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Next up, Laurine follows Jennifer and has no idea at first what Jennifer was trying to make. She even goes so far as to remove the bay leaf from the oil that Jen had prepared for the poaching of the cod. But eventually, she gets it, puts the bay leaf back in and turns the heat up on the sauce that Jen had been reducing. Meanwhile, Robin is impressed with the amount of prep that Eli has done, and starts making a Caesar Salad-style vinaigrette to go along with all the veggies.

At this point, I realize that Jennifer has smartly chosen a very obvious path for her team's dish, using recognizable preparations to lead them to complete the dish she started. Eli and Robin, however, are not making any decisions, but rather are prepping ingredients so that someone else can decide.

Pompous Mike follows Laurine and continues Jennifer's work. Bryan is flummoxed by the range of prep stuff on his station and just starts to push everything into a more Asian direction.

Finally, Kevin follows Pompous Mike and decides to scrap Jennifer's idea to poach the fish in olive oil, choosing instead to butter roast it instead. Michael likes the foundation of food that he's been given, sticks some beef in an oven and whips some yuzu.

I love this challenge. I hope they use it on every subsequent season. It's so fun to watch everyone's mind try and unravel the work that's been done. It's like a big game of detective.

Rick tastes both dishes and I must say, each team has put out some really fantastic looking food (though Michael really did a great job in pulling his team's dish together). He says that the Red Team had the meat slightly rare but that the components enhanced the meat. Meanwhile the Blue Team had a nice finish with a beautiful stock. In the end he chooses the Blue Team. Laurine is excited to be in the top and Michael is not happy he lost (attributing it to the fact that he didn't have control over the final product).

Of course, with eight cheftestants left, the Elimination Challenge for this week will be RESTAURANT WARS, the one that everyone looks forward to. Rick will be providing his Las Vegas restaurant for them to use, meaning that the chefs will not be responsible for décor (hallelujah). The server, however, will be responsible for front of house as well as one dish. Rick also asks that they respect the spirit on which he founded his restaurant, utilizing sustainable ingredients and techniques when possible.

Finally, the Blue Team is given a choice: they can either keep the $10,000 that they won, or they can gamble it on their Elimination Challenge performance. If they win, they EACH get $10,000. I'm floored. Given the talent level on their team, I fully expect them to go for it and they do. They're going to make this is a high-stakes Elimination Challenge.

Bryan, Michael, Eli and Robin are taking the R and E from Robin and Eli's first names, and pairing it with the "Volt" in the Voltaggio brothers' last names to form the name of their restaurant: Revolt. Robin points out that it's linguistically close to the word "revolting" but no one seems to care. Meanwhile, Jennifer, Kevin, Pompous Mike and Laurine have named their restaurant Mission as an ode to mission architecture and simplicity.

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