Recap Roundup: Top Chef Just Desserts 2.1

Jordan Baker on Chef who?: "I have conflicted feelings about it myself. I liked both challenges a lot, but something seemed super off with the editing. After episode one, I don’t know half the cheftestants names – and I feel like Bravo doesn’t either. It seems like they introduced a few people: The Villain (Orlando); His Nemesis (Chris); The Sassy Black Lady (Melissa); and The Bottom Two (Craig and Lina) and then didn't bother with the rest of them."

Picktainment is a recapper after my own heart: "Time for Judges’ Table. Isn’t it nice that this show gets that apostrophe usage correct? I love that. You just know that if this was Top Model it’d be wrong. Way to be, Top Chef."

Culture Mob on tough Johnny: "I do enjoy that this season has the judges being harsh right away on the chefs, particularly Johnny who’s much more engaging this season than last. I think my favorite moment of the whole judging was his casual question to Team Hansel, who were trying to evoke the forest with their smoked pineapple: 'Do pineapples grow in the woods where you come from?' Snap, Iuzzini. Snap."

After Elton on the cast of characters: "When it comes down to it, the contestants – or 'characters' – make a reality show. In this case, the usual reality show archetypes are present, but not all of them are assigned their places. There's Chris Hanmer, the talented pretty boy next door, who immediately calls out Orlando Santos (a "I'm a damn good chef and I know it!" kind of guy) as his competition. Craig Poirier is the naive young chef who still has a lot to learn and who no one wants on their team, while Sally Camacho is the uber-experienced pastry chef at Wolfgang Puck's WP24.

For some worldly flavor there's Argentina native Nelson Paz, whose ambiguously gay accent will swoon viewers and judges, and Melissa Camacho, a Haiti native with a slightly sassy mother hen attitude. Other people/archetypes worth mentioning include Katzie Guy-Hamilton, the possible 'Aggressive Kitchen Tyrant;' Lina Blancamano, 'Miss Overconfident Bossypants;' and Vanarin Kuch, the possible 'Convoluted Diva.'

Then there's everyone else – who, at this point didn't get much camera time, or are too boring to mention."

Chron.com on Team Hansel and Gretel: "Take the Hansel and Gretel team, with Fort Worth lady Lina, Houstonian Vanarin and Melissa. You’d think this sweet-centered story would put them at an advantage, but they completely ignored the details of the story. No gingerbread. No candy. No sweets to lure kiddos. They went completely random with sagey smoked pineapple on brioche cake and a chocolate nougat with hibiscus apple seltzer (ugh, that doesn’t even sound good, does it?). Bossy Lina bragged about winning 'the best cupcakes in Austin' and made the team go with a cake-based showpiece, which wasn’t as sleek as the others’."

Eater on elimination: "True to form, Melissa ('I'm gonna save all her opinions for Judges' Table and throw my fellow losertestants under the bus') threw Lina under the bus and the best little cupcakes in Texas was sent packing, leaving us Craig, the spaztestant, to return for next week's Harry Potter sequel. Dislike: Gail's refusal to adopt 'take your whisk and beat it' (as suggest by one of our Twitter followers) as her 'you're fired' line."

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Posted on AllTopChef.com