As I said before, go to Foodnetwork.com and check the video feeds if you don't want spoilers, as I am not going to cover my post in spoiler text.
- INNOVATION
(From Dictionary.com)
in⋅no⋅va⋅tion
–noun| 1. | something new or different introduced |
| 2. | the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods. |
Today's test was called "innovation", but I would like to call it "fusion" after the fusion cuisine Morimoto is so fond of using.
Fusion cuisine is a term for a type of cuisine that is altered to infuse or transform it into another type of cuisine. Taking an example from the episode, Alton Brown introduces the major part of the test while the chefs are chowing down on "Korean tacos" from a taco truck - tacos made with Korean ingredients. (I bet Debbie Lee is looking at that and sobbing into her hands right now. Okay, that's the only jab I'm ever making about that Korean contestant from the last season of The Next Food Network Star. I respect her and it's no fair people make fun of her constant use of the phrase "Because I'm Korean" to make an excuse for why she used certain items.)
But you can't fuse any cuisines if you don't know what you're fusing, so the minor pre-test test was to go to one of four LA Asian restaurants, taste a dish that was presented to them by the cooks there, reconstruct it using only the experience of the taste, and present it to the chefs. The eight chefs were paired up and competed in a little cookoff thing, with the winner getting an advantage in the major test - a flat five-minute bonus to their cooking time then.
Mullen won the last challenge, so he got to decide who went where. Obviously, this sort of advantage means that if you don't win, your chances of success are sliced in half because the winner is your rival and will do everything in his power to sabotages your chances.
The cuisines were Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and the obvious one, Chinese. But this was no take-out trip, this was serious business. The dishes were - and I know I'll get lots of comments saying "NO! YOU DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION! X_x", but I am typing this after waking up from a two-hour nap after an all-nighter, so I am not all there. <_>
- KOREAN: DolSot Bibimap - a mixed rice dish that is served in a stone pot; Mullen chose this last and paired with Appleman
- VIETNAMESE: Beef Pho - a beef noodle soup which includes lentils and bean sprouts; Crenn and Garces were sent there
- THAI: A green curry dish with fish meatballs; Freitag and Mehta were sent there
- Finally, CHINESE: Pork and vegetable steamed dumplings, and Trevino and Farmerie were sent there
Anyways, the winners of this part were the girls Trevino and Appleman - so Mullen's advantage was nuked. However, he won the major challenge...
...which was to do an AmericAsian fusion dish, taking what the dish they had learned and using the knowledge to make a classic USA dish with those ingredients. The entries were many and varied, but the ones I remember well were Mullen's Korean Reuben with faux-kimchi(spicy pickled cabbage) to replace the traditional sauerkraut and short rib cuts to replace the pastrami, and Mehta's take on McDonald's drive-thru fare(even moreso when he tried to use the ice cream machine and it didn't perform AGAIN; that dreaded ice cream machine curse is here too!) using Thai ingredients. His failed green-tea ice cream was turned into a milkshake.
To be honest, I was not fond of the packaging stuff in plastic tupperware. Mehta knew he was going to be fighting to be an Iron Chef, and he competed in Kitchen Stadium against one, so he knows that 5 points are for presentation. As Alton Brown said "What were you thinking?!?!"
Still, he 'survived to cook another day.'
Brad Farmerie, whose surname sounds like some hayseed hick, did not. I wish I could feel sad for him... but to be honest, I didn't see him at all. He was just hovering in the background like a vapid ghost while his rivals were busting things out left and right. I agree with Alton - chefs, like everyone else, have rotten days once in a while, but Chef Farmerie had a rotten MONTH.
Mehta too - I know he's not a quitter, but if I were him, I'd stop messing with that (bleep)ed-up ice cream maker, or at least demand that they repair the freaking thing so it FREEZES PROPERLY. Unless, of course, that was the plan all along... I smell rival sabotage.
Phew, this was a long post! But I wanted to show you that I'm alive and will keep blogging on this. From the Wiki, I see there are five episodes left, and one challenge each, so these five challenges(and I am guessing the last will be another Kitchen Stadium showdown like last time) will be super-hard and throw nasty fireballs at our remaining seven chefs.
One final note: I am secretly rooting for Crenn. She is seriously in danger of getting chopped next. Alton himself said she needs to shape up or ship out. I want to see another Iron Chef French like Sakai, and Crenn's got the chops to fill Sakai's shoes. But she is not gonna do it if she keeps having so many problems and remaining on 'death row.' Please, Crenn, make Sakai proud.
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