After a trying experience last week with microwaved food, the Top Chef chefs again found themselves preparing food outside of their element - both literally and figuratively. Instead of working in the kitchen, plating and serving, the chefs were sent out to San Francisco's Mission District to peddle their wares as street food. In addition to mingling with the people, the chefs had to focus on ethnic flavors throughout both tasks in the episode and in doing so, found that they were further from their comfort zone than they realized.

The quickfire challenge was designed to test the chefs' ability to recognize ingredients without seeing them. I agree with the comments that Tom Colicchio, one of the judges, made on his blog - namely, that the challenge was not really representational of their ability to recognize ingredients because the ingredients chosen were very exotic. Guest chef and judge Mike Yakura, head chef at Le Colonial, a French-Vietnamese restaurant, choose ingredients to taste that some of the chefs had never before worked with. Expecting that all chefs should know all possible ingredients is unrealistic, if not impossible, and the competitors did not do terribly well. Out of the 20 ingredients - which included longan, tamarind, hibiscus extract, chili paste, nopal, konnyaku, durian and nato - the chefs tasted, Tiffani and Miguel only identified 1, LeeAnne, Harold, Lisa and Stephen identified 3, and Andrea identified 4. Andrea, winning the challenge, received immunity.

Disappointed with their performances, the chefs staged their very own challenge that night at the house: the Bad-ass Snackmaster Challenge. Dave and Miguel faced off, blindfolded, in a taste-test of 20 different junk foods. Miguel "Don't touch my mayonnaise" Morales won the challenge

For the main challenge, the chefs were asked to fuse together two cuisines and turn it into a new street food: portable and easy to eat. They were divided into pairs and given $200 at each of two ethnic markets to shop. They then had two hours to prepare food for two hours of serving on the street from a food-cart. All the fusions had Latin food and one other type of food. Dave and Tiffani had to fuse Moroccan and Latin and wanted to do something, anything, that  wasn't a burrito. Andrea and Miguel did Indian-Latin and went with the most obvious choice: a burrito. Lisa and Harold, with Japanese-Latin, wanted to go heavy on the Japanese. Stephen and LeeAnne did Latin-Chinese and wanted their cuisine to be "sexy" and give some class to street food. The food was to be served in San Francisco's mission district, to a heavily Latio audience.

• Dave and Tiffani's Moroccan Cubano Sandwich had a filling with pork, onions dates and figs, spiced with cumin and coriander served on a Mexican roll. It was a huge hit with the crowd.
• Stephen and LeeAnne served Corn Sope with Char Sui Pork and a non-alcoholic Lychee Mojito to oohs and ahhs from the judges, and Judge Mike Yakura said that he wanted to steal the recipes for his restaurant! The residents of the Mission district were initially intimidated by Stephen's flashy suit, but seemed to like the food, too.
• Miguel and Andrea's Curried Chicken and Lentil Burrito was popular and had great flavors, but was served open-faced, with a knife and fork. When  given a cup of the tamarind punch they served with the burrito, the judges couldn't eat the food easily.
• Harold and Lisa made Seared Tuna and Avocado Salad, but forgot to bring their jicama - a key ingredient in the salad. The dish was served in bowls with chopsticks, so it was a big flop as street food in terms of eatability, the fact that the crowd had no interest in eating semi-raw tuna notwithstanding.

Dave and Tiffani were declared the winners of the challenge. You can get their recipe here. Stephen and LeeAnne came in second.

The judges told Andrea and Miguel that they would have been better off to wrap up their burrito instead of serving it open faced and, when Miguel tried to put the blame on Andrea, she showed her class by offering him her immunity. Harold and Lisa's dish was panned because it didn't taste that great and was difficult to eat. The judges told Harold that he needed to cater to his audience, not to serve something just because he saw "the best toro." If the audience doesn't want to eat it, explained the judges, it doesn't matter how good it is. Lisa, the weakest member of her team and only contestant without formal culinary training, was sent packing.

If you need to get caught up:
Episode 1 recap
Episode 2 recap
Episode 3 recap
Episode 4 recap