A Two Hour Cruise... A Two Hour Cruise

OK, this may be a little rough... sorry. I'm sure we'll all pull through.

Stranded in a Desert Aisle
The chefs draw knives. They get $10 to buy ingredients from 1 aisle of an IGA.

Now that there's no immunity and the "prizes" have been of the "Oh... socks" variety, the pressure is off during the Quickfire and the chefs seem to be having a lot of fun. Everybody's laughing. They're joking around with each other. Even the people who were totally screwed by their aisle draw are having fun cooking weird shit that has no chance of winning.

Mohawk asks Hung if he's making a smurf village and everybody laughs. Hung misses the opportunity to answer "Smurf yeah!" Mohawk makes some insanely spicy breakfast thing that leaves Padma and the guest judge literally gasping for water. "It's got a little kick."

Then Tiny Bald Howie ends the Quickfire by saying that he's not serving anything because it didn't live up to his standards, and nobody can believe that shit. I mean, did he see the crap the others served up?

Lurch can't believe he's in the bottom with someone who served up a dirty, empty glass. Wow, that must've been a real kick in the ball. The Talking Dog wins with his Spam, Spam, Hash, and Spam.

We go to commercial and I have to ask if Bombay Sapphire really wants to give a cocktail selection for Spam and hash. Lex said it best: "That'll go nice with your trailer."

Like Robinson Crusoe, As Primitive As Can Be
Brian gets to select the team leader. He steps right up and says that a Top Chef has to lead if they're given the chance. Lurch looks like he just ate a bug. The chefs have to prepare appetizers for a 2 hour party cruise for a bunch of models and fashionazis on a budget that won't even buy them a McDonald's meal, and they have to prepare it in the ship's galley. Like we don't know they're going to be purging it all later anyway...

The chefs dash off to buy ingredients, and there is much wailing and shuffling of budgets. It looks like each pair of chefs is making 3 things (one each and a shared dish), and Howie is making 2 by himself to try and rcover from the Quickfire. Second Sara and Casey team up, Mohawk and Hung team up, and Lurch gets the Talking Dog, who is bragging about his "money dish", which is some kind of tuna tartare. Really? Are you sure?

I'm telling you right now that there are an assload of dishes. If you want a full rundown, this is probably not the right place to look. You probably knew that.

Hey, what happened to Tiny Bald Howie's gazpacho? That sounded good, I love gazpacho. Gazpacho shots would be an awesome appetizer. I am so serving that at my next supermodel cocktail cruise. His nasty looking poo on a cracker? Not making my menu.

We come to the end and Second Sara and BattaBatta's chocolate squits completely fails. It's so terrible that they want to dump it rather than serve it. everyone tries it and agrees.

You Can't Fire Me, I Quit!
Let me just say right now that I hate the guest judge, whoever she is. I'm totally unimpressed by her critiques from start to finish, and she can't do math.

Right off the bat they come up with a ridiculous suggestion. Sure, just scrap a dish to buy the goat cheese... Brilliant. Serve 10% less food when they were barely able to make it to the serving table with food on the tray as it was. That makes ever so much sense. What a dumbass. Were they even at the same party we saw?

Radichhio can't figure out why $350 wasn't enough to serve a party full of eye-popping, gorgeous, delicious food. I'm going to guess that it's because they had less than $6 a head to feed 60 people for 2 hours out of a boat galley. Go figure. I suppose they could have bought 2 of his restaurant's $150 steak specials and sliced them really, really thin. That would leave them $50 to buy... I dunno... a bunch of LSD? I kid! I kid!

Like it would even have time to kick in on a two hour cruise.

The judges' on-again, off-again hatred for Tuna Tartare is back. How are you supposed to predict whether they'll like it or not from week to week? They loved the hell out of Hung's tuna tartare during Restaurant Wars, but this week they're ready keelhaul the Talking Dog.

Ooh ooh, the chefs served something that has been served before. What a surprise. How long have humans been eating food? If they'd been served caviar on blinis, would they be complaining? "Oh... I've had this before. Why didn't they serve it on a Cheezit?" If Hung hadn't already admitted that he was playing it safe, he would have more of a leg to stand on here, but he has a point. Classic combinations are classic combinations, and people like food that tastes good. What are you gonna do?

They do like a few things. They like BattaBatta's Beef Spoons. They like Second Sara's savory tomato bread pudding. Casey at the Bat wins a brand spanking new Macbook. I don't know how that fits into the challenge but I know that I want one. To a certain extent, this choice just shows how hypocritical the judges can be. What the hell do they think carpaccio is? Raw beef is brilliant, but raw tuna gets you a kick in the ass? Why wasn't beef carpaccio "So 1950s"? Whatever.

What don't they like? They don't like that the Talking Dog didn't take a strong leadership role, despite the fact that they um... didn't actually spend any time in the kitchen this episode. He backpedals like crazy on the whole "If you get the chance to lead, you have to lead" speech. They didn't like Mohawk's yogurt puffs. They thought Hung and Mohawk's curried stuff on cucumbers was too eighties. Hey, some of us liked the eighties. They hated both of Howie's appetizers... It's a long list, these are just the highlights.

Tiny Bald Howie sees the handwriting on the wall. He tries to pretend that he's Mia and that he's nobly sacrificing himself to make sure that some other chef, "...like this guy here, who showed great leadership" doesn't go home. Lurch looks really confused at being singled out, since he wasn't the team leader, and Padma slaps Howie down. "That's the judges' decision." So much for consistency, but it was fun to see her put him in his place.

And then they kick his ass all the way home anyway: You can't quit, Howie, you're fired. Ha!

Hey! Next week it's Tony Bourdain!