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Robin and Ron have the first dish and they present it to a who's-who of French cooking: Hubert Keller (third place from Top Chef Masters), Jean Joho (owner of the great Eiffel Tower restaurant in Vegas), Laurent Tourondel (of the BLT restaurant), Tom, Gail, Kevin and man of the hour, Joel Robuchon, the best French chef on the planet.

And he's wearing this ugly kimono-looking thing. Blech. Someone call Tim Gunn.

Anyhow, Robin and Ron present an ugly looking dish, which Eli describes as "a wilted salad of dead greens and overly-floured frog legs." You forgot to mention that it looks like puke, Eli. Apparently, though, it doesn't taste horrible. The consensus is that it was seasoned well, somewhat over-cooked but has some originality. The diners also note that frog legs are hard to cook.

Pompous Mike and Bryan go next with warm cured trout with a deconstructed bernaise sauce. Everyone loves it, finding it very sophisticated and with a perfectly cooked trout.

Next is Laurine and Eli, who seems more like a smart ass every episode. They have a lobster and sauce Americaine with a cauliflower puree. The lobster is indeed tough and Joel doesn't find that it has the authentic flavor of an Americaine sauce. I must say, though, that after the first three dishes, we don't really have any bombs. I'm surprised.

Next we have Mattin and Ashley with a ravioli poussin with a velote sauce and asparagus. Oops, guess I spoke too soon because no one likes this dish. There's too much bacon in the sauce, the poussin is bland and no one seems very sure as to what the chefs were trying to do with this dish. Looks like they're in trouble.

Michael and Jennifer go next with a rabbit chasseur and mustard noodles dressed with shiso. The rabbit is cooked perfectly and Tom finds it to be a very mature dish from some young chefs.

Finally, we have Hector and Ash. Hector has waited SO long to slice his meat that he ends up having to carve it like a madman, totally rushed for time. There is blood spilling out of the meat and Ash is trying to sauce the dish before time runs out.

Apparently he didn't succeed because the first question out of the mouths of the diners is "where's the sauce?" Tom thinks that the cooking was horrible on this dish, Joel says that there is no refinement and Gail says that her meat is overcooked and looks like it was hacked with an ax. Oh boy, we have a losing dish tonight.

Not to say that the night wasn't good. I think that given the caliber of chefs that these contestants were cooking for, the food was at an extremely high level. I mean, we're only four freakin' episodes into this season. This was a hard challenge and Gail agrees. "We couldn't have had this dinner at this point in any other season," she says. Wow, that's some high praise for this group.

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