- For the quickfire, the chefs must guess the ingredients inside a mystery box. For the elimination, the chefs must transform a well-known dish into something entirely new, cooking for none other than CIA Director Leon Panetta, who knows a thing or two about taking on a new identity. The chefs serve CIA Director Panetta and his closest allies in his private dining room inside the agency's closely guarded headquarters.—Bravo Publicity
- Kevin has lingering bitterness over the fact Alex didn't make a dish and Kenny went home instead. Alex chalks it up to Kevin just being angry Kenny is gone. "I hope Alex either steps up or goes home," Kevin says.
Angelo says Kenny was the fiercest competitor there. "I am mentally exhausted," Angelo says.
Quickfire Challenge Padma greets them with Wylie Dufresne (and his sideburns), the molecular gastronomist. There are mystery boxes, with identical ingredients. As they're cooking more ingredients will arrive and they have to continue to incorporate them.
Tiffany already doesn't like the challenge. Then Padma mentions it's a high stakes quickfire worth $10,000. Angelo mentions he wants to win to get his fiancee over from Russia (wha?!?).
They open the boxes to find a fish, fava beans and a can with no label. Nobody will lend Alex a can opener. There's hominy in the can.
Kevin thinks Angelo looks worried. He tells us he feels lost and doesn't have a vision.
A secret service looking dude brings in another mystery box. There's squid and black garlic inside.
They cook and another box arrives with ramps and passion fruit. Tiffany doesn't know whether to use the leaf or stem of the ramp.
Angelo talks to himself trying to figure out what to do.
Another box arrives with jicama.
The kitchen gets hot ("This is the first time I think I've sweated into the food," Angelo says) as they race to finish.
Padma and Wylie taste. Alex made puree of fava beans with ramp fondue and sauteed squid. He knows his dish is all over the place.
Tiffany make fish stew with hominy, fava beans, saffron and black garlic. Wylie likes the broth.
Kelly made a seafood stew with black garlic, fava beans and grilled ramps.
Amanda made crispy skin striped bass, squid fricassee, leak and mushroom fondue.
Kevin made pan-seared rockfish, hominy puree, jicama and passion fruit salad.
Ed made a sashimi of rockfish with hominy-basil puree and grilled squid marinade.
Angelo made smoky hominy pot-au-feu, squid rockfish tataki and passion fruit gel. He makes excuses for the fact his gel is melting. Tiffany thinks he's losing confidence in himself.
Wylie says it was a hard challenge. He liked Alex's fava beans but the rest of it didn't go. Amanda's dish was too oily.
His favorites were Tiffany and Kevin (who's having another baby and could use the dough).
And the winner is: Tiffany.
Elimination Challenge Padma introduces it as a case of "national security." They'll each be taking a classic dish and "disguising" it. The dish must stay true to the original flavors but look like something different. They draw knives.
Amanda gets French Onion Soup; Ed has chicken cordon bleu, Angelo has beef Wellington, Kelly has kung pao shrimp, Tiffany gets a gyro, Kevin pulls Cobb salad and Alex has veal parmesean.
They'll be serving a table of CIA officers and Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA. And they're serving at CIA HQ in Langley. The winner gets a trip to Paris. Ed thinks his girlfriend would love it.
At Whole Foods, Alex tells us he used to be a videographer, shooting weddings and bar mitzvahs. He has only six years of professional cooking experience.
Kelly has never cooked Chinese in her life so she finds kung pao sauce on the shelves and reads the ingredients for ideas.
Beef Wellington is tenderloin encased in a pastry. He's going to serve it as a pizza with the beef as pepperoni. Ed can't believe that Angelo is buying pastry. "If you're going to serve something like that you're almost asking to be eliminated from this competition," Ed says.
Back at the kitchen they have 2 1/2 hours to prep.
Tiffany is deconstructing her gyro. She tells Ed her spy name is Bridgette. Amanda wants to be Natasha with a .22 in her garter.
Kelly thinks Amanda's concept is obvious because she's still making soup.
Kelly is making soup out of the kung pao ingredients. Alex offers advice and she ignores it. Amanda says she likes Alex.
Angelo thinks he's OK with his puff pastry because it's not the main part of the dish. They remember that John went home in the first episode for the same thing.
Ed announces his spy name would be Muffin Winthrope.
Ed is wrapping his ham on the outside for an inside out chicken cordon bleu.
They wrap up.
At CIA HQ in Langley the next day they cross the seal and have 1 1/2 hours to cook.
Ed checks the kitchen for cameras.
Angelo admits it's not his most creative dish.
Amanda starts to worry she didn't disguise her food enough. "Helen Keller would be able to guess what this dish is," she says.
Tiffany worries about getting all the components of her dish right.
Kelly realizes her rice is overcooked. Tiffany tells her to dump it out and start over.
When they're done, Tiffany helps Kelly plate. "I don't want to win when something didn't go right, I want to compete against you at your best," Tiffany explains.
At dinner time, they start with Angelo's. Leon Panetta guesses what it was immediately. "Poor disguise, they would have captured this individual and hung him," Panetta cracks.
He thinks it was salty and the pastry was a little hard. Eric Ripert thinks it looks like he took a shortcut.
Kelly serves her kung pao soup over rice. Wylie gloats to Panetta that "for once I know something you don't."
Tom likes it, as does Wylie.
Tiffany serves her gyro next as roasted leg of lamb, smoky eggplant, tomatoes and pickled onions. Panetta nails it. Eric thinks it's the most "elegant" gyro he's ever had.
Kevin's Cobb salad is up next, as romaine lettuce, tomato, bacon, roquefort, avocado, cucumber and turkey. (Honestly, it looks like a Cobb salad.)
Tom says it's a salad and didn't change, but he's a sucker for Cobb salads.
Panetta's chatting with Padma when someone slips him a note and he excuses himself to attend to business. Spy stuff.
Amanda describes Alex as "the wise old Jewish uncle that I never had."
Her soup comes out as consomee with oxtail marmalade, carmelized onions and shaved gruyere.
The diners know what it is, but Tom thinks the marmalade is too sweet. Another diner compares its taste to honey-lemon cough syrup. Ouch.
Alex serves veal and parmigiano cheese tortelloni with tomato sauce and tempura cheese.
They take one bite and say the meat's tough. "I think the veal was as tough as pulling a post in Yemen," Tom says. He thinks the execution was really poor. Wylie thinks it was the hardest to guess so far, but means it as a good thing.
Ed feels good sending out his chicken cordon bleu. Eric thinks it's obvious. Tom likes it. "There's clearly a lot of labor in this plate," Wylie says.
"Unfortunately, he didn't take much care to disguise it," Padma says.
Back in the kitchen, Kelly tells Amanda her marmalade is sweet, but tastes good.
In the stew room, Padma comes for Tiffany, Kelly and Ed.
Judges' Table Padma congratulates them.
Eric tells Kelly he liked her broth and the rice helped with the spiciness. Tom says nice job.
Wylie and Eric compliment Tiffany.
Eric tells Ed he perfectly executed every part of his dish.
Wylie announces the winner: Tiffany. "Yes! I got a honeymoon!" she shouts. Ed knows his girlfriend will be upset, but says he's happy for Tiffany.
The judges want to see: Alex, Amanda and Angelo.
She tells them she knows her dish wasn't disguised enough. "You took a soup and made a soup," Tom says. He tells her marmalade threw off the dish.
Angelo's was too obvious, too. He kicks himself for not pushing himself. Tom asks if he bought the pastry and says he should have done something different. Wylie says even the plating was sloppy. Eric calls it kind of sad.
Wylie tells Alex he liked that his dish wasn't obvious. "But it turned out that your disguise was really poor execution." Alex says that he tried a new cooking technique for this challenge.
Tom tells him his meat was tough, he's had better cheese at a street fair and better pasta from a box.
They go back to the room. Angelo says he should go home.
The judges discuss. Eric thinks Alex put more time into his dish than the others. Wylie doesn't understand why he strayed from what he knew.
Wylie says Amanda had a long time to just make "dishwater."
Eric says Angelo's Wellington would make Julia Child sad. They think he froze.
Verdict time. Tom recaps, saying they disguised themselves as poor cooks.
The knife packer is: Alex.
"There is no margin for error," he says.
When he announces to the room he's leaving, the group struggles to react. Amanda gives him a hug.
"I have nothing against the other chefs. They were frustrating in certain situations, that pea puree conspiracy and anger about restaurant wars. I was frustrated as well. I choose not to vent and create hostility."
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