Before it was served, I thought the healthy take on frank and beans had the most potential to be yummy, but undercooked lentils seem like they would be very much not of the good.

I think I'm just not a fan of this challenge. For some reason, it seemed more like a Next Food Network Star challenge than a Top Chef challenge. Don't know why, it just did. Ah well, at least we got Ted.

Vortex! I totally thought that too: sweet potato oven fries with the fish for the fish and chips. (Why didn't Micah take that? Or was it already gone?)

And I think that you could have come up with a much better tuna (or other fish) and pasta dish than what CJ did. And possibly baked it. (When my mom made tuna casserole she always used brown rice, not noodles. . . but then when my mom made beef stroganoff she used rice, not noodles. And it's not like Japanese folks don't eat noodles. . . I think my mother just preferred rice. Those are two dishes that I didn't know you had with noodles until I was in college.)

And chicken ala king: chicken and veg with noodles and a creamy sauce. Surely, a good chef could have come up with something similar.

SYTYCD

You may just have something there, Sail. My favorite this week was Hok and Jaime. I just loved the choreography, and thought they executed it well. It was tough, though, as I really liked a couple of the others as well.

i mean, Donyelle danced with a broken toe and Natalie danced with a very hurt back last year.

I don't think this is quite the same as dancing with heart problems. This sounded really life-threatening. I doubt if the show could even let her dance without doctor permission without huge liability issues. I don't know if Jessi knew anything ahead of time, but they certainly didn't indicate that on the show. My heart just goes out to her. I hope she's ok.

Yeah, chicken a la king is hardly a mystery. You can grasp the concept pretty well by looking at it.

I really wish they'd given them more than an hour - I think that was a big part of how uninspired most of it was. And the focus on "lower cholesterol" rather than more generic "healthier" seemed odd, too.

Interesting comment from Lia about how being in the middle means you're not getting any feedback on what was wrong or how you should be trying to improve.

I think Lia is right. Basically, being in the middle means that you're safe, haven't made any egregious errors but haven't done anything to make them take a closer look either.

And the focus on "lower cholesterol" rather than more generic "healthier" seemed odd, too.

It's because it was sponsored by the cholesterol-lowering drug that was advertised in every commercial break, I'm sure. Lipitor?

I also think that "lower cholesterol" was a stupid challenge. Sure, most chefs know how to make a dish healthier, but I wouldn't have any idea about cholesterol. and you wouldn't, generally, unless that was your kind of cooking.

Will. Not. Spend morning trolling youtube for SYTYCD videos. Any more.

But Hok and Jaimie? Wow. That really worked for me.

I agree. Making the dish "healthier" is the sort of updating that the should all have been able to do.

BTW, last year I thought that the cheftestants really made Season 1 look good but I thought that this year's cheftestants would give season 1 a run for their money. But come on! Leean made seafood sausage for a quickfire - I'm sure that Lia had enough time to make her own sausage.