Express' Arion Berger recaps an improv-erific episode of "Top Chef."

AH, CHICAGO. FAMOUS for its strong Eastern-European community, its log-shaped, ground-meat products and beer. So, who feels like Mexican?

Last week: Jen rocked the beer-pairing challenge (for Zoi, whose unseen presence is cited so many times I briefly wonder whether she was asked to pack her knives and go or got run over by a produce truck) and Ryan fumbled a peachgusting fancy-pants tailgating menu — in front of William "The Refrigerator" Perry, no less.

Only 10 remain in Hell's Kitchen.

Sorry, wrong show.

This is the point at which we have few enough contestants that the attentive viewer can name all the faces, although I'm still not convinced skinny, bearded, trash-talking walking ego Andrew is not the same man as skinny, bearded, trash-talking walking ego Spike. He just crushes an ugly hat on his head and gives the same interview. Tell me a sarcastic "Yay, lesbians" and a sarcastic "Ryan prettyboy left — waah" aren't the work of the same excellent mind.

Quickfire Challenge
Padma introduces the cheftestants to award-winning pastry chef Smirky McBetterthingstodo, aka Johnny Iuzzini and his suit coat and wallet chain. The sloppy chefs fear that their pinch-of-this improvisations won't work when applied to the fine chemistry of dessert-making, which is sort of true and sort of not. Baking is a chemistry, arranging sweetened fruit and cream and whatever on a platter is not. They have only 90 minutes to whip up a yummy sugar-bomb for the chance to appear in the Top Chef cookbook — wha? — so it's a fair bet they won't be making mille-feuille. "You have to measure," Lisa moans. Big babies.

Butter-chopping, jar-opening with teeth (ew), complaining about dessert-making, Nutella (double ew), plate-painting, cream-squirting, ugly hat trash-talking. Utensils down! Everyone's hands fly up as if they're being arrested for over-egging their creme anglaise. The results:

» Spike: Rum-raisin souffle inside a pineapple with coconut and you shall know it by its trail of nuts. Iuzzini digs the effort, if not the result.

» Richard: Bananas disguised as scallops ("I'm very witty," he monotones) with banana "guacamole" and an ovoid turd of chocolate ice cream. I would have shaped the ice cream differently, but it sounds pretty good.

» Jen: Chocolate cake with a frozen banana bite in bittersweet chocolate. Oh, heaven. Does Disneyland still sell whole frozen chocolate-dipped bananas rolled in nuts on a stick? I once threw up, like, four of them after getting heatstroke from waiting in line at Thunder Mountain. "That's chocolate," says Iuzzini. Blue-ribbon palate, that man has.

» Andrew: Banana and chocolate "ravioli" with coffee and Nutella pudding. We get it: chocolate pairs well with banana.

» Nikki: Buttermilk cakelet with a berry trio sauce.

» Stephanie: Chocolate two-layer cake with a salted basil ganache and some kind of creamy filling. It looks like a sloppy petit four and sounds freaking delicious.

» Dale: "Halo-halo," which he says means "mix-mix," of shaved ice flavored with avocado, mango and kiwi. Iuzzini digs the textures and spiciness.

» Lisa: Some yogurt thing with berries and fried won-ton wrappers.

» Mark: Pavlovas (meringues with caramel bottoms) and wattleseed, each topped with a different slice of fruit. It took him an hour and a half to make these.

» Antonia: Lemon cake with bruleed lemon curd.

Top three: Dale, Lisa and Richard, who wins. "I'm not a one-trick pony," he says. Oh, yeah? Then style your hair in a different way.

Trick Downtime
The cheftestants are allowed to dress up and relax at a Second City improv show. Good thing the idea of professional talents improvising with what they've got isn't at all related to a cooking contest. The show doesn't look that funny until...

Oh, what's this? The comics need three suggestions: a color, an emotion and a food ingredient. The penny drops as each chef claps hands to cheeks, puts his or her head on the table and grimaces knowingly. Bet you're regretting all that delicious champagne now, kids.

They are tasked with creating a five-course meal based on the most wack concept in "Top Chef" history, and that includes Ilan's second-season win.

Spike and Andrew: Yellow, love, vanilla. Wow, that's easy.

Mark and Nikki: Purple, depressed, bacon.

Antonia and Lisa: Magenta, drunk (bzzt! A state, not an emotion. J'accuse!), Polish sausage.

Dale and Richard: Green, perplexed (bzzt — see above), tofu. Yeah, that's kind of all tofu. It doesn't know what it's doing on your plate, either.

Stephanie and Jen: Orange, turned-on, asparagus.

Oh, lordy.

Trick Kitchen
Dale, his eyes at half-mast, explains that he ran into the supply room to get "a big pot" only to find that there's no electrical equipment of any sort. No blenders? No food processors? No, "no Vita Preps, no Robo Coupes — nothing." Uh, isn't one a blender and the other a food processor? Andrew and Spike are making a soup. Time to improvise! I'm thinking food mill.

They also have to cook inside "their" house.

Spike and Andrew's butternut and acorn squash soup — why didn't they make a dessert? And why are they on my screen at the same time? Brain-freeze! — comes with a vanilla creme fraiche. "Yeah, I would lick my bowl if we weren't in front of the cameras," Padma smiles dreamily. Save it for the asparagus, honey.

Speaking of, is there anything more depressing than grown-up sex-joshing? Erotic cakes and such, "adult" board games? Anyway, Stephanie tells the judges they have a "nice, long, hard log of aged goat cheese. Dip it in the orange sauce..." Then, Jen demonstrates a move with the asparagus I will politely describe as probably not her forte. Padma gets riiiight into it.

Spike unwittingly gives Dale and Richard their props by puzzling over their seared tofu. "It's just a very weird dish." Hm, would you call it perplexing? A huge hunk of tofu marinated in beef fat sits on top of a green curry with eggplant.

Antonia and Lisa put sea bass on a purple potato puree with Polish — sorry, with chorizo. They call it improvising; the judges call it rude. They toast each other with shots of tequila and the table of diners looks on longingly. "No tequila for us?" Lisa: "No tequila for you guys; sorry." It is a sad, sober group of judges who put their noses into this non-drunken, non-Polish sausage dish.

Mark and Nikki's purple depressed bacon is ... let's let Mark tell it: "The bacon is viry diprissed it has to share the plate with Brussels sprouts. We have roasted pork line with sweet potato mesh, Concord source and a port jus. Thenk you." The judges find it perfect comfort food for the diprissed.

Spikeandrew and Dale and Richard are the top two teams; Dale and Richard's green perplexed tofu wins them each $2,500 worth of Calphalon products. Sweet!

Antonia and Lisa, Jenn and Stephanie are on the chopping block. Either Lisa or Antonia can take her bull-necked refusal to cook what's asked of them and not sneer at other people's innovations the hell home, if you ask me. (See l'affaire Dale's white chocolate wasabi celery caviar; also, Antonia versus the soup.)

They both explain ignorantly and at length that Polish sausage only comes in a cryovaced package and doesn't taste good. "It's not something I would ever dream of putting on a plate," says Lisa. In Chicago. Then she continues to trash the judges in the holding room about their hairy-knuckled prole idea about "braising Polish sausage in some ----ing beer." God, child! Get out of your kitchen, hit the streets and eat some damn food. And shut up.

The bar is much higher for Jen and Stephanie, who invited too many ingredients to frolic in their menage a trois. And they lose! Nooooo! Jen is sent home to present Zoi with an idea about trying something new in the kitchen.

Best quotes:

Padma: "The guacamole is strange and delicious."

Spike: "Oh, dirty monkeys! Dirty monkeys!" (He was not observing himself and Andrew in the mirror at the time, alas.)

Jen: "I'm confident caramelizing the cheese like that. For sure." Also, "I feel pretty good about having a menage a trois in my future." Aw, poor Zoi. Doesn't she get a say?

Richard's Seinfeld impression. "This tofu tastes like beef. What's up with that?"

Stephanie: "I'm not gonna dumb down my food because of what one drunken schmuck screamed out in the audience." Unfortunately, that "drunken schmuck" might have been Tom Colicchio. Please pack your attitude and get off my screen.

Ted Allen: "This is not a menage a trois; this is more of an orgy."

Iuzzini: "The asparagus was meant to be erect?" Maybe you're not eating it right.

All right, enough. Next week? Help from pint-size kid chefs, one of whom gaily whacks something encased in foil with a huge pan. Go, kid chefs!

P.S. I know Chicago has a thriving and tasty tradition of Mexican food. Don't e-mail me.

Photos courtesy Bravo

Posted by Express at 12:15 PM on April 24, 2008
Tagged in Entertainment , Hail to the Chef , Television , Top Columns