'Top Chef Vegas' - Small Portions, Dirty Jokes and Natalie Portman

At this point in the usual "Top Chef" season trajectory, you might expect a certain focus and discipline that naturally comes with narrowing the playing field down to seven ambitious young chefs, each working at the top of his or her game. This year, however, is another story.

Maybe it's that the talented and reliable Jen is off her game, or that the universally derided Robin is still around or that the twerpy Eli can actually put together an interesting plate of food for once. In any event, Wednesday night's episode felt like a detour into a "Top Chef" bizarro-world, where up is down, left is right and nobody knows anything anymore. Well, almost anything: Robin still sucks, Michael V. is still a cocky jerk and Kevin is still the model of modest brilliance.

Rattling off the random highlights of the episode sounds as scattered as Robin's cooking philosophy: Dirty jokes! Vegetarianism! Natalie Portman! No Toby Young! A Quickfire challenge that revealed itself to be a desperate marketing ploy! Make that two marketing ploys! In fact, Portman's description of one dish neatly summed up the entire episode: "It makes me smile and laugh -- and I'm confused!"

Where to begin? The Quickfire, once a showcase for think-on-your-feet resourcefulness, has devolved into a bizarre compendium of abstract themes that may or may not have anything to do with food. The episode's TV Guide-sponsored "Modern TV Dinner" challenge might have seemed like a good idea in theory -- dig those ceramic 5-portion plates! -- but the shows each chef was given for "inspiration" confounded more than focused the matter.

What Jen's measly chicken roulade had to do with "The Flintstones" was anyone's guess; ditto for Michael V.'s rich-looking chicken Parmesan and Swiss chard, which we couldn't exactly picture Norm scarfing down with a Pilsner at "Cheers." Pity Jersey Mike, who was thrown a softball with "Seinfeld" -- Babka! Cereal! Kung Pao chicken! Gyro! Junior Mints! -- but had never seen the show and thusly served up sausage and mushrooms (huh?). No matter -- when Kevin won for his luscious, "Sopranos"-inspired meatballs, polenta and roasted pears, the entire challenge was revealed to be a plug for Top Chef Frozen Dinners from Schwan's.

Meanwhile, the promise of a challenge at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak Las Vegas was soon revealed to be an evil ploy: With visions of lamb and other rare mammals dancing in their heads, they perused Craftsteak's stocked-to-the-gills meat cooler, only to be confronted by a Very Special Guest Diner: devout vegetarian Portman.

Introduced in a shawl borrowed from her Queen Amidala wardrobe, Portman proved easier to please than full-out vegan Zooey Deschanel did on this summer's "Top Chef Masters," but this didn't stop the chefs from weighing in on her "kind." Eli let loose with a classy "they're lower human beings," while Jen asserted her carnivorous status: "I've never been and I never, ever will be," as if she were testifying in a congressional witch hunt.

By the time the stressed carnivores served the actress and her "like, 10 really bleep hot friends" -- according to Eli, presumably not including Portman's male buddy -- the no-flesh guidelines had taken their toll. Jen served up a meager portion of eggplant and fennel, and while the verjus she spooned over each plate saved the dish, her nerves got the best of her: Later, Portman went so far as to call out her "super-defeatist" attitude.

Jersey Mike took a first step in sealing his fate when he mistakenly referred to his sad-looking leek, lying there on the plate like a giant slug, as a "protein." Ultimately, it was the poor technique and not the misnomer that caused him to lose, but we will forever remember him for alerting us to the Atkins-worthy nutritional value of our friends in the onion family.

And if Jersey Mike was out, that could only mean one thing: Robin was still in. Even with her veggie leanings, the scatterbrained chef couldn't control herself, ending up with a colorful mess of beets, chermoula and fresh garbanzos, most of which didn't even make it to the plate. Her babbling at the judges table had us fooled: Certainly Tom and Padma wouldn't tolerate such nonsense, but no, she survived to cook another day. Indeed, when we have robbed the earth of all its natural resources and made it uninhabitable, Robin will still be there, like the proverbial cockroach, serving up plates of attractive if inedible dirt, garbage and radioactive dust.

On the plus side, Eli pulled together an eggplant-and-radish-salad dish that was as elegant as it was surprising; it even inspired the comment "it tastes like a little prick on the tip of my tongue!" from Padma, which set off a never-ending chain of fellatio jokes, each worse than the last.

Despite Eli's underdog showing, the competition really came down to "Top Chef" titans Kevin and Michael V., the former with a dark, simple plate of smoked kale, mushrooms and turnip puree, the latter with a complex, decorative mix of asparagus and "sashimi" tomatoes, straddled alongside a banana polenta, of all things.

Portman gushed over Michael's finery -- it was he who caused her delightful confusion, and prompted her to ask, "who is his dealer and does he want new clients?" But by this point in the game, it's obvious that Kevin's deceptively simple comfort food has a richness and complexity that the judges can't help but reward.

Their verdict, of course, did not sit well with our tatted-up frat-boy friend Michael, whose perma-pout is really starting to wear thin. "I could've made that dish in 20 minutes," he sneered, making us wonder if this season's inevitable Michael-Kevin finale isn't going to be even nastier than we predict. If so, we can't wait.