by Gina Scarpa

On tonight’s episode of Top Chef: Las Vegas, the contestants meet up with legendary chef Daniel Boulud, owner of seven restaurants and known for taking classic French food and giving it a modern spin. For their quickfire challenge, they’ll be working with escargot - ick. In just 45 minutes, they’ll have to make a winning dish using snails as their main protein. It’s a high stakes quickfire, which usually means the winner gets some cash. Not in this case. This time around, the winner gets immunity but the loser is headed home. Well, if that doesn’t make ya nervous, what will?

Nervously, the chefs present their dishes to Daniel and Tom. The top three were: Mike I., Kevin, and Jennifer. These three are pretty unstoppable thus far this season. Kevin walks away with immunity and gets a bonus, which he’ll find out about later. The least favorite dishes were: Jesse (again), Ashley, and Robin. Before Tom and Daniel make their decision, Tom gives the bottom three chefs a second chance. They’ll have 20 seconds to create an amuse-bouche, meaning it’ll all come down to a single bite of food. It ends up being Jesse’s bite that doesn’t cut it and she is sent home.

In tonight’s elimination challenge, the chefs must draw knives. Half of them have popular French sauces on it and the other half have popular French proteins. They’ll be paired up and create an amazing dish for some of the best dishes in the world and, as their names are read off, the chefs look like they’re about to keel over. Kevin finds out that his bonus prize is that he’ll get to eat with these chefs, which is pretty insane.

Here are the teams and the dishes that the combinations of proteins and sauces:
Eli and Laurine: Lobster and sauce Americane
Hector and Ash: Chateaubriand and sauce au poivre
Michael V. and Jennifer: Rabbite and sauce chasseur
Ashley and Mattin: Poussin and sauce veloute
Bryan and Mike I.: Trout and sauce béarnaise

At judges’ table, the top groups are Bryan and Mike I. as well as Michael V. and Jennifer.  Again, no surprises here as to who the frontrunners are this season and who’s just fighting to see another week in the competition.  I think Mike I. is a good chef but sometimes wish he’d shut it a little bit.  He tries to take credit for the dish, even though Bryan basically taught him how to do everything!  Thankfully, the judges see through his b.s. and tell Bryan that he’s the winner.

In the bottom group are Mattin and Ashley and Hector and Ash.  It’s disappointing to see Mattin there because, well, he’s FRENCH!  I expect that a French person who is from France and studied French food there can cook a French meal.  He just blames Ashley for everything to try to get out of being eliminated but no worries for their team.  It’s Hector and Ash who the judges really have a problem with.  Hector is ultimately eliminated for his poor job of cutting the beef… which, to me, doesn’t really seem like a good reason to go home but what do I know?

Top Chef: Las Vegas airs Wednesday nights at 10pm ET on Bravo.

(Image courtesy of Bravo)

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