How 'bout them apples?

Big-name guest judges. (Jeans-Georges!) Gratuitous product placement. (GE Monogram!) Tom and Padma. (Padma!) Bloody apples. (Bloody apples?)

Oh yeah, baby, “Top Chef” is back! And as usual, we’ll be blogging all season, following the progress of (and shamelessly cheering for) Chicago chef Radhika Desai.

This week, Desai gave us a bit of a scare right off the bat, landing in the bottom four in the first Quickfire Challenge. Ultimately, she won Tom and Padma over with her seared pork chop and apple chutney. She didn’t get too much screen time during the Elimination Challenge—Bravo was busy developing story lines like “Team Rainbow” (the gay alliance) and “The Euro Duo” (the cocky Finnish/Italian guys, complete with subtitling)—though Gail casually threw out her name as a candidate for the judge’s table. In the end, our hometown hope slipped through to see another day in the “Top Chef’ kitchen. We’re wildly conflicted on her food—we’ve enjoyed her desserts and sweeter brunch dishes, but we’ve had some serious misses at dinner—so we can’t wait to hear what the judges think.

It’s too soon for detailed predictions about who will stay and who will go, but we’re starting to get a sense of who’s going to fill the now well-established “Top Chef” roles.

Heartthrob: Fabio. The guy’s from Italy and his name is Fabio. It’s almost unfair.

Pretty boy: Jeffrey. Actual quote: “It hurts me if I’m not perfect.”

Badass chick: Jamie. Mad tatts. Enough said.

Cocky guy everyone loves to hate: Stefan. (And if the teasers for next week are true to form, this is gonna get good!)

Underdog: Eugene. We almost cried when Padma told him how much she loved his dish. Real tears.

Potential sleeper: Hosea. Cameras see a strong silent type. We see potential.

Let’s see … who are we missing? We’ll fill in the blanks as Bravo’s master plan unfolds. Until then, check out some of our behind-the scenes photos of Desai in her kitchen here in Chicago and take a closer look at how she fared this week over at The Stew.

-- M. Kathleen Pratt