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The judges like Bryan's meat but Wolfgang Puck compares his puree to baby food. Jennifer's sauce is praised, Mattin's meat was great but the accompaniments made no sense and Jesse's chicken (as she had feared earlier) is far too dry.

Next we have Ash, who procrastinates, and has made a poached halibut and ratatouille. Hot-tempered Jen has her poblano pepper and seitan. Ron, a Haitian, makes some incomprehensible statement about how he was on a boat for 20 days, somehow connecting it to this big fish he cooked. Laurine made bacon donuts with chocolate and beer sauce.

Wolfgang doesn't like Ron's fish dish, which has too much going on. Lauraine's sauce is beautiful but Wolfgang says that her doughnuts are far too hard - much more like golfballs than doughnuts. Jen's chili is derided all around, with no flavor, big chunks of garlic and a clunky presentation.

The last group has smart-ass Mike with his rack of lamb and juicy coconuts. Preeti, the one who memorably displayed a complete lack of skill in opening clams, has chosen to make a pork tenderloin with bourbon sauce (what is up with all this bourbon all of a sudden?). Kevin procrastinates and so he cooked somethings slow and others fast, putting together an arctic char and turnip salsa verde. Eve struggles with overcomplicating things and has made a shrimp and scallop curry.

Tom appreciates Mike's joke about the nice rack / juicy coconuts but strongly criticizes Eve for improperly searing her scallops. The arctic char dish gets praise all around.

The cheftestants are waiting in the stew room, bitterly complaining about how bored they are. Just wait, little ones, it only gets worse in the stew room. Finally, Padma comes by and calls for Ron (fish guy), Mike (soapy halibut), Kevin (arctic char) and Jennifer (halibut with three types of alcohol).

At this point, I realize that the women may not be strong as a group but you better watch out for Jennifer. She's good.

The judges explain why they liked the four chef's dishes. Mike's flavors were strong, Jennifer cooked her fish to perfection, Ron brought some great island flavors and Kevin just had a beautiful dish. I thought, based on Wolfgang Puck's effusive praise, that Jennifer would be going home the winner but it is KEVIN who wins this round. He makes some pompous statements about how the other chefs will know that he's a big dog as they walk back to the stew room.

On the bottom, we have Jesse (dry chicken), Eve (no sear on scallops), Hector (deep-fried rib-eye) and Jen (poblano pepper with seitan). Yep, with three women on the bottom, it's clear that the girls are weak this year.

The judges reiterate their complaints. Hector should not have deep-fried his steak - if he wanted more smoky flavor he should have grilled it on the wood stove. Jen's chicken was too dry - she agrees and explains exactly where she went wrong. The judges are impressed. Eve's dish was confusing - she said that she overcomplicates things but the dish was boring and bland. Jen's pepper was clunky and had no heat to match her "hot temper." Jen tries to make the excuse that she was trying to use seitan and cook "out of the box."

Gail: "We're not mad at you for using seitan, we're mad at you because you didn't cook it in a way that tasted good."

Ouch.

The chefs go back to the stew room with Jen collapsing on the floor in dramatic fashion. Meanwhile, the judges decide who's going home. Gail stands up for Jesse, saying that she knew exactly what her mistake was. Tom agrees and said that the dish was well conceived, she just made an error. Wolfgang puck excuses Hector's decision to deep-fry his steak saying that every country has their own way of cooking.

NOTE: At this point in the show, my boyfriend (who happens to be Mexican) shouts out in indignation, "We don't deep fry steaks!" He is deathly afraid that Hector has convinced Wolfgang Puck that it's a Mexican culinary tradition to deep-fry steaks when it is not. "Why is my burrito deep-fried?" he imagines asking after Wolfgang Puck opens up a Mexican restaurant. "Why is my burrito a chimichanga?"

The two chefs that are really in danger of going home is Jen with her seitan pepper and Eve with her bad seafood dish. Padma says that Jen's dish was like a Vegan bar midnight special and Gail calls it a mess. Gail also disliked Eve's dish, which turned her off and looked sad.

"The bigger issue," Tom says, "is that the shrimp was over cooked, the sauce was weak and the scallops were not seared properly."

Double ouch. He's basically saying, "the bigger issue is that your dish sucked."

Despite Tom's zealous panning of Eve's dish I still think that Jen is going home for a dish that was ill-conceived and badly-cooked. And I'm right. After the four come back out, Tom delivers his final zingers before Padma announces that Jen should go home.

Incidentally, Jen was the superstitous chef in the beginning who refused to unpack her things for fear of being sent home and having to re-pack everything. Sorry honey, looks like you just saved yourself some time by leaving everything in your luggage.

All in all, it wasn't a bad show. I'm having an easier time telling one chef from another and I'm glad to see that we might have some real stand outs this season. It'll take another five episodes or so to weed out the under-achievers, but once we trim the fat, I think we're in for a good run.

Even if they aren't Masters just yet.

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