Top Chef D.C.: Cold War Sends Tamesha Packing Her Knives

This week's episode of Top Chef ended the cooking for Tamesha Warren after she made badly cooked cold scallops and covered them with hot peppers and a rhubarb based liquid, all of which sort of made the eaters gag.

The Quickfire Challenge was interesting. Chefs chose from exotic proteins, like rattlesnake, gator, duck testicles (or was it some other critter's testicles, with it being the tongues of ducks? I don't remember), llama and ostrich loins, emu egg and other delectables.

Knives were drawn to determine the order of picking the exotic protein. Then the cooking began. Then Padma arrived to throw a twist, shift to cooking the protein of the chef to your right. Or was it left?

This put Kelly Liken on the emu egg, which she turned into an omelet, which celebrity guest judge, Michelle Bernstein, determined was the winner.

Then, with Kelly having immunity, it was off to the Cold War Challenge. Chefs drew knives again, a 1 or a 2, that divided them into two teams. Each team would judge the other's dishes, picking one as the best, one as the worst. With Kelly, having immunity, sitting on the judging side with both teams.

Then it was off to the Presidential yacht, Sequoia to plot strategy. I mean work on their dish. I'm not quite sure why this required floating on the Potomac. Angelo was seeming a bit bizarre, giving advice to others about what they should be cooking. It was not a team challenge. This was offputting to others, like Kevin, who thought all should just concern themselves with their own dishes.

Then it was off to Whole Foods, then back to the kitchen. I think the final prep and serving the dishes took place in a Hilton, but I'm not sure.

The first team presented their dishes to the team over which Angelo acted like leader. Pseudo-girl friend Tamesha Warren was also on Angelo's team. They were all quite hard on their peer's food. Apparently justifiably so, judging by the comments and bloggings of the real judges.

The first group picked Kenny Gilbert's as the worst and Kevin Sbraga as the best. The second group was not as hard with the critiquing. After sampling the plates, Tamesha's was unanimously judged the worst, with Kevin's being the best.

The real judges concurred on the Kevin judgment and gave him the win. Plus a trip to Hawaii. The judges also concurred about Tamesha's disaster dish and sent her to pack her knives and leave.

Top Chef seems to be being a bit more imaginative with the challenges and twists. Very entertaining. That and this episode I learned one can make hummus from dried peas. I love educational TV.