Top Chef - Live on Today

The quick fire challenge is to make a one bite breakfast. One bite?! Bring on the bacon, bring on the eggs! One bite doesn't cut it with me, especially for breakfast. But this is not about me, so I'll continue. There were some interesting combinations like Fabio's bruleed banana and brioche (what's brioche? It looked like egg nog), Danny's cornflake crusted zucchini blossoms and Hosea's quail egg with sweet potato hash. A lot of quail gave their eggs for this challenge but it was Leah with the win for making quail egg, tomato and cheese bite. Jamie was a close second with her baby BLT but the judges said her portion was more than a bite. Picky, picky.

For the elimination challenge, the chefs have to make a 2 1/2 minute presentation for live TV. Everyone heads to the market and straight to the seafood counter for tuna. After the prep work, it was time for the presentations. Padma, Gail and Chef Tom were on hand to time the presentations and judge the food. It was hard for anyone to stay in the time limit and some of the food was less than pleasing judging by Chef Tom's reactions.

The top three that managed the time limit and had decent food were Fabio, Jeff and Ariane. They each had their dishes on the Today Show where the hosts chose the winner. After tasting Jeff's malfouf roll, Cathy Lee Gifford acted like she had been poisoned running around like she was choking then spitting out the food. I'm still trying to figure out what a malfouf is but it didn't look as bad as Ms. Gifford made it out to be. Ariane is on top once again when she wins the challenge with her tomato, feta and watermelon salad.

Now for the bottom three: Melissa made habanero shrimp which was so hot no one could eat it. My husband would have polished it off and asked for more, the man eats habanero peppers whole! Jamie made a green salad topped with a fried duck egg which was undercooked and Alex's creme brulee fell short earning him a pack your knives and go. Double D