Top Chef Las Vegas: Robin Leventhal Packs Her Knives & Goes

Robin really was a bird with extra lives on Top Chef, outlasting many who seemed to be more highly evolved in the cooking ability department. I liked Robin. She seemed nice. I'm a little surprised she has a little bistro in Seattle called Crave that went under in the current bad times. She did not seem like a Seattle girl to me. Why? I don't know.

This week the chefs had to cook a dish for 185 or so, inspired by a casino. Robin drew Bellagio. She walked in and saw the huge Chihuly glassworks on the ceiling. Somehow that inspired her to make a dessert using gelatin and sheets of melted sugar. The sugar failed, as did the dessert bearing any resemblance to anything Chihuly ever cooked in one of his glass ovens.

I did not really understand why Robin was the one to go. Eli Kirshtein's Circus Circus raspberry popcorn white chocolate soup seemed so much worse and had both Padma and the nice English guest judge, hating it.

The Voltaggio boys and Kevin were on top again. Jennifer Carroll joined Eli and Robin at the bottom. Michael Voltaggio was once more acting jealous of the praise Kevin gets, even though Michael won this round with his chicken wings inspired by New York, New York.

A person claiming to be a friend of Robin's wrote an interesting blurb at one of the ubiquitous TV forums...

"As a "friend" of Robin's, I feel obliged to stand up for her. But I also know her, so I think a great deal of what you saw there...the scattered behavior, the inability to focus and find her footing is, pretty much, oddly, not her. I have been around her and yes she is a mover in a kitchen and is hyper. That said, she is a good cook. A cook, not a chef. I asked her why she went on (Top Chef) and (she said) she knew it would be something out of her element, but the money and exposure was something she needed. Her own place closed earlier this year and she is working, but not enough. She has huge medical bills, etc. And is genuinely one of the nicest women I know.

I have another friend who turned this show down because of both Tom and Padma. I have always hated Chef Kojak and with each passing episode I come to loathe him a little more. I prodded Robin about these two and she was gracious, and by the way she just calls the brothers intense and Eli immature. I am hoping to get her drunk and maybe she will be more forthcoming."