Bienvenido a Mexico! That's right, we've finally escaped the historic, seafood-heavy Boston leg of this journey and are now with our neighbors over the wall to the south.
Six weeks have passed since the last episode shot and the final three, Melissa King, Mei Lin, and Gregory Gourdet, have touched down in San Miguel de Allende. A lot can happen in six weeks. You could lose 8 pounds (if you eat salads and go running), you could gain 12 pounds (if you're on my strict diet of cheese and dark beer), you could pay rent twice if the dates are against you. It's a pretty long time.
Vacation-mode Tom Colicchio arrives in his sunglasses to greet the chefs at their gorgeous apartment. He brings them around front to see what two others have been doing in the last six weeks. Turns out Doug Adams and George Pagonis have spent their time cooking in Last Chance Kitchen. We don't see what their challenge was, but Tom says something about smoky flavors and clams. Whatever happened with the dishes, Doug wins and rejoins the competition.
This is truly the least linear reality competition I've ever watched. It took like three episodes just to go from five contestants to four. In another world, George might have returned to the competition again. Who writes the rules for this show? Tax code lawyers?
So we're up from a final three to a final four, and everyone is headed to a town square for a Quickfire Challenge. Padma Lakshmi welcomes everyone by over-pronouncing all of the Spanish words she says. She also introduces guest judge Enrique Olvera. For this challenge, the chefs have 30 minutes to create a dish that focuses on the prickly pear, specifically the xoconostle, a variety that chefs love but has an incredibly short season. Thanks to this challenge, I discovered that the prickly pear is just a cactus, and not a fruit solely made-up so that southwestern tourist traps could upsell patrons on "authentic" flavored margaritas. You learn something new every day, I guess.
Mei prepares a steak since Melissa took the salmon that she wanted to use, but 30 minutes isn't really enough time to cook the meat, so she ends up doing a rib-eye tataki with xoconostle salsa and nopales salsa verde. Padma asks if the inconsistency in the cook of the steak is intentional. Of course it wasn't. Though the meat is a problem, the judges do enjoy the salsas and flavors.
Next is back-in-action Doug with his xoconostle and tomatillo stew with roasted peppers and pepitas. He took a big risk doing a vegetarian dish, but it paid off when Enrique pointed out that most Mexican cuisine is, in fact, vegetable based.
Gregory's dish is garlic shrimp with olive oil with prickly pear sauce and xoconostle relish. It missed the mark a bit and also doesn't highlight the challenge ingredient, continuing Gregory's downward trend in the competition.
Melissa prepared a salmon ceviche with xoconostle, leche de tigre, and prickly pear salad. Apparently, the liquid of the ceviche is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Everyone chuckles and Padma says, "I'll let you know how it goes later tonight," as men across Mexico's ears perk up and they quietly wait for the magical elixir to kick in might they have a chance with the tall, gorgeous woman in the flamenco doily.
Doug wins the challenge in an impressive comeback from not being in the competition at all to having an advantage going into the elimination this week.
And speaking of, it's time for the Elimination Challenge. This is the moment that will take this final three that became a final four back down to a final three. Lots at stake. For the challenge, each chef will be working with a visual artist, something the city has become a mecca for, and must create a dish inspired by that person and their work. This isn't a dinner though, it's an event with 150 guests. Since it's a pretty tall order, the chefs will be getting some help. Sadly, that help is coming in the form of previously eliminated contestants.
Since Doug won the Quickfire, he gets to pick his two sous chefs first. He picks Adam Harvey and Katsuji Tanabe, probably because he wants the kitchen to be hilariously annoying. Both are good chefs, but there's a lot of personality there.
Melissa picks George and James Rigato. Mei goes with Rebecca LaMalfa and Keriann Von Raesfeld, picking up all of the female chefs with multi-syllabic last names. Gregory selects Katie Weinner and Stacy Cogswell. No one picked Aaron Grissom, but probably because the challenge isn't beer pong. Sorry, bro, better luck next time. Also, I'm dying to see a line item budget for this show. They're just flying people to Mexico for no reason? Doesn't that cut into Tom's khaki suit budget?
The chefs meet their artists, who Padma makes clear were randomly assigned, since that's always the case with reality television. No planning, it's all left up to chance! Melissa's is a graffiti artist who works with bold colors. Unfortunately, he uses a lot of bright blue and hot pink, colors not naturally found in food. Doug meets his artist who happens to be, like him, originally from Texas. He instantly connects with her and her work. I'm more looking at her wondering, "How do I get your life?" She's just hanging out in a beautiful town in Mexico, painting and wearing tunics? It's every girl's back-up dream for when their first choice career doesn't pan out.
Time to go shopping. But Bella, I've a feeling we're, like, not at Whole Foods anymore. No no, this is a Mexican grocery store with Spanish labels and I'm assuming the metric system. Everyone is struggling to get what they want. It's international travel 101 that you should memorize important phrases in the country's language. For me it's always, "More wine, please." For my traveling partner it's always, "I'm sorry for my friend, she's a nightmare." For Mei it's apparently, "Just the chicken skins."
At the venue, the chefs get their sous chefs up to speed with the dishes while their respective artists work on pieces simultaneously. Gregory is concerned he's overcooking his steak, Doug is worried he won't have enough time for his brisket to get tender. Needless to say, there are some meat problems afoot.
Tom and Gail Simmons visit Gregory first. He prepared a grilled strip loin with ancho chile and tamarind, beets, cilantro puree, and valencia orange sauce. The dish is visually beautiful, compliments the artwork nicely, and most importantly, is delicious (according to Tom--I wouldn't know because I'm eating cereal sitting in between my television and a space heater).
Doug drew a lot of inspiration from his artist Merry's background and her work. From that he created a brisket Texas red (which is apparently like a beanless chili) with tomatillo and masa cake. The visual connection is the most literal of the group, but the flavors are warm and spot on.
Padma and Enrique visit Melissa to try her smoked eggplant ravioli with shrimp, chorizo, and cotija. The smoky eggplant is a stand out, but the rest of the dish is a bit disjointed. This is probably thanks to Melissa needing to completely pivot when the grocery store didn't have the ingredients she wanted like squid ink, but she takes it in stride.
Last is Mei, who prepared a snapper and bass crudo with chicken skin crumble, soy gastrique, and pickled cherries. The dish is tasty and the flavors are bright.
The event winds down and it's time for Judges' Table. Gail asks Padma if before they leave they can drink more tequila and it's like CAN WE JUST BE FRIENDS ALREADY? I mean, you guys like eating, drinking tequila, and judging things and people. Those are literally the only three things I can do. Anyway, call me!
This is always a tough elimination because when it's down to four chefs, it's four good chefs. Even if someone had made a major error — which no one did — it would be hard to make anyone who lasted this long in the competition go home. It's like dating when you're 24 and you end things with a guy for a little, meaningless reason because you have better options. When just a little annoyance is enough to send someone packing. Then you're 31 and look back and are like, "Honestly, it's okay that you want to wear a musky cologne. Hell, you could keep an ox in our living room for all I care at this point."
After some discussion, the judges announce that Doug and Gregory had the top dishes of the night. This is a big win for underdogs, since Doug just rejoined the show and Gregory has been skating by for the last few challenges with subpar dishes compared to his work earlier in the season. It's a close call, but ultimately Doug wins the challenge.
This, unfortunately, means that Mei and Melissa are the bottom two of the evening. I really wanted the finale to be between these two, but I guess that's just not in the cards here. They both had good dishes with slight flaws: Mei could have pushed herself more, Melissa was a little disjointed. In the end, Melissa is told to pack her knives and go. She's impressively poised and gracious as she says goodbye.
And then there were three. Mei, Gregory, and Doug are left to battle it out to see who is going to the finale. Or not. Maybe sometime in the next episode all of the contestants from last season and a bus full of baggers at Trader Joe's will get a crack at the challenge. It's really anyone's guess at this point.