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Except for Shirley, that is. She’s still numb and woozy from the medicine. Curse those seasickness pills! She eventually serves a grilled baby squid with roasted fennel and mirin. Casey also picks squid but does hers charred with a mushroom soy broth and roasted fennel. Finally, Sylva goes with redfish, which he serves with tarragon butter and tomato-cabbage. Tom compliments the flavors in Shirley’s dish, which had tons of acid. Casey’s was an “umami bomb” - exactly the type of food she’s been cooking all season. Finally, Tom thought Sylva went subtle, but not too subtle — it reminded Tom that not all food needs to hit you in the face with its flavors.

In the end, Casey is sent home for her squid being just a little chewy. So sad. Casey notes that she’s basically grown up on Top Chef. It was one of the hardest things she’s ever done, but it was so worth it. “I’ll always have Top Chef,” she says. Best of luck, Casey.

Ignoring the poignancy of the moment, Padma promises something fun (!!!) for the Elimination Challenge, introducing Dominque Ansel, this week’s guest judge and the inventor of the cronut. Imagine Wylie Dufresne, but French and really focused on desserts. As brunch is his favorite meal of the day, the chefs will be asked to put their own spin on brunch with a mash-up meal that combines both breakfast and lunch. Tom notes that in his restaurant, he makes a dish called a “foie graffle,” which is a waffle with foie gras. Har har har.

Dominque entreats the chefs to be creative and make a dish that the diners - Charleston’s “hat ladies”—will remember. They’ll have $400 and two hours to do so, which leaves many chefs feeling really rushed. Especially Brooke. She laments the fact that her almost-winning dish from last week’s episode (the egg yolk crepe) would have been perfect for this challenge. She vows to do something equally impressive and creative this time around, though, even if she can’t figure out what that is just yet.

Not so for the other chefs. Shirley is doing an Americanized version of a Chinese classic, taking pot stickers that you’d eat during dim sum and making a cheeseburger-flavored version. Sounds… interesting. Sheldon is doing a play on chicken and waffles where the fried chicken is pressed into the shape of a waffle using a waffle maker, with frozen waffles providing a crumb topping. Sylva starts prepping a frittata, which doesn’t at all sound creative to me. Brooke, for her part, settles on doing a play on a yogurt parfait, where the creativity will all come in the plating.

Meanwhile, the hat ladies start filtering in. It reminds me of that famous racetrack scene in My Fair Lady.

Service starts, but not everyone gets their food. Sylva’s frittatas are totally raw and he can’t serve them. Twenty hat ladies don’t get any dish. Meanwhile, Shirley is up first with the judges. She notes that Chinese people don’t do brunch, they do dim sum, and she’s doing an American-lunch version of Chinese dim sum with a beef and cheddar dumpling with bacon tomato jam. Tom loves the idea, getting a lot of cheeseburger flavor with a tomato relish instead of ketchup. Dominque loves how creative the dish is, and Gail likes the crunch inside of the dumpling formed by the melting cheese.

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