Sweet and Sour in Boston

Not really a recap, just a list of highlights and lowlights from the episode:

- This turned out to be one of the better shows in terms of challenges. The quickfire was to make a sweet dessert without using sugar. The elimination challenge was basically no limits what so ever...just cook your best dish family style. Awesome. Though some cheftestants totally missed the boat on this. I mean, seriously, fish tacos as a dish to showcase your work? That's horrible!

- Toby Young was introduced as the new judge since Gail is off for her wedding. He's ok. I've seen him on other stuff before. Definitely snarky-to-be-snarky. He's slightly better than Gail, but that's not saying much. A burnt dead horse could be a better judge than Gail. (In terms of adding something to the show...I'm sure Gail has a wonderful palate or she wouldn't be where she was today. I just can't stand her as a judge.) Why oh why did Top Chef have to piss off Ted Allen and Bourdain? Those two were great television!

- The guest judge was Jean-Christophe Novelli. I've seen the name before, but not sure where. I think he has a new show coming out too on Bravo, so there's the tie in. He wasn't bad, just didn't really bring much. Though the interaction with him and the Euros were cool. Not sure if the dude really cared about the World Cup as much as Fabio did though. (Football in all forms is dead to me right now...)

- Ariane...dammit...after sucking it up for the quickfire, she actually did something I'd try for the elimination. Say what you want about her (and I have) but at least the woman is confident in what she's doing. Which is huge for a chef. She's making up her mind as to what she wants to make, and she goes for it. No second guessing at all. This doesn't mean I'm starting to like her...in fact, everytime she's on the screen I want to throw my remote through my plasma so I don't have to see her ugly Jersey face. (This is also just because I want a bigger TV, but Abby won't let me get one...she thinks 42 inches is big enough...I want to fill our entire wall with a TV and that may not even be big enough.)

- On the opposite side, we got zero-confidence Bangs herself. Melissa can't seem to do anything right at all. As mentioned earlier, fish tacos are not going to win you Top Chef, especially if you can't do them well enough. She totally lacks any confidence in her cooking, not being able to see an end product and get it done.

- Eugene...dammit boy! I love whole fried fish, but you can't be overcooking that! Your presentation looked good still, but the product suffered. You mentioned how you wanted to try something new and wow the judges. Um...buddy, when you are given the challenge of make anything you want that will showcase your skills, don't go for something new! Make something familiar that you know is a success. One of your favorite meals maybe. How about that fried fish complemented with some sushi? A nice complentary dish of cooked and raw fish, showcasing your ability to cook and handle fish. I dunno, I had high hopes for you and you peaked at making your own BBQ bit.

- Leah still not seeing that great rack.

- Jamie - very, freaking smart. She understood the challenge perfectly. She knew she can cook good scallops and she did. I'm sick of the whole smugness and the fact that she has to impress on everyone watching that she deserves to win though.

- The judges were very love/hate in some of their comments. Jeff's dish was either loved or hated, same with Stefan. Do you really think Radhika (who had immunity and laid an egg with her food) knew it was Stefan's dish when she made those comments? Right on cue, Fabio defended his boy's dish. Not sure if that was editing or not. I did enjoy the fact that you got to watch them judge you.

- Crazy Eyes got lucky. But the right two people were sent home.

Hung is on tomorrow's episode. Interesting. I think they are going to have to cook Kosher or maybe Halal food, since that's what Hung's been doing in NYC.