This week's episode of Bravo's Top Chef introduced a couple of elements that we saw a lot of last season: junk food and kids. The two did not really tie in together, but it was interesting to see how this season's competitors responded to these challenges, as compared with the last group of potential Top Chefs.

Junk food came in to play during the quickfire challenge, where the chefs were allowed to pick a total of four items from two vending machines as the ingredients to prepare an amuse bouche. The guest judge for this episode was Susanna Goin, the head chef of Lucques and AOC in Los Angeles. She is known for simple, yet innovative, dishes, so she was a good choice as a judge to evaluate what the chefs could do with relatively common "ingredients."

All things considered, every one except for Michael did well in the challenge. Michael stated that he wasn't even going to try and ended up presenting a ground up Snickers bar with a Cheeto stuck into it. He acted like he didn't care and, although he repeatedly told the camera that he does care about the show, he seemed to be completely unable to make himself actually put forth any effort. Getting to the other contestants, the one criticism came for Mia's dish, which was more like a dessert than an amuse. Suzanne was looking for something savory that could be eaten in a bite or two. The three best dishes came from Frank, with a ham and cheese quiche; Ilan, with a deep fried deviled egg; and Carlos, with a raw vegetarian sunflower loaf. Carlos was declared the overall winner for his inventive, tasty dish and received immunity from the possibility of elimination.

Following the vending machine quickfire, the elimination challenge was announced. The group was split into four teams of three and each had to come up with a three course menu where the total number of calories was less than 500. The foods were to be served to children at a fitness/weight loss camp, Camp Glucose. Most of the chefs, with the notable exception of Sam, who is diabetic, had little or no experience counting calories and all were worried about how they were going to make menus work. Fortunately, each team was supplied with a nutritionist who helped streamline their food choices and signed off on the fact that their menus were under 500 calories.

• The Black Team consisted of Marcel, Betty and Frank. They made a sausage pizza, berry melon fruit kebabs, crispy cookies with banana slices and peanut butter drizzle and a berry lemonade. The menu had 440 calories per serving.
• The Red Team had Mia, Michael and Marissa. They made barbecue chicken skewers, coleslaw and chocolate fudge cake with chocolate frosting. Their menu had 480 calories.
• The White Team had Josie Elia and Ilan and they came up with chicken Parmesan, vegetarian lasagna and a berry yogurt cheesecake. This menu had 398 calories.
• The Orange Team was Carlos, Sam and Clif. They put together some turkey meatballs, roasted corn on the cob and fruit smoothies with chocolate graham crackers. The menu had 454 calories.

Most kids wanted pizza and twice as many ordered the Black menu as any other. They loved the pizzas and the yogurt cheesecake, and one girl was overheard to say that she liked Sam (the "hot diabetic") more than any of the food. They did not like the smoothies, which they found to be tart, the coleslaw, barbecue chicken or the turkey meatballs. The judges did not like those elements either and were surprised that the presence of the chocolate cake was not enough to redeem the Red Team's menu in the eyes of the kids.

Once the teams were called to the judges' table, things started to deteriorate. The Black team was declared to be the overall winner, with Frank as the individual winner, but the Red and Orange teams - Sam and Mia, specifically - accused the Black team of cheating once they were called up. Betty readily admitted that she added 2 tablespoons of sugar to her cookie recipe, but also that she made the portion size much smaller to even things out. She stated that she believed that as long as they stayed under the 500 calorie count that they would be fine, but apparently the rules said that once your recipes were set, you could not alter them in any way - even if you still stayed under the limit. Mia later refused to acknowledge that she was the one who brought up Betty's name at the judging table.

The judges were at a loss for what to do and decided that they could not send anyone home this week. They told everyone that they were "on probation" and would be watched very carefully in the future to prevent any further incidents. Does this mean that Tom will be in the corner of the kitchen watching everything as it happens? We'll have to wait for the next episode to find out.

If you're just joining us, check out the recaps from previous episodes to catch up!

• Season Premier
• Episode 2
• Episode 3