Much of the opening volley into the program played like last season's version: viewers met the combatants, the Chairman posed the challenge and AB kept everyone on task.The overarching theme for this episode was Ingenuity. The chefs had to make their dishes reflect this theme in both challenges.
The first challenge, the non-elimination one, started with Alton rolling out a cart of bread. With this bread, AB posed the chefs to make an All-American classic--the sandwich--that also represented their personality.
At this point two of the chefs with Italian backgrounds, opted for bruschetta. This was a tad bid baffling because bruschetta doesn't seem to be classified as a sandwich, to me at least. Even AB's own definition in the episode, was two pieces of bread with something between it. Also, isn't technically the sandwich English being named after the English nobleman, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (ok, someone has watched too much Good Eats); therefore, not really All-American? Oh, the questions I'd love to pose to Mr. Brown. But for the sake of the show, let's say American cusine has taken the sandwich and made it our own.
Chef Mario Pagan's bruschetta didn't pass scrutiny of his fellow combatants. Although, he was a standup guy in labeling his offering the worst. Unlike Chef Duskie Estes who voted her own sandwich as the best of the group and mostly likely painted herself as the villain for the rest of series or as long as she lasts on the show.
That brazen move, however, put Chef Estes in the driver's seat for the elimination challenge. With that win she was given first crack at the pantry and a five minute head start on the challenge. First the others whined that she took all of the proteins; however, in the end the greed was her downfall and she didn't make good use of the items taken and ended up on the cusp of being elimenated.
The whole one ingredient on a dessert is was a little strange. Several of the chef's chose the same thing, pig and corn. I'm not certain why one would want a pig because of the amount of prep involved. Therefore, the corn seemed to make more sense but I didn't think corn was a versatile as Chef Celina Tio thought for this challenge.
Final thoughts on the first episode:I had serious grill lust spying the Big Green Eggs at each chef's station.
Great to see Michael Symon as a judge during the entire show because he is an Iron Chef and went through the ordeal himself. He knows better than anyone what to look for in judging the constestants.
This may be The Next Iron Chef, but the agent provocateur is in serious need of an iron for his sports coat. What's with the crumpled coat there Alton trying to be the new Colombo?
AB didn't seem as pompous or annoying in the first challenges as last year and in similar programs. In fact I enjoyed how he barked the rules on the beach like a drill sergeant.
And I'm still pulling for Ming Tsai.
0 comments:
Post a Comment