Top Chef All-Stars, Episode 5: New Year's Resolution

This week's train wreck of an episode treated viewers to the unedifying spectacle of our cheftestants freaking out in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, which is apparently the most inhospitable environment imaginable for those of refined sensibilities. It would have been hilarious had it not also been completely horrifying: the sight of our brave competitors looking like deer in so many headlights, paralyzed - nay, petrified - with anxiety, was not one I shall soon forget. Apparently, dim sum kitchens are unlike any other on the planet (I'll take their word for it!) and dim sum service completely beyond the capabilities of any normal fine dining chef (if they say so!).

High points:

• The Shoes sending The Heimlich Maneuver back into the weeds to 'raise some hell' and find out why hungry customers were being neglected
• little old Chinese ladies elbowing the servers out of the way so they could help themselves from the food carts
• Mike I. (supposedly expediting) standing around helplessly screaming 'We need food!' to nobody in particular
• Casey professing her dream of becoming a 'great female butcher' (you go, girl!)
• Fabio sharing the heartwarming tale of his turtle 'princess' and her chihuahua habits

Otherwise, it was just tragic. I had hoped Casey would be around for some time to come but inedible chicken feet are inedible chicken feet and there's just no getting around it. Dale's winning offering of sticky rice and Chinese bacon wrapped in a banana leaf was one of the few I actually wanted to eat (interesting fact: according to the NYTimes, bananas are going extinct). Indeed, Dale's dish was one of the only ones I could eat, since a dim sum blowout in Chinatown appears to be one ginormous gluten-fest. .

This brings me to a startling revelation. I know next to nothing about dim sum. My experience in this area has been sadly lacking, limited to the odd nikkuman (plural = nikkumen) in Tokyo (another interesting fact: in Japan, a Chinese buffet is known as a viking) and several trips to NYC's Oriental Garden 200 years ago when I was in college.

A quick trip down memory lane reveals the restaurant is still there with as extensive a dim sum menu as ever. I count, oh, at least 29 different varieties. The problem is the difficulty of distinguishing gluten-free rice-flour preparations from gluten-filled wheat dishes. Baked Roast Pork Bun is easy, as is Preserved Shrimp Rice Noodle but Sesame Sweet Dough and Seafood Crepe are a little trickier.

There's only one thing for it, I'm afraid. My New Year's Resolution (every girl has to have one, right?) is to make a trip to Chinatown at the first available opportunity to investigate the situation and eat some dumplings.

Let's just hope the All Stars have returned home by then.