herself (cut to her saying she should have rethought her plate).
Gail's upset with Mike's leeks, and his arrogance at the idea he's not going home. They didn't like the other elements of the dish either.
Padma thinks Robin didn't have a cohesive idea.
Verdict Time Jen looks like she's going to vomit.
Tom tells Mike he doesn't understand how he undercooked his leeks and Robin's dish was unbalanced. He tells Jen it seems like she's fallen apart.
Jen's near tears when Padma announces the knife-packer is...Mike.
"I should have done a lot better than everyone else because this is more my background," he says.
He says point blank he thinks Robin should have gone home before him. She thinks it'll be less backstabb-y and ugly in the house with him gone.
"For me to compete with the next generation with rising chefs is great. It's a little short, but it's all good," he says.
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