[From Bravo's website] This week's episode brought the chefs a little bit closer to nature. First, they visited Chicago's Green City Market to gather ingredients for their Quickfire Challenge where they had to create a dish using only five ingredients, not including salt, pepper, sugar, and oil. Mark forgot one of his bags at the market, but Guest Judge Wylie Dufresne was so impressed with his dish and his ability to "make it work," that he gave Mark the win.
The chefs were then split into five teams of three for the Elimination Challenge. The teams were: Vulture, Gorilla, Bear, Penguin, and Lion. The chefs were tasked with creating menus for a cocktail party based on their assigned animals' diets. Despite a few disagreements, most of the teams seemed to leave the drama out of the kitchen. There were only a few questionable dishes, including Team Bear's mushroom-blueberry-Pecorino cheese debacle and Stephanie's watery crab salad. But in the end, Valerie paid the ultimate price for serving blinis -- a dish that needs to be prepared a la minute. While Andrew's ingenuity and just plain good-tasting dish earned him the win.
