There was not much coming from the guest judge as the owner of the famous Tramonto’s Steak and Seafood restaurant kept most of the comments to himself. When he offered some clearly logical criticism on the participants’ efforts, in the end he got some quite insulting advice from Spike. The latter had trouble coming up with a good dish after choosing unwanted scallop the other competitors left aside. When told by Tramonto that he should have left the scallops aside, Spike shocked everyone by rebutting that with his background and experience, Rick Tramonto should not even have had the scallops in the freezer. Wow!
Now if I wanted to win a competition like Top Chef and had one of the most famous steak and seafood restaurant chefs around as the guest judge (like Rick Tramonto clearly was), I would never have had criticised him or her no matter how pissed I was with the contest ingredients supplied. Earlier on in the show, Spike had shown off how good he was at making steaks, and even won that particular challenge of making a good steak. But hours later he was shooting himself in the foot when he could not back up his good steak dish and cooked up a storm, literally. Adding another cyclone over it by criticising a famous chef like Rick Tramonto was akin to eliminating himself. Perhaps Spike was not interested in hanging around much longer and becoming someone as good as Rick or opening restaurants as famous as Rick Tramonto’s Steak and Seafood.
