by Michael J. Lamp

"Where's the beef?"

There's lot of cheese in the Top Chef kitchen this week - and I'm not referring to the chefs' personalities. (Thanks. I'll be here all week.)

For their Quickfire Challenge, the chefs must create a masterful cheese dish - in 12 minutes. I love that they've really upped the ante with these challenges, especially in terms of time allotted.

Norbert from the Beverly Hills Cheese Shop is guest judging. As you might expect, he is quite opinionated about all things cheesy.

Floyd's overly peppered corn on the cob and George's onion and grana padano gratin land them at the bottom of the barrel. On the other hand, Naomi's skirt steak (12 minutes? really?) and Traci's carpaccio are the favorites. Traci wins $5,000 for her charity and immunity, while Floyd questions the complexity of her dish.

In one of the coolest and most difficult Elimination Challenges yet, the chefs must cook in teams of three. They are cooking for cast members from NBC's Biggest Loser and are transforming their favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes (plus dessert) into a daily diet of less than 1500 calories.

With favorites like a bacon cheeseburger, French toast, deep-dish pizza and fried chicken, there is no understating how hard this will be. Nutritionists are on hand to keep tabs on each team's calorie count.

The Red team is compromised of Hugh, Celina and Traci. The team of Green includes Alex, Mary Sue, and Suvir, while Floyd, George and Naomi make up the Blue team. Alex Stratta has lost 90 pounds during the last couple of years, so he can relate to the journey of these Biggest Loser competitors.

Alan Sytsma is back again to help judge this week. Service is business as usual until Suvir gets up on his soapbox and talks about the evils of red meat while presenting his bean burger. This all happens right before Hugh introduces his skirt steak. Hugh instantly gets sassy - real sassy.

Suvir took issue with Hugh lessening the size of the red meat and calling that a cure. While Hugh has definitely become a lot less charming than he once was, I do think he makes a good point when he tells Suvir that his speech was ill timed. Unlike Suvir, the judges and diners appreciated the portion size of Hugh's dish.

All three teams made it in under the calorie count - and them some! The blue team (Naomi, Floyd and George) are called to Critic's Table first. They are this week's winning team with a breakfast, lunch and dinner (plus brownie!) that is less than 1300 calories combined. George's veggie pizza was a huge hit, Floyd's bison meatball was 'sexy and exotic,' per the Restaurant Girl, and Naomi's French toast offered a sweet start to the meal.

Floyd claims the victory and $10,000 for the Young Scientists' Cancer Research Fund.

Suvir, Mary Sue and Alex have this week's weakest dishes. The judges criticize Suvir for cooking for himself and not for the diner. Mary Sue's take on corned beef hash had egg issues, while Alex's cornbread was dense and - in his own words - like a hockey puck.

Suvir gets the boot - mostly for not pleasing the customer. After all, they are always right, aren't they? The bland bean burger didn't help his cause, either.

I'll talk to Suvir later today to get his take on fighting with Hugh and rallying against red meat.

Top Chef: Masters airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.

(Image courtesy of Bravo)

Follow Michael @mjlamp