Danny: "I made a soba cha mushroom broth with mushroom puree, cod, and a little furikake on top."

Gail Simmons: "So what's the inspiration behind this?"

Danny: "There's kind of two points. One, just to redeem myself a little bit for the terrible tea that I served you at restaurant wars. And then subtle dishes typically get lost here in the top chef kitchen. So I wanted to do what I interpret as a subtle dish with a lot of nuanced flavors."

(Judges, eating, look at each other.)

Judge: "So you think this is subtle?"

Danny: "I think it has some restraint to it. Yes."

Judges (behind the scenes) ...

"It's not subtle. Nothing subtle."

"It's a good dish, but it's clearly not subtle."

"I love the Japanese aspect of it. I love the way that the furikake brings the ocean back into the fish, but I'm not necessarily reading the tea aspect of the dish."

"You know, if tea's gonna be your main point on this storytelling, why isn't it just swimming in this, like, gorgeous bath of tea? I mostly tasted the mushroom."

"The fish was just sort of lost."

"The fish is buried in a lot of big flavor. Yeah, that said, it's a good miss."