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On the bottom of the Quickfire, we have:

Robin, with a weird pairing between her jalapeno and sweet corn panna cotta and the chips; Ash, whose combination of chilled cucumber and avocado soup with crème fraiche weirded Charlie out; and Jennifer, who had a good idea but didn't execute it well (DAMMIT!)

On the top we had:

Eli, who had an impressive idea with his potato and clam salad with fennel; Bryan, with spot-on execution of his seared rib eye with pickled onions ; and Kevin, whose warm bean and confit tomato salad with fresh herbs paired well with the snacks.

I had initially thought that Kevin would win this but it turns out that Eli wins. DAMMIT. I hate him. I really hope Eli doesn't get immunity. *growl*

Ash says that he is surprised that he is in the bottom but argues that Eli definitely deserved to win. Yep, Ash, you're always willing to praise your competitors ahead of yourself. That's definitely a failing in a chef.

The chefs draw knives to find out what they'll be cooking in the Elimination Challenge, and it turns out that each knife has a picture of a pig plus the name of a part of a pig - leg, belly, chop, etc. Each chef will be cooking the part of the pig that's on their knife. Jennifer draws a knife that says "wild," so she gets to choose which part that she cooks. She chooses pork belly.

Charlie explains that he runs a yearly event called "Pigs and Pinot" where the chefs pair pork dishes with fantastic pinot noirs. The cheftestants head to Mandalay Bay to pick out their wines. At the bar, they watch in awe as "Wine Angels" pick out bottles from a 3-story glass wine cask. The Angels fly majestically into the air, supported by cables like Cirque du Soleil trapeze artists, select a wine and float down to earth. It's pretty damn cool.

The nine chefs try nine wines and one by one, they make their selection. Pompous Eli makes a snide comment about how there are some "amateur palettes" with certainly chefs picking out "candy wines." I really hate Eli. He's like that annoying little brother who has nothing better to do than criticize what everyone else does, even though he lives in his parents' basement.

The chefs head to Whole Foods and buy their ingredients before coming back to the house to relax for the challenge the next day. During this time, two things happen:

1) Eli and Robin get into a huge fight. After exhausting nearly everyone's patience with her jabbering, Robin makes a snide comment about having to clean up after Eli and he blows up at her, yelling that she can't talk to him that way cause she's not his mom. Robin stays in the kitchen, talking to herself, and Eli goes downstairs to complain to the rest of the house.

2) Ash expresses concerns about how to keep his tenderloin from overcooking and Pompous Mike suggests to him that he do a chilled tenderloin. So Ash junks his idea and decides not to do a polenta and goes with Pompous Mike's idea. So much for focusing on his own style of cooking.

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