"I was never really in the bottom much, so what do you expect?" he said, adding that the judges took his nonchalant attitude toward landing at the bottom as cockiness because Jennifer looked like she was about to cry and Robin was crying while they faced the judges.

"I'm a strong individual," he said. "You're going to judge me because I'm not upset? I mean, what do you want me to do? It's food. I cooked a bad dish, I knew I should be there. So, it is what it is."

If you've seen the episode, at one point, Mike said, "Whether or not mine was worse or not worse as the person next to me, tomorrow I'll try to make it better. I'm not concerned at this point. I know I'm going to pull through.

Isabella was perhaps one of the first highly regarded chef-testants to get the boot this season of Top Chef, which had pretty much shaped up to be fairly predictable. Front-runners V brothers, Kevin, and, until a few episodes ago, Jennifer perennially emerged winners in the challenges and had consistently managed to elude elimination.

Until a few episodes ago, because Jennifer had shown signs of mortality when she found herself in the bottom of challenges for the past episode or two. Surely, the elimination of Mike I. has stirred things up a bit on the Top Chef house, especially since Robin, who wasn't really considered a contender, outlasted him.

As for the 34-year-old North Jersey native, Mike reveals that he's back to Zaytinya in Washington, D.C. and he loves it.

"To me, to be a part of running Zaytinya and working with [Chef] José Andrés, there's not much more you can ask for. Eventually you open up your own place, and I feel I'm on par and on goal with my career and am going to keep moving forward."


- Glenn L. Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: TV Guide
(Image courtesy of Bravo)