Cat Cora’s home is in California, and Iron Chef America is filmed in New York. She and her partner have a houseful of kids, and she might want to spend more time closer to home now while they are young.
~VOW
I don’t blame her. I’d want to do that too.
I liked Beau well enough, but I can’t say I’m sorry to see him go. He was grossing me out with his funny mouth movements. He looked like he was re-chewing food he’d eaten hours earlier.
Or something. It was icky to me.
Yeah, Beau is not exactly very camera-friendly, unfortunately.
Zacharian was clearly the chefs’ favorite in the elimination battle - they were all ooing and ahing over his technique (although I think MacMillan usually has a better command of flavors, and SE Asia is a great base to work with).
Anyways, I’m rooting for Faulkner. She’s good, she gets stuff done, and she has good creative flair. From what I’ve seen over her plating, she’s probably as good or better at it than any Iron Chef except for Morimoto.
I’d never heard of this show before several weeks ago. My fiance loves the Food Network, so I’ve been watching with her, and I think it’s pretty awesome!
I do sort of miss the campy drama of The Chairman, however.
Next to go? I’m thinking Marcus “What–soup again???” Samuelsson!
I’ll admit, I’m a little disappointed with my man Marcus. I just loved him on Top Chef Masters, but he doesn’t seem to be hitting the right notes with these judges.
StG
I guess my DVR messed up at the end part of the show and i missed who won the final battle. Who reigned supreme? haha
Zacharian beat MacMillan in the elimination challenge, thanks to his coconut halibut crudo.
Regarding Samuelsson… I do want him to do well, but at this point I’m not sure if he can pull it off, since he has trouble rising to the top of challenges. A lot of it is because of the diversity he brings to the show - not because he’s black, silly, but because he cooks African and Scandinavian food, and sometimes both. I feel like Iron Chef is way too Mediterranean-centric and his food would be a nice change of pace.
So Faulkner is the only one left who I want to see win. My support will likely doom her as it has all the rest.
I wish I could pick lottery numbers this well. Going by my predictions, Burrell falls next week. Going into final judging, I thought I might’ve been 100% off in my predictions.
Apparently tonight’s Chairman’s Challenge is a New York City theme. Does this give any of the chefs an advantage/disadvantage?
I have no idea where any of them are from.
Jeffrey Zakarian, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Marcus Samuelson all have restaurants in Manhattan. Anne Burrell is based out of NC. Faulkner and Chiarello are from Northern California.
I’m wondering when they are going to call Zakarian on making multiple dishes when only one is called for? They have warned him before but no action has been taken yet. Sunday night, he served 4 dishes when he was only supposd to do one and stated that he’d just ignore the rules because that’s how he cooks. Not really fair to the others I don’t think.
Bob
How is it not fair? The only thing they’ve said is that it opens him up to more risk, so it’s not like it doesn’t come without its own risks. Also, I was never aware that they were required to make one and only one dish.
Marcus did a duo and won and someone else did a trio and may or may not have won, but they didn’t lose because they “didn’t follow the rules”.
“No (more) soup for you. Next!”
I found the judges’ comments interesting, especially their criticism of Faulkner’s lack of storytelling pizzazz. I understand that the challenge was to “tell a story”, but it is somewhat unfair to demand someone with a generally stoic demeanor to become a passionately animated orator, IMO. Isn’t this supposed to be about the food?
I kinda thought Guarnaschelli should have been put in the head-to-head, due to her inclusion of a non-edible item as part of her meal-story. I mean, Samuelsson could just as easily have squirted the judges with a perfume atomizer and said he smelled the dolled-up ladies outside the theaters; Faulkner could have included a ‘fragrant’ bowl of sewage-laden East River water; Burrell could have sprayed them with pigeon shit.
In the end, the weakest remaining competitor was eliminated, so I suppose the point is moot!
I loved the look of the market, it was HUGE!
I absolutely agree! It seems that the evaluation was more about the story telling than the food. Snarkaschelli plate looked like bad compost heap and tasted worse but damn she could tell a story. :rolleyes: And the bag of shit we couldn’t eat? Brilliant! Honestly, until Samuelsson got booted, I thought that we were headed for an all Chopped semifinal and that the fix was in. I’m still not convinced that the producers aren’t gunning for a Zacharian & Snarkaschelli final - does anyone know if Chopped is coming back next year? If not, I think Ted needs to fill the role of Fukui and move Alton to Hattori style color commentary.
Then again there’s editing involved and it was clear that some of the judges didn’t get Falkner’s dish.
Symon: “WTF! Do I eat it from one side to the other?”
Falkner: “Ummm . . . it’s a bridge. You know, the Brooklyn Bridge.”
I think Symon got it, he was just asking if Falkner had any deeper story to tell by wanting the dish to be eaten in any particular direction. She didn’t and he was a little disappointed.
I wonder why Anne Burrell bought 5 game hens when there were 6 judges?
StG
Calling Falkner for the win. Putting her and Samuelsson (my two picks - not necessarily my two faves however) at the bottom this week was just to throw us off.
My favorite part was Burrell’s comment that she hoped Falkner’s sauce tasted better than it looks and Guarnaschelli’s “No you don’t”, to which Burrell responded with a jaw drop. Now I heartily wish for Guarnaschelli to fail.
I’ve wanted her to lose from the first challenge. She appears to choke under too much pressure, and Faulkner carried her in the first competition. Since then, we’ve seen she really knows how to cook. If she wins, she might make Flay finally look sympathetic.
Hipster StP has wanted Snarkaschelli (good name btw!) from the beginning, because I hated her from her appearance on Iron Chef and Butter is a bad restaurant. Obviously her comment about the sauce did not improve my opinion.
It’s unfortunate that it had to be a Samuelsson-Faulkner showdown, and worse that Samuelsson put his best food forward and still got eliminated. But his story was weak for sure, so he deserved to get knocked down to the elimination game. It felt much more suited to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island locale so it’s unfortunate for him that he got it stolen, but rules is rules.