Weinr Loves Food!

Iron Chef’s Battle Lentil was on last night. Iron Chef Batali versus Chalmerkittichai raged on with a very universal ingredient – Lentils.

Lentil is a bean (a seed, according to Wikipedia), which I think is a pretty universal ingredient. It was interesting to see how the chefs would integrate Lentils into their dishes.

As an aside, I want to know what’s up with Iron Chef America’s judging panel. What’re the rules and procedures for being an Iron Chef judge? Mo Rocca has been on Iron Chef as a judge, and is generally stupid-funny. His humour is sublte enough that if you don’t get it you think he’s dumb. If you do get it, it’s generally entertaining. But Mo didn’t outwardly try to be funny, whereas the random celebrity chef insert they had on last night did try to be funny, failing miserably. He was so unfunny that I can’t even remember his name. When Alton Brown asked what he thought of Lentils, he started talking about how he thought the Chef’s were going to get into a fight, and he had his money on Batali. But, it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t entertaining. It took away from Iron Chef America. The disrespect of the chefs, what they were doing, and the honor of being a judge, in general took away from Iron Chef. On top of that, the guy didn’t convey the feeling of the food. He didn’t convey the flavor, or the taste. He complimented the chefs, he said their food was “good”, “great”, “fantastic” and other adjectives, but he didn’t tell the viewers how the food tasted. What flavors popped out. The composition of the dish was, as a whole. Nothing that an Iron Chef judge should do. And he wasn’t funny. I hope he won’t be asked back onto the panel.

Anyway, I won’t ruin it as to who won, but it was a good match. Chalmerkittichai seemed to be well versed in Indian Cuisine, so it contrasted well to Batali’s style. That, and it’s refreshing to see that there are Iron Chef’s other than Bobby Flay Don’t get me wrong – we love Bobby Flay, but he’s often the star of Iron Chef. If you haven’t caught the episode, it’s on 01/08, 01/11, 01/12 and 01/13.

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