Top Chef: Good, Bad, Ugly

On last night's episode of "Top Chef," the remaining All Stars learned that looks ARE everything and Lorraine Bracco won't put out if she doesn't like your pasta. An Italian elimination challenge proved to be not-so-tailor-made for at least one the three Chef Meatballs, and the episode certainly had its fair share of Good, Bad and Ugly. As always, don't forget to hover over the pictures to whet your appetite.

The Good:

• The elimination challenge. Being 100% Italian myself, there's no way I couldn't like this challenge, but my cultural bias isn't the only reason it ended up in the Good category. I liked the simplicity of what the chefs did at Rao's. Like the food they were instructed to make, the challenge was no-frills, back-to-basics. No liquid nitrogen (sorry, Blais), no foam or mock caviar -- just good old-fashioned cooking, like Fabio's grandma would do it. Yes, asking chefs to dangle upside-down and cook for 7,000 hungry indigenous tribesmen in a zero-gravity chamber would make for good television, but sometimes less is more, and it definitely worked to the show's advantage last night.

• The stew room. The looks on Mike, Angelo, Richard & Dale's faces when Antonia announced her win were priceless. Every episode of "Top Chef" needs a good laugh-out-loud moment, and this was it. Okay, maybe there's a chance that Angelo farted and the editors just made it look like they were reacting to Antonia, but if that's the case, bravo, editors! Bravo.

The Bad:

• Tre's exit. Honestly, I wouldn't have been happy to see any of the bottom three chefs leave the competition, but I thought the Black Italian was whacked before his time. No, I didn't cry upon his departure like I will when Fabio or Blais are told to pack their knives, and I didn't laugh with an evil satisfaction like I did when Jamie and Marcel got the boot, but Tre is a guy I would have liked to see stick around a little longer. The judges seemed to have a lot more disdain for Dale's dish, but apparently a stiff risotto trumps a dry pasta in the world of culinary sins. If nothing else, we now have a better explanation for Dale's persistent anger issues. If that's the meal he likes to cook for his girlfriend and if his girlfriend is anything like Lorraine Bracco...well, let's just say that Dale isn't doing much of the horizontal mambo these days.
  

The Ugly:

• The Rao's bartender's sequined vest. Mobsters are definitely better off sticking with basic black. Where is Isaac Mizrahi when you need him? Oh, wait...he's standing with Padma in the Top Chef kitchen for...
• The quickfire challenge. For a challenge supposedly centered around visual beauty, those chefs sure managed to bring the ugly. Antonia's "Giving Tree"-inspired plate looked like a third grade science project (and was a little too reminiscent of Hung's Smurf village in Season Three), and Angelo's "crocadile" in a bag was just absurd. Thank goodness his lack of spell-check didn't distract Isaac from the truth: there was an ugly bag of goop sitting on the table, masquerading as art. I personally would have chosen Carla's dish over Richard's black ice cream, but I guess that's why they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Miscellaneous Tidbits:

• What, no prize for the elimination challenge winner? I thought Antonia would at least get an all-you-can-drink pass to the Bracco wine vault. Poor girl couldn't even get a hearty round of applause from her co-contestants.

What did you think of Top Chef Italia?