Top Chef All Stars: Marcel Vigneron Packs His Knives & Goes After Restaurant Wars Disaster

I have no idea why Marcel is on a beach with Padma.

The latest episode of Top Chef All Stars started off with Dale winning a strange Quickfire Challenge. The Chefs had to slice up 2 fish to frying portions, approved by a master fish slicer, Justo Thomas of the famed Le Bernardin.

The top 4 slicers then had to cook a dish using the remains of the fish they had just gutted. Dale Talde used the liver in the dish he made, which seemed to be what gave him the win.

Then it was off to Padma who informed them that the Chefs were about to fight in Restaurant Wars. As part of his Quickfire win Dale got to lead one restaurant and pick the other restaurant's leader.

Dale wisely picked Marcel to lead the other restaurant, obviously figuring that Marcel would self-destruct. Which is what happened.

Marcel has zero leader skills. He is good at pissing people off.

The restaurants had to be something called a "Pop-Up" Restaurant, that I really did not understand. The guest judge was a volatile Frenchy who we saw be volatile on Top Chef Masters,  Ludo LeFebvre, who, apparently has a successful "Pop-Up" Restaurant.

Dale's restaurant was called Bodega. Marcel's was Etch.

The guests did the judging in this Restaurant Wars.

As the restaurants opened and Etch spun out of control, it was fairly clear that Bodega was a smoother operation, with Fabio running the front like a master, while Tiffany was Etch's greeter and a disaster at it.

Back at Judges' Table Padma called Etch first to the table, giving them some hope they'd actually won. This hope was quickly dashed. Meanwhile back in the Stew Room, Richard Blais was sure Bodega had lost.

At first the losers were reticent to point fingers. Then Marcel said yet one more dumb Marcel thing, which set off everyone, but Angelo, pointing at Marcel as the cause of their epic fail.

In the end, Richard Blais won Restaurant Wars and $10,000, while Marcel Vigneron was sent packing.

In his Bravo Top Chef Blog, Anthony Bourdain is amusing, as always, in his blogging about Restaurant Wars he is particularly amusing about what it must be like to live in "Marcel Land."

Top Chef D.C.: Tiffany Leaves While Angelo, Kevin, Ed & Kelly Go To Singapore

I was disappointed to see Tiffany go down in flames last night on Top Chef.

This week's Elimination Challenge was to prepare a freeze driable dish for the International Space Station.

The Chefs were introduced to the challenge by two astronauts on the Space Station. And one of those, for whom they were cooking, was Apollo 11 moon walker, Buzz Aldrin.

Tiffany ran into some woes with the mussels part of her dish. That may have been her downfall. But in the end, the judges had high praise for all 5, but, with at least one judge having some issue with at least one aspect of each dish. Particularly that very picky Frenchman, Eric Rippert, who was nicely counter-balanced, this episode, by the always amusing Anthony Bourdain.

Angelo won the high stakes Quickfire with his successful wine/food pairing. He won $10,000.

Each episode we seem to learn something new about Angelo. Weeks ago some were surprised to learn he had reproduced. Then there was the revelation of some of his rituals, like Angelo's shrine to chefs he worships. Last week we learned about Angelo's Russian mail order bride to be. And this week we learned that that child we learned about weeks ago was produced during Angelo's marriage to the kid's mother. They divorced because the wife's family had no respect for the chef profession, wanting Angelo to be a doctor or lawyer.

Angelo seems to be doing fairly well for himself. At least this week on Top Chef. He recovered from the fumbles of the past couple weeks and won the Elimination Challenge, which gave him a new Toyota Avalon, a trip to London, a trip to Cape Canaveral to watch a Space Shuttle launch. And a book by Anthony Bourdain.

For the finale Top Chef is leaving the United States for the first time, heading to one of my favorite places, Singapore. The previews showed Padma taking extreme umbrage against something Kevin said or did. That should be interesting.

So, it is a final four of Angelo, Kevin, Ed and Kelly. Why does Kelly smoke? Why would any chef smoke? I don't get it. Angelo or Ed for the win. I'd be saying Tiffany for the win. But she's gone.