Mile Low Club

I really want to hear the Husker Du cover of 8 Miles High now. Fortunately, I've got a better version on my iPod. ...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ugh. Padma's a Morning Person.
Lurch is so enthusiastic about being woken by Padma that it's borderline creepy. She might want to consider a restraining order. Mohawk, predictably, is less enthusiastic, muttering something about the fact that she can cook.

Padma wakes all the chefs up, tells them that they have to make her breakfast, and they finally have a use for that hemisphere blender they've been flogging all season. The safe bet is on smoothies.

Hung pulls an Alberto Gonzales. He has no recollection of knocking the bottle of truffle oil off the table. He can't remember anything anything related to oil spills or broken glass... He'll probably have to check for memos regarding all the shit he just dumped out of the fridge. What a dick. Hey, Hung, your monkey could be Attorney General.

No, seriously... this is the Bush administration we're talking about. Give them a call.

The chefs are agreed... Padma likes booze.

Lurch tells us that chicks dig crepes. Padma tastes Second Sara's, what do you call it, egg in a hole. It's heavenly. She likes Hung's steak and eggs and he guffaws like he's got a serious brain injury. Mohawk makes a ham and apple frittata... I'm sure there was some other food too, and lots of smoothies, some of them, like Brian's, filled with tiny hard seeds. Way to go, genius. He acts like Padma's the dumb one for not figuring out which berry they came from until she has to remind him that he might want to strain those seeds out before serving.

Hung wins. Padma's not a huge fan of steak and eggs, but his smoothie was chock full of Grand Marnier. Looks like Second Sara was right.

aaaaaand, let's take this show on the road! They're off to New York. Becks, take note. You never know... Ilan might show up.

What is This "Airline Food" You Speak Of?
If you say it fast enough, "New York" sounds a lot like "Newark", which is where they actually end up.

It's good to know that my flying experience has been reduced to "Greyhound in the Sky" levels so that the assholes in first class can have gourmet meals. Brilliant business plan, that: piss off the vast majority of your customers so that you can suck up to a handful of people who feel so entitled that they aren't going to care anyway. No wonder these assholes are always going bankrupt.

What the hell? Are they cooking in the staff lounge or something? Are we supposed to believe that this is an actual kitchen used to prepare actual food for actual passengers? Please. That shit comes hermetically sealed straight from the factory into the belly of the plane. This kitchen really, really sucks ass.

I like Second Sara. She's funny. "Hot shit behind, burn your ass!"

Once they finish making 18 meals (or 17... who's counting?), they'll put them in a foil box, destroy them in some sort of medieval food torturing device installed in the plane, and dump them on a plate. (Did I mention the plane? They'll be in a plane later. On the ground. In a hanger. The romance of flight is truly dead.) They're serving Bourdain, some boring airline chef (that's gotta be a career ender, you think?), the usual suspects, and a bunch of "elite" flight attendants. Wait... If they're serving all the flight attendants, who's going to ram the drink cart into their seats?

The Talking Dog makes Slab of Beast with a side of Potatoes and Are You Fucking Kidding Me Lobster Hash. Jesus, learn another chord already. Mohawk made a peppery filet mignon, but he miscounted and somebody didn't get a meal. So, it's pretty much exactly like a real flight then?

Next up is fish and fish. Can I just say now that Bus In Sky is bad enough without making it the Fish Reek Express? No fish on planes! Bad chefs! No fish! Hung's Sea Bass survives the gauntlet to the plate. Second Sara's salmon, not so much. Here's a hint from me to you, no extra charge: Sara, hun, if some of the meals are overdone, give them to the extras, not the judges.

Finally, BattaBatta's Veal Medallions and cheesy cauliflower go out along with Lurch's Halibut and Broccolini. OK. Remember what I said about the Fish Reek Express? The Fish and Farts Local is even worse. What are you thinking? We're sealed into that plane for hours... The judges are brutal, especially Bourdain. They should have him on the show more often. He loses me a little with his Bob Marley reference, but "scraped prettier things out of a garbage can"? Nice.

Donner, Party of Three
Padma has apparently had enough of Raddichio, and she exasperatedly cuts him off when he starts talking shit. She doesn't exactly toss her head and do the "talk to the hand" thing, but you can tell that she wants to. You know, if he goes back to the ticket counter and checks his balls right now, he can still probably make his flight.

Mohawk, Hung, and BattaBatta are the top three. BattaBatta wins and gets a pair of round trips to anywhere that Continental flies. I wonder how Mohawk would have done if he'd made one more plate, since he still made it into the top while completely stiffing one of the diners.

The Dog, Second Sara, and Lurch are called in and raked over the coals. They ask Brian and Lurch if this is the dish that will send them home, but not Sara. I guess that she's safe this week even though they weren't enamored of her Cat Food and Afterthought. There's some more joshing around with the chefs... "You couldn't serve that in prison," "Worst dish in three years of this show," that kind of thing, and they send them to stew, but it's pretty clear that Lurch is Moses.

...'cause he's not going to the promised land, see?

Never mind. Second Sara has the Producers' Meow Mix: It's Not Just For Breakfast Any More Immunity this week, The Dog still doesn't have a clue where he went wrong, and Lurch is packing his knives.

I predict that next week, The Talking Dog will serve seafood.