From being a sore loser after the Quickfire Challenge to blaming his teammates and snapping at Gail Simmons at the judges’ table, Dale Talde did not have his finest public relations moments on “Top Chef” last night. But one of his confessionals about his inferior teammates (presumably including Nikki Cascone) yielded a rude but accurate quote—one of dozens of amazing sound bytes in the season’s most quotable episode:

Why are you still here?

He spoke for all viewers, or at least me. Thankfully, the judges came to the same realization on last night’s episode and sent her packing.

As I said after last week’s episode, Nikki had been “coasting in the middle (bracket) for the bulk of the show.” When her brick of macaroni of cheese was somehow deemed better than Erik Hopfinger’s soggy corn dogs at the losing judges’ table, I was disappointed. But when she opted for pre-packaged sausage and ran out of food before the judges could sample it on a show called “Top Chef”—and still survived—those egregious moves were sufficient for me to call for her elimination sooner than later.

Arguably the weakest remaining contestant is Evangelos “Spike” Mendelsohn, who thrives at both making soup and ticking people off. And while nice-gal Nikki appeared at the judges’ table twice for good dishes (compared to Spike’s one time for said soup skills), Nikki’s culinary offenses far outweighed Spike’s occasional lack of social graces.

Now that Nikki is finally gone, the remaining seven contestants on “Top Chef” might just be the best top seven contestants in the series’ four seasons. I, by no means, consider Spike a weak link. And every other remaining cheftestant has won at least one Elimination Challenge.

After the break is my episode synopsis, which includes all of my favorite direct quotes from last night’s show including Spike’s bride commentary to Andrew D’Ambrosi’s culinary (ahem) lust, head judge Tom Colicchio’s description of Lisa Fernandes’ battleship cake, Richard Blais’ supposed floral expertise and Dale’s snippy reply to Gail Simmons at the judges’ table.

Antonia Lofaso opened the episode talking about how this is the first time that four of the top eight contestants on “Top Chef” were women. I won’t blame her; the more the producers and editors shove it down our throats, the cheaper such a win will become. I’ll say it again: Let the top chef win, regardless of gender.

Instead of a guest chef joining host Padma Lakshmi to judge the Quickfire Challenge, she was joined by Tom. He brought back with him a favorite Quickfire Challenge, the so-called Mis En Place Relay Race, which forced contestants to draw knives and break into teams of four for a relay race involving specific preparations of oranges, artichokes, monk fish and mayonnaise.

Immediately, one team appeared stacked: Antonia, Andrew, Richard and Stephanie (wow!) on Team Fork versus Lisa, Spike, Dale and Nikki on Team Spoon.

It was easy to see why the show loves this Quickfire. It was a lot of fun to watch. After Lisa trounced Antonia in the first leg, Andrew made up all the time lost while going head-to-head with Spike. Andrew had the first of many fun quotes, as it was “me versus The Dragon” Dale to prep the monk fish. They finished in a dead heat, meaning the winner would be decided between who of Stephanie and Nikki could make a quart of mayo without electrical equipment. Stephanie took it for Team Fork and there was much rejoicing.

Except for Dale, who punched a locker in disgust and shouted an expletive at full volume. Probably not the best idea when the head judge is in the room. Admitting that he hated to lose that challenge with such a big lead, this might have been the origin of the upcoming conflict with Spike, whose artichoke fumbling was the reason Team Spoon blew its lead.

That led to the Elimination Challenge, a new take on the popular Restaurant Wars format from previous season. This time, it was Wedding Wars, forcing each team to cater the wedding party for 125 people according to the specs of the bride or groom with a budget of $5,000 and only 14 hours to prep. The show provided the chefs with cots in case they wanted to sleep, but you knew none of the chefs would be getting any shut-eye.

For winning the Quickfire, Team Fork got to select whether they wanted to serve the menu preferred by the bride or the groom, both caterers, without first consulting either one. Doesn’t seem like much of an advantage at all, does it? Basically all the winning team had to go on were gender stereotypes. In fact, it was the worst “advantage” since the season’s first Quickfire challenge, which appeared to punish the best deep-dish pizza makers.

Richard took initiative and convinced Team Fork to pick the bride. Spike’s response, while somewhat stereotypical, had some merit:

They picked the bride, and I’m like, what? Are you guys completely moronic or are you got, like, balls to the wall? Like, I don’t understand. Like, she’s going to want this moment to be exactly the way she envisioned it since she was 14 years old: the food, the decor, the ****ing wedding cake.

Can’t say I’d disagree with that in general, but I still saw where Richard was coming from. If you don’t aim high in “Top Chef,” why bother competing?

Andrew, meanwhile, was loving the prospect of an overnight challenge:

I have a culinary b***r right now, knowing that I’m going to be working all night because this is something that may separate myself from the rest of the crew, ’cause I am an animal and I will work 14 hours nonstop to get the job done without any problems.

Nikki started bonding with the groom over his want for Italian food and thus became a sort of team leader—emphasis on “sort of.” Antonia scoffed at Andrew’s inexperience and at Andrew in general. I scoffed at Antonia as a result.

Spike throws some rare support in the direction of Nikki, whom he said needs to feel confident instead of defensive about criticism from Dale, thus adding to the tension between the two guys.

Andrew’s the source of the next quotable quote:

I’m in charge of flowers. I mean, I watch a little Martha Stewart; I wear pink shoes. That means that I should know something about flowers.

Or not. Stephanie watches a video of his potential flower display and disagrees with his choice of sunflowers. In her confessional, she playfully objects:

Boys just don’t know how to pick out flowers.

As the teams start to prepare the food, the next great quote, which I can’t even do justice on a family-friendly blog, comes from Andrew:

I am literally buried in spinach. I’m like Popeye’s [adjective gerund] dream right now.

As much as I dig Andrew, though, his jealousy of Richard is starting to show. Although quietly putting up with the pink-shoed Martha watcher in the kitchen, Popeye’s pornographer said in a confessional that he didn’t like it when Richard got all up in his spinach.

In the kitchen, Dale felt like he had to pick up everyone’s slack, so he assigned himself to a lot of the dishes that the judges would criticize later.

Tom stopped by the kitchen to check out the progress. His best lines, by far, were about the look of Lisa’s cake:

Lisa made the cake. You know, she has a good excuse for it not looking so great. She said the groom wanted his cake to be really simple. Well, I hope he didn’t say ugly, because that’s what we have. It also looks like a battleship of some sort.

So, it was finally time for the wedding and Stephanie described the Elimination Challenge guest judge, Tru restaurant rep Gale Gand, as “probably the top pastry chef in the city.” Steph, as it turns out, was responsible for the bride’s cake that winds up being superior to Lisa’s cake in aesthetic but somewhat inferior in taste.

The teams took their battle stations, with Team Fork designating Andrew for assignment in the kitchen. Even though I love Andrew and often grumble at Antonia, her comment about him made me chuckle:

Andrew’s staying in the kitchen. Andrew’s not allowed to talk to the guests. Seriously.

After the food was served and the wedding ended, Team Fork was called out of the Stew Room and into the judges’ chambers. There, Andrew was deemed the weak link for chicken that he not only made before but also made better the first time, but because the team won the challenge, he was safe.

The other three—Richard, Antonia and Stephanie—were considered for winning the entire challenge, which the judges determined was Richard, for not only his decision to cook for the bride but also for the quality of his food and leadership skills. He, in turn, tried to give the win to Stephanie because no one else could have come close to making the cake that she did. As a result of Richard’s generosity, Stephanie collected a $2,000 gift certificate to Crate & Barrel. As far as I’m concerned, though, Richard won the challenge. So be sure to make a note of that at home if you’re an official scorer.

Then Team Spoon approached the judges’ table, where the taste of Lisa’s cake and Spike’s above-average fish dish were about the only sources of positive discussion. Despite Dale’s work ethic, most of the dishes for which he claimed responsibility were criticized. He stuck up for himself in front of the judges by blaming his teammates for not doing more, prompting Spike to stick up for Nikki and Lisa and snipe at Dale in the process. Next stop: Awkward City. All aboard.

When Gail said that Spike’s fish was well-liked, Dale snapped back:

You should have liked it! It took him three hours to make it!

Needless to say, Gail’s reaction shot wasn’t exactly smiley.

But in the end, it was pretty obvious that Nikki neither delivered on her specialty of Italian food nor took advantage of her default leadership role. So the judges were right to send her home.

Next week, a handsome former “Top Chef” contestant returns to serve as a guest judge. But where’s the special-guest eye candy for ME, hmm?

In the meantime, post your thoughts about last night’s excellent episode below. What was your favorite quote? Who are your remaining favorites? And which of the Top 7 cheftestants bugs you most?

(Photos by Chuck Hodes for NBC/Universal.)