Here we go with Episode 4 you guys! There’s only two girls left after Sarah’s elimination last week, and Trista and Elizabeth both feel the pressure (very similar to Connie and Andrea last season after Rebekah’s early exit). David is upset he was on the bottom last week, and hasn’t been cooking up to his potential. 

Cheftestants head to the TCC kitchen, and Mark and Lisa are waiting. Mark says that a great chef needs a good sense of taste and texture and an ability to recognize flavour. This leads us into the Quickfire which is to taste and identify a selection of meat. Gross. Lisa brings out the blindfolds and acts like it’s a huge surprise. It’s not Lisa!

The ladies both have the least number of correct guesses with two each, and four of the guys have each guessed five right. Sergio, Jonathan, Ryan and Gabriell have a sudden death taste off, with Sergio and Jonathan correctly guessing bee pollan to move on. Jonathan then wins with an accurate guess of avocado oil. He doesn’t get immunity, but will get a significant advantage in the elimination challenge.

So as we know from the preview last week, the Elimination Challenge is to create a 13 course tasting menu using awful. Ahem, offal. Chris Cosentino will be the guest judge, as he’s known as the godfather of nose to tail cooking. More like known for having seriously aggressive eyewear, and super cute dimples. I used to love watching him and Aarrrrron on Chefs vs. City. So the chefs draw knives to pick their offal, and Jonathan’s advantage is to trade for what he wants, and he takes sweetbreads from Trevor. He also gets to swap the offal for two chefs, and he chooses Gabriell and David (so Gabriell now has tripe, and David has duck liver). Chefs go to McEwan’s and get in the kitchen.

Okay readers, this is hard for me to watch. I don’t even know what half of these things are, and I’m not about to do a google image search to find out. Let’s just skip straight to the dishes. The judges are at Parts & Labour, and we have Mark and Shereen, joined by Chris Cosentino (so cute) and the head chef from P&L, Matty. Let’s go.

1. Ryan: lamb heart tartar with sweet and sour eggplant and quail eggs. Chris said the eggplant took over his entire mouth, and he didn’t let the lamb heart shine

2. Elizabeth: some type of salad with crispy pig ear + grilled pig ear with chimmichurri. Chris likes the marinade on the crispy pig ear, Matty says the taste is spot on, and Mark says she’s gaining confidence

3. Trista: pastrami style pork tongue on homemade rye bread with hot mustard. Chris loves the bread by the tongue is overcooked and dry

4. Jimmy: veal brain ravioli with celery puree and leaves. Chris is impressed with the richness and Mark says this is the best Jimmy has done

5. Carl: beef heart steak and eggs with salsa verde. Chris is admiring the knife skills and Matty says he’d put it on his menu

6. Joel: pork heart en crepinette with apple salad. Mark likes the dish, but Chris says it’s bogged down

7. Jonathan: pan seared sweetbreads with sweet corn and chili sauce. Chris says the corn is dominating, but his knife skills are awesome. Mark says he didn’t highlight the sweetbreads

8. Curtis: lamb sausage two ways. Chris says the sausage is void of fat, dry, crumbly and the casing is chewy (VOMIT).

9. Xavier: lamb flank stuffed with lamb kidney and some other stuff (I was rapidly losing interest at this point). Mark likes the taste, but agrees with Chris – this isn’t a kidney dish

10. Sergio: beef cheek poutine. Everyone hates it, the presentation sucks

11. Gabriell: tripe a la provencale. Gross.

12. Trevor: bacon wrapped lamb liver. Gag.

13. David: duck liver ice cream. Okay, the judges love it, but why are they fronting like Richard BLAIS didn’t already make this on the finale of Top Chef All-Stars?!? I was already over this episode, and now this blatant disrespect of Richard BLAIS has sealed the deal. Let’s get through the rest of this as quickly as possible.

Elizabeth, Jimmy, Carl and David are the best. Elizabeth’s dish translated beautifully, and Chris could have eaten the entire ear. Jimmy’s ravioli was near perfection. David’s ice cream was a total rip-off surprise and the duck liver was the star. Carl’s version of steak & eggs was perfectly executed.

The winner: David. Whatever.

He calls in Gabriell, Trista, Curtis and Sergio. Sergio’s poutine lacked finesse and Chris didn’t want to eat it. Trista overcooked her pork tongue and it lost all character. Gabriell tried to hide his tripe when he was supposed to make it shine. Curtis’ dish was not well composed or presented.

Going home: Sergio.

Next week: Alan Thicke and some type of journey through time?

Ugh, I guess each season is going to have the obligatory episode that grosses me out (see last year’s butchery episode). Out of the 13 offal items from this episode, how many have you had? (I’m 0/13). Is it just me or is there something super creepy and intense about David? Something about him is throwing me off, but I can’t put my finger on it just yet. No one is really standing out to me thus far either. By Episode 4 from last year, I had already picked my early favourites for final five. I don’t even know where to start if you asked me to do that right now! Maybe next week.

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3