This episode featured another “monkey” comment by Hung, this time dismissing his competitor’s efforts with the shot “any monkey can do berries and cream”. As expected, Hung – and his Cauliflower Foam ice cream – then finished in the bottom two. Apparently any monkey could beat Hung in a quickfire. (Actually I’ve noted before that Hung is clearly skilled and if he could just get out of his own way, he’d be a favorite for the finals.)
But while Hung jumped out to an early lead this season for the Can’t Work With Others award, he’s gradually been reduced to an amusing sidenote as Howie has bulled his way to the bottom of every team challenge, deftly alienating the rest of the cast (Joey excepted).
Like many others, I had complained about season two’s descent from cooking contest into a childish Flava of Love shouting match. So why am I blogging about the personality conflicts? Because those conflicts are so clearly showing up on the plates. It’s like a reality version of Like Water for Chocolate, except that hopefully they don’t all die at the end. The team that cooks best together cooks best. When Howie cooks alone, he generally nails it; when he has to interact on an equal basis with other humans, he flails. Interesting to watch.
Reassembler 
It was really time for that Sara to go–it’s time for all the Sara(h)s to go. And you analysis of Hung is spot-on: if he could get over himself for one minute, he would actually TRY to win and could probably do it.
Hi, and thanks for dropping by. Sarah the Cheese Maker is taking a beating in the blog world, and she’s probably no more the Top Chef than was Marissa the Pastry Chef.
But I think she might knock out another contestant or two. When the cast of Dame Chocolate jumped up and down over her chili rellenos, I thought, I’ll got to her restaurant any time.