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The Masters head back to the kitchen where they have two hours to work . . . and lo and behold, who do we have but yet another figure from Top Chef, Tom Colicchio. This is quite the reunion.

Just like in Top Chef, he makes his rounds and talks to each of the Masters about their dishes. In stark contrast to his interactions with the cheftestants, who always seem to be both in awe of Tom and trying to impress Tom, the Masters greet the Top Chef head judge like old colleagues – friends even. There's no pompousness or boasting. It's as if they thought to themselves, "Here comes Tom. I didn't like his restaurant's snapper last week. Has he put on some weight?"

Tom leaves the kitchen after a few minutes and says that unlike the typical Top Chef contestants, they understand how to approach this type of challenge. They didn't get bogged down with their words or concept, they know that with good food, you can tell any story. I wholeheartedly, 100% agree with Tom . . . but let's be real here, they still need to cook some good food before they can tell a story.

Dinner service begins at the Magic Castle and I'm ecstatic to see that beautiful, wonderful Gail is there. She just lights up a room, doesn't she?

*happy sigh*

Mark goes first (he's the chef from LA, you'll remember) and his "mystery" inspired dish is appropriately wrapped in parchment paper so that no diner can see what they'll be eating. Inside the parchment is a thai-cooked snapper with glazed leaks. He's also brought them some scallion oil and dassai sake. There are absolutely no complaints to be heard.

John, pretty boy from New Orleans, comes next and he's done a dish based on "surprise." He gets Neil Patrick Harris, host of this evening's dinner, to help him mix together some liquid nitrogen with some ingredients to make some horseradish sorbet (sounds revolting to me but what do I know?), which he then serves tableside. Seems like a pretty big "spectacle" to me, but he doesn't have that word.

Anyhow, John's dish is pretty complex with salmon tartar, a cauliflower blini with salmon roe and tempura fried lobster. The sorbet doesn't seem to have set correctly but most diners feel that there were some nice surprises in the assorted flavors of the dish.

Anita goes next and frankly, her dish looks really out there. I'm wondering if she's completely wasted her Quickfire lead with a dish that looks far too complex. In the spirit of Richard Blais (master of making tofu taste like beef and making scallops out of bananas), she's used her word "illusion" to create the illusion of a seared sea scallop and caviar by using a piece of poached daikon with steak tartar inside of it. She's also created this whole seascape to go along with the seafood feel, using rice krispies for sand and a shellfish broth for aroma.

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