As an appetizer to season 3 of Top Chef, Bravo offered us a MFing cook-off! between the top four contestants from seasons 1 and 2. Well, sort of.

Lee Anne Wong, the third runner up from S1 is now a cooking producer for the show so she was replaced by sommelier Stephen.

Otherwise the top finishers were all there meaning Harold, Tiffani and Dave from S1 and Ilan, Marcel, Elia and Sam from S2.

They were cooking for charity and bragging rights so let the epic "smackdown" begin!

S1's charity was the Susan G. Komen Foundation and S2's charity was the very appropriate hunger and food related charity, supported in part by chefs and restaurants, Share Our Strength. The winning team's charity receives $20,000.

The competition starts with a quick fire challenge which Padma Lakshmi informs them will give the winning team a "meaningful advantage." The chefs have to each cook two eggs perfectly, deliciously and impressively with one hand tied behind their back. Well not actually tied - but held behind their back and covered with a giant oven mitt.

It was quickly clear that time away from the TV kitchen has not changed any of these contestants. Dave is still a bundle of nerves bringing the spicy. Tiffani is still convinced she's perfect and is bossy. Stephen is still arrogant and Harold is still intense. On team 2, Marcel remains an annoying foam purveyor. Ilan is still distracted. Elia still cooks quietly, simply and competently. And Sam is still low key.

Despite being most annoying dopplegangers from their respective seasons, their persnicketyness pays off and Stephen and Marcel are the individual winners (and thus team captains for the main challenge) for their perfect omelet and saffron foam eggs respectively. Chef Tom Colicchio declares S1 the overall winner. The meaningful advantage they win is that they will have $300 vs. $200 for food shopping for the main challenge.

The challenge is to prepare four dishes for a mystery group of judges (wanna take a wild guess as to who the judges will be?). Each team is to prepare four courses using scallops, lobster, duck, and Kobe beef. The head-to-head set up ends up pitting Dave vs. Elia with the scallops, Stephen vs. Marcel with the lobster, Harold vs. Ilan with the duck and Tiffani vs. Sam with the beef.

Stephen pushes his team to have a unified Mediterranean flavors theme throughout the dishes. Although this flummoxes Dave and his spicy comfort food style and goes against his belief that since they are in Miami the food should be "fun," he's down for the team and agrees. Stephen also, unsurprisingly, decides that they should use their extra $100 to buy matching wine flights for the courses.

Marcel is content to let everyone do their own thing and not force upon the team an orgy of foam and chemically altered molecular gastronomy. Left to their own devices, Ilan hangs out looking in the fridges and listening in on S1's planning until they walk away in disgust.

As they prepare their courses, we see further proof that no growing or changing has occurred for any of these characters since appearing on the show. Ilan is freaking out over ducks - apparently he does not know how to cook them Spanish-style. Marcel is shown rapping about the superiority of S2 and it is very, very wrong. Ilan "accidentally" knocks over Marcel's diced mango.

S1 is taking great delight in their trash talking about S2. Stephan accuses Ilan of being immature and unprofessional. Dave calls Marcel arrogant. Harrold calls Marcel immature and unprofessional.

While checking in on their progress, Chef Tom explains to Stephan how his wine strategy might backfire - what if the wine better compliments the competitor's dish? Stephan in his overconfidence in his superiority never considered this concept and seems a little rattled.

The judges are revealed and they are, ta-da, the contestants for S3 (which displeases and offends S1 and S2) and Tom, Padma, Gail Simmons from Food & Wine magazine and newly permanent judge Ted Allen from the now defunct Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Dave offers smoked scallops with Meyer lemon vinaigrette and olive tapenade. Elia has prepared, at Marcel's suggestion, a duo of hot and cold scallops - one seared with a marmalade and one a carpaccio with endive. The S3's, while enjoying Elia's searing and the marmalade, are not digging the carpaccio and bitter endive. Dave's dish generally seems to be well received.

For the lobster course, Stephen's wine choice is not enhancing his dish of beure blanc poached lobster with cauliflower creme anglaise and one of the S3 contestants comments about Marcel's foam and gelee topped lobster (both of which melted in the Miami heat proving that Marcel learned absolutely nothing from his similar disaster in Hawaii and he actually idiotically [considering he's from Las Vegas] expressed surprise that it was hot in Miami): "There's a ton of undefinable liquid on Marcel's plate."

Harold's spicy duck meatballs with minted gnocci were unsurprisingly much better received than Ilan's haphazard concoction of duck that was to be deep fried and then switched to pan roasted accompanied with wild rice topped with a last minute decision of runny egg yolk. The yolk grossed out folks in the Miami heat and caused one S3 contestant to remark after the third disconnected dish from S2 that: "this team hates each other."

Tiffani created Kobe beef two ways with roasted and carpaccio served with Parmesan polenta and parsley puree and then topped with Kobe beef crudo. The raw beef topping was confusing and not well received. Not much commentary on Sam's seared Kobe beef with mushroom and confit and onion relish and S3 contestants are busy being outraged that Sam did not win and Ted being outraged that one S3 contestant deemed Sam merely "kinda" cute.

At the judges table the 4 judges seemed to generally take an opposite view from the S3 contestants. Although the judges seemed to enjoy Stephen's lobster the contestants included some disciples of Marcel's aggressive, in your face foam, as Ted described it.

The judges were surprised but they generally enjoyed Dave's scallops. And, although they loved Elia's seared scallop, they were mixed on the carpaccio. They felt Tiffani and Sam offered signature dishes. Ilan's duck was a mess but Ted was blown away by the only Spanish touch to the dish, the finishing gastrique.

The winners of each course were Elia's scallops, Stephan's lobster, Harold's duck and Tiffani's beef. So, to no one's surprise, season 2 wins and the Susan G. Komen foundation is $20K richer.

As a parting gift to season 3 contestants, Sam provides this bit of advice: "Don't read the blogs."