Top Chef at the Beach

Who would have guessed that cooking breakfast at the beach would thrown so many of these chefs for a loop? Everything got shook up this episode: Marcel winning immunity; Frank in the top three for the Quickfire then eliminated; Sam and Cliff in the bottom three; an all-female top three in the elimination; Elia with her second consecutive elimination win. Mike skates by again with help from Betty, of all people, and Ilan stays safely in the middle. And it's all because of eggs!

First, the Quickfire. I thought that Frank, Elia, and Betty had the right idea by going for the fish. The challenge was to make an entree and most of the dishes just ended up looking like salads, and not entree salads. I was a bit perplexed by Marcel's dish. Maybe it tasted great and I know that presentation does count for something, but I just can't stand the trios. And I agree with Ilan that watermelon "steak" is pushing it. It's watermelon.

The elimination challenge was one of the best in awhile. For the first time in awhile, it really made me hungry and wanting to eat the food! I love hot breakfast food, even though I rarely have time for it. The fire pit thing was kind scary, and I can totally understand how some of the chefs messed up their eggs. Eggs are hard enough to cook perfectly on a stove, never mind a huge ass fire pit. But you know, these are professional chefs. They should know enough to adjust, or at least I think they should have. Anyway, I have no disagreement with the judges this week. I kind of cringed at Elia's initial description of her dish too but then I realized that it was a basically an open-faced McGriddle with waffle instead of pancake, which I had the same reaction to at first too. But they're good. Mia's dish looked yummy as well, although I think what I was most impressed about was how calm she remained throughout the whole challenge. Marcel's attempted surfer-speak cracked me up, and I thought it was hilarious that the chefs dove into the ocean afterward.

I really was a little afraid for a minute there that Cliff or Sam were going to be eliminated. I do think that they'd both gotten a little cocky though, so hopefully this week's performance will push them to really step it up even more. I think Frank was the right choice to go. He definitely got the most flustered over the challenge, and well, he might have put out some good stuff in the past but honestly he's just always going to be the Mushroom Fantasy man to me...