Top Chef: Fat Kid Goes To The Circus

Hi guys'n'gals'n'tranzys, and welcome back to our regularly scheduled season of clowns. I never thought I would miss these people so much until they were taken away from me and I had to look at five seasons worth of douchebitchery... not to mention watching Fabio in his apparent audition to become The Next Bertolli Chefâ'¢. It's the only thing I can think of to explain the inconsistency of his accent. As far as his hosting/interviewing skills are concerned, well, I don't think Larry King has anything to worry about. Or Jerry Springer for that matter. So, I think we all agree it was all a big snoozy sludgefest, and I don't blame you guys for feeling cheated, too. I did my best to dress it up and make it pretty, but as we all know, you can put a wig and lipstick on a turd, and somehow you still end up with Carrie Prejean...

...or a fat cocky smacktalking little fucker who still mooches off of Mommy & Daddy and styles his hair after a toilet bowl brush...

Whoa, do I sound annoyed? I guess I am a little, because there's a lot of stuff that made me scream "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??!" at my TV in this episode of Top Chef, and most of those AYFKM moments are thanks to either Fat Kid, Bitter Jen, or 80's Hooker. Still, it was a little bit like coming home to see them all again, so grab a big bowl of pureed popcorn (???) and join me after the jump...

BTW, did any of you guys catch Scar and Rachel Dratch on Andy Cohen's "Watch What Happens Live" this past week? I know, it was on at 1am my time, so most of you probably had better things to do, like sleep or have sex, but OMG I absolutely had to, because the best moment was when Rachel admitted that she actually went to a theater to see Scar in Mariah Carey's moviebomb Glitter (a film that I personally own and cherish if for no other reason than to watch Mariah doing her "first video shoot" wearing a silver bikini and a matching see-through wrap, and when the video director tells her to take off the wrap and skank it up a bit, she looks all shocked and offended and refuses! bwahahahahaha!). It's also a joy to hear Scar actually singing live, which proves she's human after all, because she's terrible at it...

...Oscar moments of 2001...

Back to the show, I couldn't resist rewatching (and rewinding) Sexist Pigshit getting eliminated several times because it was just so tear-jerkingly-lovely. In any case, Big Volt's missing his wife and son so he calls them up. Weirdly, his own kid calls him "Bryan", which is odd considering I didn't even know my dad had a first name until I was almost a junior in high school. Anyhow, he's telling us that he's never been away from them for this long and since the kid's 22 months old and growing fast, he feels like every day he's away he's missing something. Relax, Big Volt, we already know you've only been there for 22 days, so far the only thing you might have missed yet is your kid learning how much fun it is to fingerpaint with his own poo...

...although based on this photo, I'd be more concerned about Teeny Volt's apparent desire to appear in front of Tyra Banks on ANTM and be praised for his obvious smizing abilities...

Kidding, Big Bry! Don't go running to call Exodus International just yet, lots of little boys are great at giving good face and posing for a camera before they're two years old, and they turn out just fine. Now, if his first walk winds up being his "signature" walk, then you might wanna make a preliminary vist to PFLAG's website. I'm just saying...

Over in the girls room, Bitter Jen and 80's Hooker are getting ready, and 80's croaks "I'm glad you're still here, Jennifer."...

...and hears the curious sound of daytime crickets in return...

Bitter Jen's saying that Sexist Pigshit going home was "a pretty big deal" because she actually thought he'd be in the finals. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#1) Really Jen, when did Sexist Pigshit ever display the kind of skills that the Volts or DirtyBear (or you used to) have? Why would she say something so heinous? *gasp* OMG, I really hope they didn't boink while he was there, and if they did I hope she used at least 2 or 3 (or 40) condoms at the same time, we just don't need any little spiky-haired Bitter Pigshitlets running around. Anyhow, Jen says she's gonna try from here on out to concentrate on herself and not worry about everyone else's food (didn't Gay Ashlee say the edzack same thing right before he went home?) and with that she finishes buttoning her chef's coat, grabs her stuff and walks by 80's Hooker without a word. LOL.

Today instead of heading out to the "M" Resort & Casino (which is only two shuttles, a bullet-train and a galactic wormhole ride away) they are directed to a part of Las Vegas that actually has people in it, and have found themselves in the bowels of the Venetian Hotel...

...and Fat Kid's making use of last night's Mexican food to try and sabotage the others...

Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him (or his bowels) to be so nasty. So everyone's standing around wondering what the hell is going on (and trying not to inhale Fat Kid's noxious used-burrito air) when the phone rings, and an admin lady answers it "Venetian In-Suite Dining". On the other end of the line is Scar and she's put on the speakerphone to talk with the cheftestants...

...ooooh, like a reverse-episode of Charlie's Angels!...

Fat Kid gets to play Bosley. Anyhow, Scar's babbling on about how there are 67,000 hotel rooms in Vegas (does that count the Motel 6 and Travelodges, too?) and that room service is a "multi-million dollar industry". I'll say, and it's no wonder when they can get away with selling you a small box of Lucky Charms and a single Eggo waffle for $18 (gratuity not included). So, their Quickfire Challenge is to make breakfast for Scar and her BFF, today's guest judge, Nigella Lawson...

...who's looking quite relaxed after her night of bonging, bonding and boinking with Scar...

I've watched her show on Food Network a few times, and the only thing I can really tell you about it is that it's very poorly lit. Seriously, half the time Gell-O looks like she's cooking in a kitchen during a power outage. Anyways, upon hearing who the guest judge is, everybody gets a big grin and Fat Kid says that she's like "a modern updated less french version of Julia Child."...

...mm-hmmm, yes, like twins these two are...

He also says Gordon Ramsay named a turkey after her. Well, I don't know about you, but I can't even think of a girl who wouldn't be flattered by having a rotund yet wattle-necked fowl for their namesake. Fat Kid's a moron. In any event, Scar's lets them know they have to serve the breakfast to them in bed, gives them 30 minutes, and they can use anything they can find in the kitchen, and go!...

Since it's a smaller kitchen than they normally have over at the "M", they'll be working in pairs, and the first up is the Duo Of Hatred, Fat Kid and 80's Hooker, and apparently they are having difficulty coming up with enough saute pans and pots and electrical outlets and such. I guess the kitchens at the Venetian suck. Fat Kid says he's going to do a play on a dish that he likes to eat 24/7 (which is convenient so he's not restricted by the whole "breakfast" thing) so he's making a play on a corned-beef reuben with "1,000 Island hollandaise". Gee, that sounds like it'd be great if you were hung over...

...and wanted to puke...

80's Hooker, naturally, is tripping over herself trying to bang out any kind of cohesive dish in 30 minutes, she's making blintzes with pineapple compote and some kind of goat-cheese filling. She says she initially "envisioned" two blintzes on each plate, but because she once again fucked up her timing, they're only getting one. Ah well, on the plus side, that's less for Scar and Gell-O to spit out into their napkins. 80's is feeling like she could have made the plate "look tighter". Or, you know, put some good food on it.

After she and Fat Kid leave, the second pair to begin working is the Duo Of Contenduhs, Li'l Volt and DirtyBear, and Li'l Volt comes out of the gate complaining about the state of the kitchen that 80's Hooker has left him. Because he's such a neat freak, he decides to blow 5 minutes (out of his alotted thirty) cleaning up after her. Except it must have been more like ten, because he says the next time he looked at the clock there was only 20 minutes left and he's way behind on even starting anything. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#2) Well, looks like you can kiss this Quickfire g'bye, dumbass. I'm sorry, but I call bullshit that 80's Hooker is the only one who left a pile of crap behind, I'm sure Fat Kid's area looks just as messy... or were they all supposed to follow the example of Saint Michael The MartyrVolt and use part of their 30 minutes to bring everything back up to a streak-free shine at the end of cooking?

Meanwhile, 80's Hooker is lucky she didn't get lost on the way to the Gell-O-Scar Suite, she has to take two elevators and several long hallways to get there, surely giving her blintzes plenty of time to give up and turn rancid on her. For some reason she made sure to grab a couple of small vases of flowers to plunk down upon the already limited space their breakfast-in-bed trays have, and truthfully as she's presented with 80's's dish Gell-O's smile becomes rather strained and she shoots a look over at Scar that seems to say...

..."Yo Paddy-Cake, what kinda crack house you running here?"...

Gell-O's beauty has unnerved 80's Hooker a bit and she admits to having some stage fright as she presents her dish, which she foolishly calls one of her "specialties"...

...which is only true if we're using the word "special" as a euphemism for "retarded"...

Aiyee, she'd have been better off just serving a sliced banana over a bowl of Fugli-Os, and poor Gelly looks like she's struggling to choke it down. Well, let's see how Fat Kid's going to do. He enters the suite, and after they stop screaming and throwing magazines at him, he serves them and tells them that he doesn't eat a lot of breakfast because he's normally "not up at that hour" (I guess that's because he's such a partier... and because Mom's not allowed to enter the ManBoy-Cave to pick up poo-poo undies before noon) so he made them a rerun-reuben...

...wellnow, aren't we about to see people winding up looking like this over on "V"?...

Oddly, Gell-O immediately proclaims that it his dish would be a really great "hangover breakfast"! Ugh, that's it. Bitch has bulimia. Anyhow, back down in La Kitchen Del Crampy, DirtyBear's telling us he's not a big fan of room service (most likely because of that whole "O.J.-and-3-pancakes-for-$27" thing I mentioned a while back) so he's going with steak'n'eggs because it's hearty, and because he just plain likes it. While he's working Bitter Jen notices that someone's pan has caught on fire on the stove and asks him "What's this... you?", and he guffaws and says "Not me..."

...making "Flambe Of Dreams"...

I'm sure he did that on purpose, it's probably some kind of new-fangled "carbonization" method that the rest of us are just too stupid to understand. Anyhow, to us Li'l Volt claims that he's "in the weeds" (like that's a bad thing, Scar's into them every day) and that maybe he wrote himself too aggressive of a prep-list by doing a Cuban-inspired breakfast, and he's complaining about the seasoning of the dish, the plating of the dish, and I guess the food in the dish as well: "Nothing is working for me on this dish today."

You know what else isn't working? For 80's Hooker to come back in the middle of his prep time and try to clean shit up. She promptly puts herself in Li'l Volt's way and he winds up barking at her "'Scuse me, 'scuse me, 'scuse me! I'd rather you just be gone right now!" Hmmm, interesting choice of words there. 80's snarls back, "I was told to come get my shit out of the way." and she flounces out, telling us that Li'l Volt really pissed her off and she doesn't like being treated that way. Ok, well how about having a little common sense and not getting up in his face when he's complaining and setting shit on fire, 'kay honeybun? You get no sympathy from me this time sugarpie.

Li'l Volt gets his dishes plated (nobody else has bothered with the vases of flowers, i think because they realize that's not going to get them any extra credit points) and winds his way through the labyrinth to the Exotic Ladies Lair to present them with his version of Ricky Ricardo Balls...

...where's the blackened part?...

I guess he didn't use that. Anyhow, he tells them they should break into the egg yolk and mix it into everything (including the banana puree) and eat it all as one. Apropos of nada, Gell-O comments that the great thing about breakfast is you can eat it any time of the day. Ugh, bitch, stop talking down to everyone, we know we can get a Sourdough Breakfast Sammich at Jack In The Box 24/7, OK? Li'l Volt, on the other hand, is eagerly lapping at her ass crack and jokes that it depends on how much you've had to drink that night, which makes her giggle and reply "See, you've got to think of those things!". I would hope that Scar would be rolling her eyes right now. Because Gell-O's being all flirty and silly he's now confident that his dish was great. I hope she barfs a little of it back into her mouth right after he leaves.

Next up is DirtyBear, who is warning them about their plates being real hot. He also looks sweaty, so I'd imagine he musta ran up there from the kitchen. This is his version of steak'n'eggs...

...'n'blood?...

Damn, that's some rare looking beef. Or maybe it's just my computer making it look like it's chock-full-o-spirochetes? Anyhow, Scar remarks how nice and warm everything is, and they seem to be enjoying the dish. Nobody's complaining about the lack of tiny flower vases.

The final pair working right now is the Duo Of Inconsistency, Bitter Jen and Big Volt. Jen's telling us she works in a hotel and does room service all the time, so she thinks she's gonna nail this one by making creamed chipped beef served over toast... which is also known as "S.O.S." or "Shit On A Shingle". And she's going to serve this to Scar and Nigella Lawson. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#3) You know, I could see her getting away with serving something like that to Southern Mama Paula Deen or Cowboy Tim Love or Big Gay Art Smith, but to Gell-O?!? Girl, you're not even trying now! Big Volt, on the other hand, is going a slightly classier route, he's making a 4-minute egg over a pile of corn polenta and some crab meat with a vanilla sauce?

Upstairs in the newly dubbed Shitty Shingle Shack, Bitter Jen's presenting her plates and notes that Gell-O's looking at it like "Did somebody already eat this and not like it?"...

...or maybe she's worried that she doesn't have a big enough napkin to dispose of it all...

I have to say, I'm kinda loving the fact that Gell-O doesn't seem to give a ripe fuck if she shows them her displeasure with a dish or not. Anyhow, Bitter Jen forges ahead and actually uses the term "shit on a shingle" to describe the dish, which makes Scar giggle, but there's a deathly silence from Gell-O's side of the room...

...actually that looks more like it could be called "DJ Jizzy Beef & The Fresh Veg"...

I'll tell you the truth. I have never been able to eat "S.O.S." strictly because of the name. Honestly, once you give me that association in my head, I just can't force it into my mouth or down my throat. It's not that I don't like beef and sauce and bread together, in fact, I really love beef stroganoff, too, but I have been known to get violent if my brothers and sister ever start talking about diarrhea or bowls of babyshit during dinner on those nights. Besides, they know better, cuz I would usually get my revenge the next night by discussing my favorite rimming techniques.

In any case, it's time for Big Volt to bring this Quickfire to a close, and when he sets his plate down in front of Gell-O she inhales and says "Mmmmm, i can smell vanilla!" So, besides having the old "shit on a shingle" it appears they were also treated to...

...a "Big Breakfast Whitehead"...

After he leaves, Gell-O says the vanilla has "thrown [her] off slightly" and she thinks the dish would have been "a complete star" without it. Poor Big Volt, he just cannot catch his groove with the Quickfire! The chefs all reconvene up in the suite to find out the results and he's the first one called out by Gell-O because she couldn't cope with the sweet vanilla scent in the dish, and yet she was eating savory items like crab and polenta. I guess I can't blame her, that would be weird. Also disliked was 80's Hooker's blintzes for not having enough contrast between ingredients and being too "one-note" (and a screechy note at that!) and of course she nods her head in agreement and says she's not proud of what she put out there today. Like she ever is.

On the plus side, she loved DirtyBear's steak'n'eggs and thought it showed "an understanding of the challenge" (which was to make breakfast, duh) and also she liked Fat Kid's Rerun Reuben! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#4) Yeah, she thought that his dish had "wit" and that the tang of the sauerkraut "slapped" the jet-lag out of her...

...right about now I'd give anything to slap something else outta her...

And my nightmare gets worse as Fat Kid wins the Quickfire! All he can think of to say is "Cool... cool." Thankfully, there's no advantage in the Elimination Challenge, there's no immunity, there's no chip worth thousands of dollars, all there is for a prize is the fact that Fat Kid will be the only chef from this season to have his Rerun Reuben recipe included in the Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook. Woohoo. DirtyBear doesn't really look too upset after hearing that, turns to Fat Kid and says "Cool, Eli!" to which Eli responds again "Cool." I guess he doesn't realize that although he's won two Quickfire Challenges, they've both been the ones with the lamest (or no) prizes of all. Perhaps if he'd gotten his hands on one of those High-Stakes chips he could have, you know, put some money towards moving out of the ManBoy-Cave At Mom'N'Dad's House.

Oh well, I say let him have his swelled head over having a recipe for a sammich in a cookbook full of 247 other slapdash items (he'll be in such good company if Moonface Moron Mikey's Poopy-Cheeto-Erection is included!). It's time to move on to the Elimination Challenge, which is for them to create a dish that will be inspired by a casino on The Strip (time to trot out the knife block). Here's how the drawing breaks down: Big Volt has Mandalay Bay, Fat Kid gets Circus Circus, Li'l Volt pulls New York, New York, DirtyBear lands Mirage Mirage, Bitter Jen picks Excalibur and 80's Hooker winds up with The Bellagio...

...Good thing they left off Imperial Palace, Sexist Pigshit would have been livid that he couldn't use his newly acquired Asian cooking skillz!...

Anyhow, Scar says they'll be catering a party for 175 guests comprised of hired extras "Las Vegas' elite" on top of the World Market Center. Everybody poos a little when they hear the words "175 guests" because they know they're gonna have helluva haul to make enough food for that many people. Especially if any of the guests are like me and tend to take seconds. Or fifths. Anyhow, they'll have the rest of the day to explore their casinos and get inspired, and then they'll be serving the following evening.

First up on his journey is Li'l Volt, who's heading on over to New York, New York, which he notes in real life is the restaurant mecca of America. He's taking a very surface approach, standing outside and staring up at the skyline, the American flag, the Statue Of Liberty replica, and noting the NYFD fire-boat in their little harbor he says the idea for his dish is coming together...

...that Americans are alcoholics...

Kidding! But with the state of the world today, can you blame me them? No, instead he's going to do a tribute to the firefighters in New York. That's really admirable and all, and I'm totally not trying to be hateful, but I think that idea's a little on the zzzzzzzzzzz side, primarily because it's kinda been slightly done to death. Then again, that's prolly a really smart idea, because I bet Gell-O's got a huge case of the English Hots for American firefighters. Unlike Scar, whose taste runs more towards older and fatter and far, far richer.

Across the street Bitter Jen's stopped off to explore the Excalibur. It's an interesting place, they have a really tacky bar in there where young girls come out and "dance" in bikinis in front of a bunch of dirty old men. Very artistic. Anyhow, Jen has donned her best camo tank top and seems to be wandering aimlessly...

...like that Circle of SpongeBobs isn't inspiring enough?...

She winds up heading into the Tournament of Kings, which is kind of an "eating experience" along the lines of "Medieval Times" which has a floor show of wizards and knights and shit, and she says it's great because it's "something you can go to with your friends and just joke around and laugh!"...

...which makes it seem that much more sad since she's in a completely empty row all by herself...

She likes the fact that they serve giant steins of beer (yay!) and you have to eat everything with your fingers (boo!) and then drops the bomb that she still pretty much has no clue what she's going to cook for the Elimination Challenge on the following day. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#5) Well, then that was an afternoon well spent.

Skipping over one of my favorite casinos (The Luxor) they head further south towards Mandalay Bay, where Big Volt is gazing at the golden color of the windows on the casino itself (pretty!) and then heads inside to look at the Shark Reef aquarium. Of course, he couldn't just be allowed to go look at the cool sharks without them bludgeoning us over the head with more propaganda about "sustainable fishing". God, Top Chef, I fucking get it already! I'll stop eating at Red Lobster and only go to Denny's and KFC and Waffle House from now on!...

...even though I do find shark meat to be incredibly tasty...

Hey, guess who knows nothing at all about the Bellagio hotel? Shockingly, it's 80's Hooker. Naturally she doesn't make it any further than the lobby before she is awestruck by the Dale Chihuly hand-blown glass flower sculpture that spans the ceiling...

...maybe it would be more accurate to say she's "having a flashback"...

80's says she considers herself an artist who just happened to find food along the way, and she wants to bring some more of her art back to her food. She better look where she's going or she's more likely to bring her dental work back to the floor. BTW, check out this shot that they put up on the Bravo TV gallery for this episode...

...nice class-crack, camera-boy!...

Christ on a sugar-cookie, kids, would you please fucking pull your pants up? I know you think it's cool and fashionable to air out your anal sweat to the rest of the world, but really, you've been misled... the crucial thing that nobody told you is that lint tends to collect in your upper butt-crack. And while you're at it, get off my lawn.

Here's someone I would rather watch any day of the week, and that's DirtyBear! He's noticed right away the tropical feel of the Mirage and believes it's going to give him more inspiration than he expected...

...as he feels up a dolphin...

DirtyBear says everybody takes one look at him and always assumes he's a redneck (but it's not the tatsleeve or his giant beard's fault) but really he's committed to- argh, fuck it, I'm not going to write another word that has "sustainable" tacked on to the front of it. Suffice it to say that he believes in simple good-tasting food as opposed to "flashy food" that has more "style over substance"...

...I wonder who he means when he says that?...

Our last cheftestant to be followed on his journey to inspiration is Fat Kid, who's going to Circus Circus, which is one of my least favorite casinos on The Strip, primarily because it has an abundance of two things that I can't stand, which would be clowns and children. Ah hell, make that three things, because it now has Fat Kid, too.

He doesn't have real high hopes for it, either, saying he expects to find a lot more along the lines of "novelty" crapola as opposed to "impressive luxury". Well, duh, it is one of the cheaper hotels on The Strip, not to mention that kids don't give a shit about Dale Chihuly glass sculptures unless there are paint-guns and breakage involved. He tries fruitlessly to jazz things up, saying his "brain is processing the aesthetic of the place as well as the concept of a circus". This is a fancy way of saying "everything is pink and purple". Of course, he also makes note of the various cuisines offered therein...

...hey, that looks like my daily dinner menu!...

Back at the McMansion the others are asking Fat Kid how he did at being inspired, and he immediately starts complaining "There's no circus at Circus Circus!" DirtyBear agrees with me and laughingly calls him out for being "the whiniest dude about this shit!" Li'l Volt jumps on him, too: "Your theme is so definitive, how do you not get inspired by that?!?" Ah, but Fat Kid insists that it's "not that black and white... there's no restaurants... there's no food there!" Li'l Volt reminds him he isn't supposed to be literally inspired by the food, but the casino itself. As Fat Kid continues to bitch and moan (and mine for boogers in the batcave) the others all have varying reactions...

...and 80's Hooker wisely keeps her mouth shut (for a change)...

The next morning as they awaken, DirtyBear falls victim to the ever-popular nip-slip...

...which has clearly given Fat Kid a raging case of morning (inch)wood that he finds just too good to pass up boinging back and forth a little...

Blech, and he touches your food with those same hands. Anyhow, they all suit up and head over to the "M" Resort & Casino (no pointless footage from Whole Paycheck today, yaaaay!) to begin their allotted 3½ hours to cook. DirtyBear's telling us people are going to have to be smart about their dish in order to produce something that's going to be good for 175 people all on their own. That kinda leaves out 80's Hooker already. Anyhow, he's making is a wild Alaskan sockeye salmon with "compressed vegetables" in a slaw form. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it looks like there's some kind of special food-machine-box-thingy involved. At least he's not tossing around douchey terms like "thermal immersion circulator" or "xanthan gum" or "edgy, innovative and risky"...

Speaking of douchey, I was curious how Li'l Volt was going to honor the NYFD, and it turns out he's making a play on chicken wings (huhwha? Howzzat connected to firefighters exactly?) and he's going to "put [his] own twist on it."...

...see above re: douchonyms for "edgy, innovative and risky"...

I could see that idea working for firefighters from Buffalo, maybe, but not from NYC. And anyhow, I thought pizza or deli-food was more identifiable with New Yorkers than anything else, but then again, I'm not the one trying to hammer my squarely preconceived idea into a round inspiration-based challenge hole.

Meanwhile, 80's Hooker has decided to make a dessert (I know, right?) using the Chihuly glass sculpture as an inspiration, so she's making a panna cotta and she's going to do some kind of "stained glass effect" with sugar... "I haven't made it a lot, but I don't wanna do what I know. I keep wanting to make what I haven't done before, and I dunno why!" C'mon guys, say it with me now: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#6)...

...After hearing this latest bit of numbskullery from her, I would not be at all surprised if the Travelocity gnome starts stalking her...

Bitter Jen has finally decided on using the story of "The Sword And The Stone" as the theme for her dish. She's already nervous because she's making three different sauces with red wine in them and seems to have no clue how everything's going to come together in less than three hours. I'm sorry to say this, but I think we're going to have another male Top Chef, cuz the ladies have just checked right the fuck out.

Over in Sir Cussville, Fat Kid's trying to incorporate foods he normally associates with a three-ring circus, so he's making a soup out of peanuts and caramel apple, and then he's brilliantly decided to add "pulverized popcorn" as a garnish along with some whipped raspberry juice "to kind of mimic the pink dome out back of Circus Circus." ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!??! (#7) Does any of that sound even remotely tasty? Try chewing up some popcorn and then spit it out, let it dry and then re-eat it...

...but before you do, add some Pepto-pink foam to it, so it'll be extra unappetizing...

Although, this could get his spiky-hairy-ass sent home, so I say let's roll with it. We know how much judges love them some pink food...

...blech...

Back over in the Circle Of Real Talent, Big Volt's talking a bunch about that word I said I wasn't going to type anymore (that rhymes with "kustainable") and while he's cooking his fish in olive oil he displays a surprising streak of honest self-evaluation in admitting that he sucks at Quickfires. However, he's quick to point out that he has also nailed three Elimination Challenges, so he's hopeful this will be another one of his wins.

It's the last half-hour, and it just wouldn't be Season Six without 80's Hooker running around completely unfocused and muttering to herself. Fat Kid observes the reality of her still being a giant thorn in his side in the competition and says that she's skated by several times being "the lesser of two evils" and he cheefully mixes his expressions as he gleefully says "Hopefully, the buck's about to run out on that one!" Yes, and the luck stops here.

Time's up, and they've packed everything up and headed on over to the World Market Center, where they're setting up on the top floor which provides a lovely view...

...of the roof of a dental office complex...

They've got one more hour to prep before 175 hungry people will come in a giant unruly horde looking for free food (and some camera time so they can list "Top Chef Season 6 Episode 11" on their imdb pages)! Of course, 80's Hookers' sugar-glass panes did not travel well, they completely shattered on the bus ride from the "M" plus they didn't set, so she can't use them and she already knows she doesn't have the winning dish, but claims she "still loves" her vision (full of cataracts and astigmatisms though it may be).

Over at Fat Kid's station, Li'l Volt's tasting some of his wack-ass concoction and when Fat Kid asks "Is it tasty?", he's slyly noncommittal, saying it tastes like a PB&J. With ABC popcorn and Pepto-sauce. Which is just what the "elite of Las Vegas" are going to want to be stuffing their yawps with this fine evening, I'm certain. Oh well, the doors have opened, everyone's tables are mobbed, and Bitter Jen has zero food ready...

...you best get some grub out there, Jen, before Miss Chic'N'Chunky Brussells Sprout Blouse Elite 2009 starts gnawing on the blonde's fleshy arm...

Just her luck, Scar and the rest of the judges (Gell-O, Daddy Tom and Tiny Tewwible Toby) wander up when she's still got an empty table. "You look like you're sold out!" remarks Scar, "Why don't you tell us what you were making?" and as she's plating for them, Jen gives them her spiel about the Sword and the Stone, and justifies her huge hunks of meat, saying they're bigger bites because they "come from medieval times"...

...and look likely to wind up in a modern dumpster...

Gell-O immediately runs into trouble, saying she might need Excalibur to cut her piece. Ouch. Eventually she's forced to be "unladylike" and just pick it up with her fingers, where she takes a bite, grimaces and says "This is the stone." Double ouch. Scar and T³ don't say a word, and all Daddy Tom can seem to come up with is a gulpy "Wow."

They move on to DirtyBear's dish...

...where the fish is clearly compressing the vegetables...

He suggests they eat the fish with the salad veggies and then drink the broth as a cleansing last note (which sounds like this: sllllurrrp-*ting!*). Back at their table, Gell-O proclaims it delicious, and Tewwible Toby thinks the combination of the spice and the mint gave it a Thai flavor, which he likes cuz it begins with the letter T. Daddy Tom says the tomato water is "stunning" and they show several shots of various extras diners tipping up their bowls to drink it down. Wow, we are hearing *ting!*s everywhere!

It's time to try LI'l Volt's Super-Patriotic-Fire-Fighters-For-America-And-New-Yorker-Style-Chicken-Wangs...

...and who doesn't love a frozen CD made of cheese?...

He kind of hurries them through his tenuous connection, saying that chicken wings are something NYC fire-fighters "might like to eat". The judges don't look all that convinced, either. However, Gell-O immediately says how much she loves the crisp skin of the wing, and Scar loves the cold disc of bleu cheese dressing. My teeth ache just thinking about it. T³ is kinda on my side, he didn't really care for the flavor of the disc. Daddy Tom says nada.

Weirdly enough, when they head over to 80's Hooker's table, she appears to have not had a single customer for her mini panna cottas at all. I dunno, maybe everybody's waiting to have her dessert after they've finished everyone else's dish. Or maybe her loser vibe is chasing them away...

...Scar's forced grin says it's the latter...

She explains about seeing the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture in the Bellagio lobby and how it inspired her to make sugar flowers... except then she says how the moisture and humidity (she neglects to mention her general inexperience/incompetence with sugar-wrangling) ruined the Dale Chihuly part of her idea, so she's not putting it on the plate. So, basically, the main inspiration for the whole dish didn't make it to the dish...

...gee, do you also get the feeling that the editors don't give a fuck about her food anymore, either?...

I know there are other ingredients in that dish, but nobody cared to say what they were. Gell-O gamely says she likes the smell of it to start with, but immediately notices the texture is wrong, there's too much gelatin in it. Toby agrees that the consistency is far too solid (he stops short of Jay "FugTaser" Raymer's embarrassing assertion during Top Chef Masters that it should "wobble like a woman's breasts") and also notes that the attendant syrup tastes like the kind you would use on a Slushy. Scar tries to say that it had a clear connection to her inspiration, but Daddy Tom points out that 80's didn't actually serve that inspirational part to them. She shoulda thrown those broken pieces on top and said it was the Bellagio after an earthquake or something. Another FAIL.

Maybe they can get some better food out of Big Volt...

...wow, would you look at all that description?...

Scar mentions that when she initially read his menu and saw "parsley fluid gel" on it, she thought it sounded disgusting (kinda like what the words "Salman Rushdie erection" does for the rest of us) but actually they all think it tastes quite nice. Gell-O thinks it has "fantastic balance", Daddy Tom loves the sauce, and Tiny Tewwible Toby thinks it tastes like a very "professional" dish.

The soundtrack starts bleeping out weird whistling noises and odd percussion sounds as they come to Fat Kid's station and he tells them he went "a little risky" but that he feels "cool" about it...

...looks like the spit-sink at the dentist's offices they're overlooking...

Most. Disgusting. Dish. Ever. Normally I wouldn't do this to you nice people, but I just want you to take a look at the top view of this dish so you can appreciate the full horror of what Fat Kid has done...

...I've seen used dental-floss that looks far more palatable than this...

The first words out of Gell-O's mouth when they get back to their table are "I'm more frightened than I can say, and I'm not gonna be the first to go in! I'm gonna watch your faces first as you eat!". Everyone else starts in with the dish, but sadly Gell-O didn't wait long enough for Scar's reaction...

...which tells us it clearly reminds her of "Salman Rushdie erection"...

"I didn't like it at all!" she exclaims. Daddy Tom says the soup is "a little grainy" and that weirdly the dish could have used some of the gelatin from 80's Hookers' non-breast-like panna cottii. Gell-O says the texture "didn't quite work" and Toby delivers the coup de grâce by saying he admires Fat Kid's willingness to go all in, death or glory, but "like most people who come to Vegas he has gambled and lost." With that, they pack it in and head back to Judges' Table...

...while the cheftestants toast to not knowing who helped Scar make pukey-face...

I'm kinda shocked that Fat Kid didn't just elbow 80's Hooker out of the way. Back in the Stew Room, DirtyBear asks innocently how everybody's dishes turned out and he gets crickets in return. "That good, huh?" More silence. Then Scar comes to save him and whisk him and the Volts away to the Winner's Strokefest. They loved DirtyBear's salmon texture, as well as the flavor of his "compressed vegetables" (and if anyone can illuminate me on what that means exactly, I'm not getting doodly-fuckall on my google searches, and I'd appreciate knowing). T³ also liked his broth. Yay DirtyBear!

Gell-O says she thought Big Volt's dish was "beautiful" and that his garlic chips were "fantastic" (although I suspect she could use a pack or two of that "5" gum right about now) and she found it to be "quiet and elegant". As for Li'l Volt's NYC Wangs'N'Thangs, Daddy Tom says he reworked Buffalo wings into something much better than they're used to. Toby says it was "perfectly expressive" of the kind of cooking Li'l does, "Your food is very delicate, and sometimes quite effeminate!"...

...and as Li'l Volt mentally decapitates Toby, Big Volt struggles not to giggle...

So Gell-O gets to reveal this weeks winner... FUCK, it's Li'l Volt! Big Volt's not smizing so much now (his kid musta got that skill from his mother's side of the family) and DirtyBear does a far better job of hiding his disappointment. His prize is a giant bottle of Terlato wine... as well as what Scar says is a "2-day, 3-night trip to the Terlato family vineyard in Napa Valley!" Wouldn't that be the other way around? Unless those flights are red-eyes or something equally cheapo. Li'l Volt can barely muster a "Wow." for it, so you know he thinks it's pretty suck-ass, too. They return to the Stew-Room and send back 80's Hooker, Bitter Jen and Fat Kid.

Scar starts by asking Bitter Jen if she's surprised to be in the bottom? Duh. No. She admits she didn't have a clear idea of what she wanted to do and that her dish was boring. Daddy Tom thinks she just didn't know enough about medieval cooking and says the food was "so rank back then they used tons of spices to mask it" and he wishes she had taken the dish further. Gell-O decides this would be a good time to trot out her "I needed Excalibur to cut through my meat" joke, and Toby throws salt on her wounds by calling it "more Spamalot than Camelot."...

...Poor Jen, those Brits sure are bitchy, huh?...

As for 80's Hooker, she actually tells them she's not "a sugar-master" and that she was once again playing with something she had never done before. "I'm such a jerk!" she exclaims. Shut up Fat Kid, we already know how you feel. Daddy Tom points out she's never played with making panna cotta before, either, and Gell-O gets all FugTasery on us saying that a good panna cotta should "have the quiver of a 17th-century courtesan's inner thigh!" Okay, the breast thing I could live with, but inner thighs just bring to mind crotch-scent and that was not fucking necessary Nigella! In any case, Daddy Tom thinks she's being influenced by seeing all the intricate tricks going on in the kitchen around her and tried to emulate that but failed.

Now comes my favorite part of the show. The dry assfucking of Fat Kid. Gell-O says for her there was too much "clashing going on, the textures didn't work, I didn't know what was going on when I ate it!" Daddy Tom mentions how grainy the soup was, and Fat Kid says the peanut soup was "fighting" him and he tried to "emulsify it" with some caramelized white chocolate to make it smoother, and Daddy Tom promptly nails him with "That's what made it grainy. That stuff doesn't melt!" Fat Kid tries to claim that "conceptually" he was "close to the mark". Daddy Tom: "But the dish was a failure! Texturally it completely failed." Scar's turn: "I really didn't like the flavors in that dish... I personally would never wanna eat that again!"...

...Congatulations, Fat Kid! You've helped Scar hit a new low since Glitter...

They are dismissed, and immediately upon reaching the Stew Room 80's Hooker bursts into silent tears. Weirdly enough, Fat Kid also looks like he's about to blubber, too. Bitter Jen just looks sad as usual and mutters to DirtyBear "I'm ready to go."...

...It's failure. ...

No viewer poll this week, just a reminder to vote for our fan favorite. I dunno about you guys, but I'm clicking like mad for DirtyBear. They're brought back into Judges Table, and the one going home tonight is.... 80's Hooker. She starts crying a little more freely, but finds the strength to walk up and shake hands with all the judges and get some last minute advice from Scar...

..."Learn how to make a decent panna cotta, beyotch!"...

80's Hooker continues to leak as she says she's proud that she made it through 11 rounds of elimination. Wow, that hardly seems possible! But yeah, it was time for her to go, although I was seriously hoping that she'd get Fat Kid kicked to the curb first, who, by the way, I'd just like to ask one question of...

...who's the "lesser of two evils" now, bitchboy?!?!...

Eh, at least everybody was cool enough to give her a hug before she leaves, it would have been extra-shitty of them if they hadn't (and even nicer still, nobody showed their obvious relief and delight at her departure). As for how the rest of the viewers feel, here's the BravoTV.com poll results...

...my guess is that all the votes asking for Sattine to return belong to Andy Cohen...

And there we have it! What did you think of this episode? Did you feel like a too-hard panna cotta without enough inner-thigh-ness come off as a worse dish than pre-chewed peanuts, popcorn, apples and raspberries? If they were basing it on desire to win, would Bitter Jen have been the one to go? Did Nigella Lawson seem kind of like a snooty bitch this time around? Can you believe I pulled out one more "M" Resort joke? Sorry about that.

Thanks for checking in, we're really getting down to it now, and I'm still rooting for a DirtyBear + Volts Finale, though I'd be happy if it was Big Volt, Bitter Jen and DirtyBear as well. I must warn you now that next week's recap is going to be slightly late as the BF and I are off to Los Angeles this coming weekend to do a little pre-Thanksgiving bizziting with friends. Never fear, I will finish the recap as soon as possible when I get home.

love, J-Mo :)