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When 20 minutes are up, Jim serves a steak tartare with arugula and egg yolk puree, which has a texture that all judges find off-putting (ah, the perils of using agar as a stabilizer). Sylva does a tataki-style steak tartare, searing the outside like a tuna steak, accompanied by a beet puree, which, apparently, is lacking in salt and flavor (including beet flavor). Finally, Emily offers a classic version of the dish with fish sauce and beet chips. In contrast to Sylva, hers is overseasoned and oversalted. In what I view as the biggest upset of the competition so far, Jim is asked to pack his knives and go. Like Silvia before him, it was a dream of Jim’s to compete on Top Chef, and he’s proud of how he did, even if it’s ending sooner than he’d hoped.

Which brings us to this week’s elimination challenge, which is the kookiest and cheesiest so far. Apparently, the pirate Blackbeard blockaded Charleston harbor 300 years ago, throwing a notorious party that led to his identification and death by the British Navy. In teams of three, the cheftestants are tasked with hosting a pirate-themed party. They’ll find their ingredients using their own treasure “map,” which has the location of treasure chests located on them (nuts, proteins, seafood, herbs, fruit, etc.). Each chest will have three types of that ingredient. The first team to each chest gets first pick, and the first team to collect all seven of their ingredients gets to start cooking first.

The red team, consisting of two local chefs (Emily and Jamie) and one visitor (John), is confident in their ability to traverse the city, despite the tropical storm lashing the coast. But while their familiarity with the city enables them to have first pick of seafood (John picks for them and goes with lobster), they fall woefully behind the other teams with the other ingredients.

Finishing first is the Yellow team (Shirley, Sheldon, and Sylva), which gets mussels, macadamia nuts, filet mignon, asparagus, fresh herbs, pineapple, and roasted red peppers. They love their ingredients, which largely go well together and will play to their strengths (I mean, c’mon, Sheldon and pineapple? Match made in heaven). Second up is the Black team (Brooke, Casey, and Katsuji), which gets preserved lemon, scallops, dried herbs, cauliflower, ground pork, brazil nuts, and raisins. Finally, the local team with the one chef with immunity starts cooking last with a bizarre pantry stocked with high-end food (lobster, truffles, and exotic herbs), and lowbrow food (oranges, chicken breast, canned peas, and peanut butter).

Per an agreement pushed through by John, Jamie agrees to take the least desirable ingredients to make a dish, as he’s immune from elimination. He decides to try and make a chicken satay with the chicken breast and peanut butter. Emily and John split the lobster… which, in John’s lingo, means Emily gets the honor of breaking down all the lobster tails while he focuses on his own gnocchi. And oh yeah, if she could grab him some bread crumbs from the pantry, that’d be greaaaaaaat.

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