It was another good night on Top Chef Chicago. Unfortunately, the Chicago “celebrity” was “famed Chicago film critic” (what??) Richard Roeper. Man, that just made me sad… but moving on to the show. The movie theme was pretty cool, and I think the judges got it right…

…Richard and Dale’s Willy Wonka inspired dish looked fantastic. It was a smoked salmon with a faux caviar and a white chocolate wasabi sauce that looked pretty incredible, and apparently tasted as good as it looked. I was pretty impressed with Lisa and Stephanie, too, who did a strip steak with braised short rib, with an apple wonton and a caramel sauce. I’d order it, that’s for sure. I would have loved to have seen Stephanie pull out another win, but Dale and Richard really did deserve it.

Who didn’t deserve it? Manuel. It was Spike’s call to do Vietnamese, and it was his weak leadership that lead to such a lackluster dish. Plus the hats man… hats can be cool. Spike’s are not. When they were selected as the losing team, I was really hoping the hat man would go, instead, they kicked off Manuel for not being more assertive… whatever. And can I just say I really don’t like Tom Colicchio? Anyone out their ever eaten his food?