Top Chef ™

Lana: "I've been thinking about doing this dish that's like a fish mosaic. I just want to bring the flavors of fried fish to something that doesn't look like that. So the stunt is illusion."

Lana: "I'm doing a fish torchon, and hopefully it's going to taste like my mom's fried fish."

Lana: "Normally, my mom batters the fish in, like, a cornmeal fish fry. I want to bring that textural component into the dish, but my crumble is not crisping up. My ratio's off. I feel like this just needs to cook off the butter. I put almost one to one to one, which is what I usually do for crumble. It won't say fish fry if there's no crunchy element to it."

Lana, assembling her dish: "I'm trying to fill my heart shaped pipettes. I thought heart shaped pipettes would look super cute. Cause this is a dish for my mom. One's gonna be hot sauce and the other one's gonna be cocktail sauce. Giving fish basket vibes."

Lana turns to Cesar for advice: "Do you think if I add some tapioca malodextrin to this, it'll crumble it up?" 

Cesar: "Is it fat?" 

Lana: "There's butter in here." 

Cesar: "Then yes."

Presenting to Judges

Lana: "I am trying to recreate my mom's fried fish basket. So it's a torchon of fish. The sauces are like, choose your own adventure. One's a hot sauce. The other one is a cocktail sauce. On the side is tartare sauce, hollandaise, and a cornmeal crumble. So a stunt would be like illusion. The idea is when you eat it all together, it's supposed to taste like my mom's fried fish."