Top Chef - Gone Fishing
Quickfire Challenge. Food God Eric Ripert is the guest judge, and the cheftestants are nervous. The challenge is a three-round fish-filleting tournament. In round one, they have five minutes to clean and butterfly two sardines (yes, the tiny ones) to make them look like the one Ripert prepared. Leah and Fabio do well and Jamie and Carla butcher it, in a bad way, so they're eliminated. In Round Two, they have to fillet an arctic char. Leah flips out and gives up halfway through, and Fabio leaves a bunch of meat in the head when he chops it off, so they're eliminated. The final round is peeling and filleting a freshwater eel, which is still mostly alive. It's not quite dead yet. They have to nail the eel's head to the cutting board to keep it still. That's how not dead it is. Hosea puts in a valiant effort, considering he's never worked with eel before, and Stefan has been working with eel since he was a child (which sounds dirty), so he wins.
Elimination Challenge. After a special meal of six entrees prepared by Eric Ripert's kitchen, the cheftestants are told that they will each need to recreate one of the dishes. They'll have two hours to prep and practice, with critique from Ripert, and then have fifteen minutes to prepare the dish for the judges. Stefan gets to choose, due to his Quickfire victory, and he chooses lobster. The others have to pick knives to get assigned a dish. The judges will get a side-by-side comparison between the cheftestant's dish and Ripert's version.
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