Las Vegas Weekly

October 21, 2009 · 7:01 AM

Rick Moonen is guest judge on Top Chef: Las Vegas tonight

By Robin Leach

Rick Moonen.

Photo: www.KassidyPhotography.com

Slowly, the competition heats up, and the knives get sharper on Top Chef: Las Vegas, and all the experts are predicting that chef Robin Leventhal will be sent packing on the ninth week when our chef Rick Moonen from Mandalay Bay is the guest judge tonight on the Bravo series. This season was filmed at The M Resort.

Last week when our chef Charlie Palmer from Mandalay Bay, The Four Seasons and The Stirling Club was guest judge, Ash Fulk was eliminated. Rick is throwing a viewing party at his RM Seafood in Mandalay Bay, so you can watch along with him, order one of his incredible dishes and then ask him how the quick-fire challenge really went! But his lips are sealed if you try to pry any upcoming secrets out of him.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Top Chef: Las Vegas is the fiery and intense love-hate relationship between brothers Michael and Bryan Voltaggio, and if Johnny Avello, the Wynn and Encore race and sports book director, continues his uncanny accuracy, they will be in the final four slicing and dicing not only against each other, but also banging pans against Kevin Gillespie and Jennifer Carroll.

Here are Johnny’s latest odds and, again, we must point out that this is for entertainment purposes only and not for wagering: Kevin, who opened at 8/1, is now a 2/1 favorite, with Robin, who started out at 28/1, now 75/1 and facing the meat cleaver. The others are Michael Voltaggio, who opened at 11/1, is now 5/2; Jennifer Carroll (20/1) is now 3/1; brother Bryan (15/1) is now 5/1; Eli Kirshtein (22/1) is now 18/1; Michael Isabella (25/1) is now 25/1; and Laurine Wickett (4/1) is now 50/1.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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