David frickin' Chang? Chang the Man? Chang Minus Eng? Chingy-Chingy Chang-Chang?
Dudes at Top Chef All-Stars on Bravo are clearly not messin' around, yo. As the chefs walk into the kitchen and see bad-ass David Chang, you can almost hear the sound of their collective pee circling around the floor drain with Angelo swooning over him like his fake Russian bride. The Quickfire Challenge? Mise-en-place relay race! Which is fun to say because it rhymes.
Mise-en-place relay race! Mise-en-place relay race! Mise-en-place relay race! I -- love -- you!
Four teams of four chefs are randomly selected and because this isn't Top Chef: Just Desserts, they don't have ridiculous names that annoy everyone. The first team to finish their prep with David Chang's patented Chang-Bang stamp of approval, starts a 15-minute timer that beings the countdown for all the teams to make one dish from the ingredients. No immunity, but $5,000 for each member of the winning team.
Spoiler alerts ahead, Chang Changs!
Somehow the chefs, even Two-Stitch Jamie, manage to not severely injure themselves or anyone else and the Blue Team (Spike, Tre, Richard, and Stephen) win with their crispy lamb chop with artichoke three ways.
(Double!) Elimination Challenge:
The teams stay together and find out they'll be eating at some of New York's hottest restaurants. Padma then drops a Padma bomb (which sounds like "Ka-Pad!") by saying they'll be working individually and competing with others on their team to create a dish that that restaurant's chef would put on his menu. Here's the breakdown:
- Stephen, Tre, Blais, Spike: Marea - Marcel, Dale T., Carla, Tiffani F.: WD-50 - Angelo, Mike, Fabio, Tiffany D.: Má Pêche - Casey, Dale L., Antonia, Two-Stitch Jamie: Townhouse
At Má Pêche and Marea, Tiffany and Tre get up in our obvious to let us know that Angelo is annoying and Stephen is arrogant. At least Tiffany doesn't have trouble with Angelo's tight pants, which Fabio mentioned earlier. Maybe Fabio should give Angelo the name of a good tailor. And let's face it, Stephen isn't just arrogant, he's straight-up creepy. Especially when he says that fashion has become an obsession of his which is better than cocaine but not better than his current obsession: MURDER. Does he even realize he's on a f---ing cooking show?
We span time and eventually the chefs arrive at their restaurants and start prepping their dishes. The judges (Wait, where the hell is Gail Simmons? Dear God, is she okay? Did anyone even think to call her? That's it, I'm sending over a litter of puppies and a Snuggie.) Tom, Anthony Bourdain (not tipsy!) and Kate Krader from Food & Wine magazine ride around in a cab that is sadly not Cash Cab (a huge miss for trivia and tie-in fans everywhere) and visit each restaurant to taste the dishes with Anthony looking like Herman Munster crammed into the back seat. Oh, and Padma is shown hailing cabs, not because she has to, but because someone thought she looked super-hot in her short, wispy dress. News flash: Hell, yeah.
At Marea, Bourdain says Stephen's salmon dish tastes like a head shop which would have been more accurate if he would have added...OF MURDER. At Má Pêche, Fabio called bullshit on embracing the French-Vietnamese menu. At Townhouse, Dale gets the award for worst breakfast idea ever: roasted veal loin, peanuts, popcorn, and French toast (ew!) and Casey made something Kate Krader called "scallibut" which kinda sounds like scaley-butt (hee, hee!)
Judges' Table: Dale T. wins a six-night trip to New Zealand (four days of travel time) for his his sunny-side-up egg dumpling and Bourdain asks if he knew Wylie Dufresne was an egg slut. Acceptable answer back to Bourdain: "No, but you're momma is."
Stephen (no surprise), Tiffani, Fabio (again), and Dale L. end up on the bottom with Dale being sent home for his crap-ass breakfast and Stephen for his nasty salmon...OF MURDER. Stephen saying he was an "expert" on Italian food made Tom answer that he's an expert on Led Zeppelin but that doesn't make him Jimmy Page. Acceptable answer back to Tom: "No, but you're momma is. And she's also an egg slut." Dale makes a joke about coming back for Top Chef 16: Senior which would be funny if it weren't true. Tune in next week for tennis, the return of Gail, and Angelo's motives!