Tom lays down the rules: four course tasting menu: fish, poultry, red meat and dessert. Stephanie and Lisa both shocked/dismayed about dessert. Really guys? Really? Still? Learn some desserts and learn ‘em good, next Top Chef contestants. It’s a no-brainer.

The beginning was crazy because we were like, “What! They get famous sous chefs?” So that they fact that they were limited in their proteins, seemed totally overshadowed with good news.

Stephanie gets Ripert. Richard gets Dan Barber. Lisa gets April Bloomfield and says “girl power” about it.

But it’s also a true pleasure to see Richard and Steph. Except that Steph is wearing a T-shirt that says “I (heart) Tahoe Boys.” That’s random. And very hetero. Sigh.

They get taken to Allen Brothers Meat where they are given gigantic slabs of ribeye to butcher into chops, which seems totally daunting to everyone but Spike.

There are only six contestants left (well five now, but you know at the beginning of this episode). Anyhow, the reason Tom is acting all strange is that he’s come to wake them all up to go cook the egg station at short order breakfast places. A few of us around these parts have actually done this and can attest to its hellishness. And that Helene looks like one tough cookie. She stands there and shakes her head at them. That seems worse than the heat and the orders piling up.

The guest judge is Sam Talbot of Season 2. Antonia’s visibly blushing and giggling like an adolescent girl and is like, “Sign me up.” They brought sexy Sam back to bring sexy salad back. Spike says he’s going to make a salad that makes you say, “Let’s have sex after we eat this salad.” Well, it’s literal, at least.

Andrew and Spike miss Mark and so spend some time hugging to make themselves feel better. We really like to watch straight guys cuddling. We also miss Mark.

Antonia comments that this is the first time four women have made it this far and that it’s a very even gender playing field. True, true. It’s also that point in the competition where immunity gets taken away. No more freebies, folks.

Padma and Tom come out to greet the chefs and Padma is looking extra hot in that military jacket. They announce the return of the relay race. Everyone is excited and pumped about this. They split into two teams, the forks and the spoons and divide up who gets what part of the relay.

This episode was low on drama and heavy on children. And some of those kids were so darn cute that we wanted to pinch their cheeks. But we’ll get to that. Antonia starts out very determined, like a fierce tigress out to protect her young. And apparently that pays off.

Art Smith (Oprah’s personal chef) is the guest judge and his whole thing is simple, fast and healthy. So the quickfire is to make a fabulous entrée in 15 minutes. We’re not sure we could cut up an onion in 15 minutes. But they do get to use Uncle Ben’s 90 second rice. Seriously, we’re waiting for the challenge where they have to use macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s yelling “Behind you!” and “Under you!” and running around like maniacs.

Stephanie seems like she’s getting more confident, which is good, even though she kind of screws the pooch on this challenge. But we’re behind you Steph!

Jennifer’s still doing it for Zoi, but now with some additional blood, sweat and tears.

Nikki’s stoked when she see pastries, because she orders multiple desserts when she goes out to eat? Who does that?

The quickfire is to create a delicious dessert for Johnny Iuzzini, author of (wait for it) Dessert Foreplay. That seems like a book worth buying. Everyone’s generally freaking out, but we can’t help but think that, by Season 4, Top Chef contestants would memorize one or two dessert recipes before going on the show. Because this comes up every season.

Guest judge Koren Grieveson is hot and intimidating and cooking to go with beer sounds awesome. Nikki, Spike and Dale do the worst which is not that surprising since Spike basically says he can’t taste the difference between the beers and Nikki is pretty consistently shabby. Richard, Stephanie and Jennifer (winning one for her girl Zoi) do the best. Spike makes a douchey comment about lesbian team power. Whatever, Spike, where’s your hat?

Anyhow, the quickfire challenge is the old standard blindfold palate test. Which makes Antonia happy, because she is quite confident in her palate. And she does, as it turns out, have the most rockin’ palate of the remaining chefs. Ryan and Jennifer tie for runners up and Stephanie does the worst, which we find totally surprising, considering some of her flavor combinations so far.

The quickfire challenge is Mexican as fine dining. The taco. Oh crap. This is our challenge. Some of us around here are from Austin where tacos are like the life blood. So we feel really expert in this category.

Everyone’s having a hard time with street food versus fine dining. Richard and his jicama tortillas. Oh no Lisa’s was unbitable. Spike’s was totally street.

Eric’s totally going home soon. We’ve been thinking that since the beginning. He just seems like a little lost in the world of fine dining. But again totally likable. In a giant tattooed teddy bear sort of way.

Right away in this episode, the gayest thing ever happens. Zoi and Jennifer (you know, the lesbian couple from San Francisco) switch shoes… and they’re crocs. Okay, we know they’re chefs and they need comfortable shoes, but do they also have the same foot size?

So for their quickfire challenge they go to the farmer’s market. We love it when they make them all run; they are like freaking out and knocking over small children. Except Spike, with his dapper hat, who just chills and listens to music for a while. You gotta admire that. It’s the polar opposite of Mark who was a little bit of mess and even made us feel stressed out. When he said he decided to use butter instead of lettuce, we were like, “uh oh, that’s Ronald Reagan logic.” But then he totally won, just like Ronald Reagan.