Top Chef: Miami: Rehearsal Dinner!

Ted: "God, what smells in here?"

Undercover Blogger: "It must be Brian."

Padma: "I don't think Brian smells that bad."

Brian: "Thank you, Padma. I appreciate that."

Dale: "I don't smell anything. Besides, I would have thought the scented candles would cover any smell."

Ted: "Aha! But scented candles can't disguise the smell of scented candles."

Dale: "Oh."

Is he freaking kidding me? Is there really anyone who doesn't know you don't put scented candles in a restaurant? What is it with gays and their scented candles? Can they really not resist them? Have you ever been to a homosexual's house that wasn't packed to the damned ceiling with scented candles? Are you sick of the gays giving you scented candles as gifts? Will the madness never end? (In fairness to Dale, the bisexual Hung allowed him to buy the candles. Also, the only thing that prevented honorary gay man Casie from buying scented candles was the fact that she was shopping with the heterosexual Brian.)

Anyway, let's go back to the beginning of the episode. First of all, we're all wondering how everyone feels about Howie:

CJ: "Howie is dead to me."

OK; that's answered. Next, on to the quickfire:

Padma: "If you are like most people, the name Daniel Boulud immediately makes you think of Red Robin restaurants."

Uh ... what?

Whatever. The chefs have to create a burger. We get a lot of fish burgers. CJ wins. There are no more immunities for the rest of the season but CJ wins the opportunity to pick his teammates for the elimination challenge. He picks Casie, Tre, and Brian. That leaves Hung, Howie, Sara, and Dale on the other team.

For the elimination challenge the chefs have 24 hours to create a restaurant. 24 hours to come up with a theme, create a menu, decorate, shop, and prepare dinner for 30 guests. This would be a really fun challenge if it were even remotely possible.

I'd love to see what the chefs could do in a week. But 24 hours? What's the point? You know it's not going to be very good.

Padma: "One person on each team will be responsible for one of the following duties: head chef, sous chef, DESIGN [dubbed in], and front of house."

That was weird. why did they have to dub in the word "design."

Padma: "I accidentally said 'decorating' instead of design and the homos ripped me a new one."

Ah, that makes sense.

CJ, Casie, Tre, and Brian call their place Restaurant April because CJ's sister is named April. Well, I guess it doesn't really make any damned difference, does it? Casie and Brian decorate, er, I mean, design the space really nicely. It's pretty. Tre and CJ concentrate on making some pretty mediocre and occasionally inedible food. They do not wash the dishes prior to serving food on them. Brian covers the front of the house until he has a nervous breakdown, when Casie takes over. Brian wore a suit, apparently to maximize his sweating. The dessert was OK. Oh, did I mention the place looked nice?

Hung, Howie, Sara, and Dale call their restaurant The Garage because the empty space they started with resembled a garage. Oh, and because the finished space resembled a garage. A really badly decorated garage. I'm really starting to question Dale's homosexuality. His pants are bad enough [Other Eric: "Don't forget his hair!"] but that decor really looked like shit. That is if shit looked like a really cheap 1980s underground dance club. The "Undercover Blogger" described it as being like eating off of Billy Idol. I don't recommend that, by the way. You really don't know where he's been. Oh, wait, the scented candles! Yeah, OK, Dale is definitely gay. Yes, it's shocking to be reminded of this, but there are gay men with really bad taste. The liberal media doesn't want you to know this but it's true. I've experienced it in real life.

As a side note, the food at The Garage was not great, either. Apparently the crepe for dessert was good, although it sounded really boring to me. Hung's dish was the best of the night, which is a good thing for him because he didn't actually take one of the duties Padma mentioned. This didn't occur to me until just now but Sara was the head chef, Howie was the sous chef, Dale covered the front of the house, and DALE took charge of the decor. Hung was supposed to take one of those duties. Fortunately, his dish was good enough that no one cared.

The judges pretended that they had to make a really difficult decision. Tom said the judging was going to have to come down to food. Then they chose Dale and Brian as the bottom two. But Dale and Brian were not in charge of the food so I don't understand Tom's statement.

It doesn't matter. Neither one is going home. It's a do-over! The teams will get another chance with their restaurants. That's good. It should be much better the second night. Because two days is plenty of time to open a restaurant. The problem is that there was so much wrong it will almost be like starting from scratch. Restaurant April has a little advantage because they don't need to completely redecorate their space. They can concentrate on the food and service. The Garage needs to improve the food and magically get some design sense. Somehow I don't see this coming from Sara or Howie so I don't know what they are going to do.

Tune in next week when we see the conclusion of this restaurant challenge. Until then, I'll leave you with this little exchange:

Tom: "I expected a lot from them."

Padma: "Really?"