Alex Guarnaschelli won her first battle as an Iron Chef against UK Iron Chef Judy Joo tonight on the Food Network. The secret ingredient was Mortadella, and the format for the show was not the normal Iron Chef America format. Both chefs had to present their first dish while they were still cooking, and this dish was also judged while they were cooking, with Alex receiving an 11 and Judy Joo receiving a 9. There was also a 'culinary curveball' revealed during the competition, which was having to use an ebelskiver pan.
After the judges scored all of the dishes, Judy Joo received a total of 75 points (first dish, taste, culinary curveball, originality, plating), while Alex Guarnaschelli received 80 points. I guess this means Alex Guarnaschelli can win battles without Geoffrey Zakarian as one of her judges.
Yeah whats with these twists? It reminded me of Sweet Genuis... I guess they feel like they need to keep the competition fresh..
ReplyDeleteIn the end the first episode that the new iron chef is feature in the iron chef will always win (honestly its possible this wasnt Alex's first battle but they edited it so it seems like it is) honestly it would seem like a shane if the new iron chef did lose their first battle so its possible they do it out of order... but i dunno theres still a lot of secrets of how televised cooking competitions work...
Im more curious of Guarnaschelli's beastly woman sous chef! It was kind of like when you saw Anne Burrell for the first time.. She may have some promise in the future but wonder who the hell she is!
Judy Joo is a class act though Im unsure why shes in the UK Iron Chef or her history but I liked her as a judge in season 4.. she was also a huge supporter of Falkner so that was cool thing of her.
actually, her sous chef is ashley merriman, another top chef alum. she was on the season with the voltaggio brothers. i remember enjoying her quite a bit.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/bio/ashley-merriman
as for the episode, i didn't care for the twists either, it seemed like it really distracted from just making a really awesome meal. there are so few straight forward cooking shows on the food network anymore, i would hate for iron chef to go down that path. i hope this isn't going to be a new thing.
Awesome find, I had a feeling I may have seen her before somewhere (although I didnt see her season of Top Chef)
DeleteYeah I feel like food network reformatting Iron Chef to be more like their other competition shows (Chopped, Sweet Genius, etc) is unecessary because Iron Chef is great on its own merit. 2 great chefs battle, Secret Ingredient (or secret theme), make 4 or more dishes within an hour, and be judged .. thats it.. it was simple but challenging and thats what most people fell in love with when the original Japanese version came out. I dont mind so much of adding a twist like certain tools to be used, I just think perhaps those should be announced at the beginning and not start and stop crap
So agree w/ you about the "twists" in the regular Iron Chef competition...it's so contrived and absurd and detracts from the quality of the show.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the twists are here to stay as they used them again in last nights episode.
ReplyDeleteHow many did she lose prior to this airing? Has she won any since? NO!
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