your time starts…NOW!

It’s finally here! Top Chef is back and it’s all going down in sin city this season.  After a disappointing run in NYC (the foodie capital of the world, can you beat that?!) I’m hoping that Vegas will redeem the judge’s table.  I’ve learned that the premier is going to run 15 minutes longer than the rest of the season.  That’s 900 extra seconds of Padma, Tom, Gail, and Toby speaking my favorite language - food! And it’s all going down tonight at 9 EST on Bravo.

After some reasearch online about this year’s contestants (all 17 of them), I’ve narrowed down my selection to a few promising chefs.  While trying not to “judge a chef by his/her haircut” (if you’ve seen any season of Top Chef, you’ll know what I mean), here is my list of faves:

Preeti Mistry | Age: 33 | San Francisco, CA

Jennifer Carrol | Age: 33 | Philadelphia, PA

Laurine Wicket | Age: 38 | Rochester, NY

As you can see, I’m rooting for the women.  We need more women chefs out there!

I do want to mention a few other contestants.  As I did my research, I learned that 2 of the contestants are actually brothers!  Michael and Bryan Voltaggio will be living out a true sibling rivalry on the show.  My money is on Michael, the winner of a Michelin star and friend of Marcel and Hung (season 3 Top Chef) – any friend of Hung’s is a friend of mine! Both look to be pretty talented, so we’ll see if my girls can hold them off.

****SPOILER ALERT****

If you DON’T want to know what happens tonight…I’ll leave you here and bid you good watching!

If you DO want to know what happens tonight, I can tell you that the Elimination challenge takes place in Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse Cut and the challenge will be to create a dish based on a personal sin. We could learn a lot more about our cheftants than we thought tonight! Puck will be a guest judge tonight and there will be teams selected by poker chips.  Vegas, baby!

So there you have it.  Just a few more hours and the fun will begin.  Happy watching!