This week saw the crowning of the newest Iron Chef. If you’re not a fan of the Food Network, or Iron Chef America, you probably don’t care, but I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be fans of either of those things! Iron Chef is one of the top competition shows on television, especially if you’re a foodie like I am.
Even if you’re not a a foodie, though, The Next Iron Chef has been a great competition program that focused more on the contest than creating villains or “characters” and for that, I think it deserves kudos.
The Next Iron Chef has been a fun ride, and unlike so many competition shows on television, the stakes actually meant something to the viewers. After all, when it comes right down to it, do we viewers really have any stake in the winner of Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model or even American Idol? At the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter. The second place winner on American Idol usually has just as much (or more) success as the winner, and the winners of other competitions usually fade out of the zeitgeist as quickly as the losing contestants. With The Next Iron Chef, however, the winner becomes a staple on Iron Chef America, competing in Kitchen Stadium on a regular basis.
This year’s competition came down to a cook off between Jose Garces and Jehangir Mehta. I was pleased when Chef Garces prevailed, as I thought he was the much stronger competitor throughout the show. Truth be told, I’m not quite sure how Chef Mehta made it as far as he did. I didn’t have a chance to taste any of the food (unfortunately), but I felt that both Chefs Freitag and Mullen outcooked Chef Mehta. Oh well, in the end I think we have a great new Iron Chef.
The finale was very interesting, especially the final judging. I thought it was fascinating that there seemed to be a difference of opinions between the sitting Iron Chefs and the regular judges. It may have just been the editing (because we never saw the final votes), but it sure seemed like the Iron Chefs were heavily in favor of Garces and the judges were leaning toward Mehta. In the end, I’m glad that Garces prevailed and I look forward to seeing what he can do in his first battle in January.
Did you watch The Next Iron Chef? What did you think of the outcome?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Nov 24, 2009 @ 20:56 EST5EDT
I was rooting for Chef Mehta, because he always seem to be doing more interesting dishes and taking more chances.
The big question — just how many Iron Chefs can they have?
There really aren’t that many, the only ones that are really left are Cat Cora, Bobby Flay, and Michael Symon.
Iron Chef Morimoto has had three challenges this year.
Iron Chef Batali has the best record.
I never counted Morimoto in this one, because he’s from the Japanese show. lol
Iron Chef Batali record doesn’t matter when he hasn’t fought in 2+ years.
They really only ever have 4 active Iron Chefs. Michael Symon took over for Mario Batali (who hasn’t competed in years) and the word on the street was that Garces would be taking over for Morimoto, who wants to focus on his restaurants. They just don’t strip the non-actives of their title.
I’m excited to see Batali back in competition on the special White House episode in January, I miss him in Kitchen Stadium!
I’m a fan of the Food Network and actually watched this whole series. I was rooting for Chef Freitag most of the way (I guess because she’s the strongest female competitor they’ve had). I’m glad Garces won – he deserved it. Also, he is one of the few chefs who has won a challenge in Kitchen Stadium (he beat Bobby Flay in a melon battle). I can see him winning many more Kitchen Stadium battles than Chef Mehta. As an added bonus (for me), Garces is from my hometown, Chicago. Woot!
Freitag was my early pick too, Ruby. She made it pretty far, and still left too early in my opinion.
It has to be tough when they are all world class chefs.
I didn’t enjoy this season as much as last season. I liked the interaction between Iron Chef Symon and Chef Besh last season. There is an awful lot of trash talk and fun convo in Kitchen Stadium during Iron Chef America and I didn’t see any of these contestants having that much fun while competing.
*POST AUTHOR*
I think season one may have been a little better. It seems to me like the difficulty of the challenges this year were more intense than the first season, which may have accounted for the lack of talk/interaction.
Don’t they usually show the scorecard? I was(am) curious to see it at the end and was rewinding my DVR to see if I somehow missed it. What happened? Why show us all of the discussion between the judges if they are not going to show us the final vote?
Boooooo.