Can the judges make quick work of some zany ingredients?
The competition continues in Los Angeles as the seven remaining chefs are taken to the famous Improv Comedy Club per the Chairman’s invitation. Of course it’s not for a night of giggles but for their next Chairman’s Challenge, titled “Food is Funny.” Comedian and Weeds actor Kevin Nealon plays host to the comedy audience and the judges as he brings Alton Brown and the chef’s onstage to set up their challenge. On a whiteboard, four different food categories are present: fruits, carbs, proteins and a random list. With help from the audience members who shout out a hot mess of ingredients that go under each category (from lychee fruit to octopus), Nealon and Brown then narrow down the lists to one representative ingredient for each. The chefs sweat with no power to influence or sway the incongruent selections and the diabolical duo select: Octopus, kumquats, tortillas and marshmallow as the core ingredients the chefs must all use in their original dish.
That’s a gag inducing mix sitting on the cooking block but the chefs have to show they can make that mess work in only 30 minutes of prep and cook time. Because she won the challenge in the last episode, Chef Falkner is given five extra minutes to prep and cook. She runs to select her octopi from the buckets. As an aside, can I add these smart suckers deserve better. I bet they could come up with a pretty good recipe on their own considering how creative they are in the wild, but I digress. Falkner bogarts some sherry and is pressure cooking her octopi by the time the other six chefs run for their elements.
As usual, the chefs are pretty creative as they muddle these ingredients into some semblance of a unified shape. In their camera interviews, just about every one of them gets their cliche moment to advocate that “I want to be the next Iron Chef” which is really pretty tiresome to hear at this stage. We get it, otherwise why would you be on this show? I hope for the day when one of them just cracks and admits, “Yeah, I don’t really mind not being the Next Iron Chef. It’s cool.”
At Judge’s Table, Brown, Judy Joo, Simon Majumdar and current Iron Chef Michael Symon get to taste the concoctions and basically go gaga for Chef Michael Chiarello’s deft mix of ingredients. Falkner gets a thumbs up for her marshmallow ash. Chiarello wins the round and a target on his back from a few of his competitors.
In the bottom tier are Chefs Beau MacMillian, Geoffrey Zakarian and Marcus Samuelsson. Without much drama, Samuelsson is given a reprieve so MacMillian and Zakarian have to duke it out in the Secret Ingredient Showdown which turns out to be… Coconuts!
The pair are given 30 minutes to go to town on the ingredients and Zakarian decides to go against the judges warnings and create a component meal with two elements. He feels like he needs to kick up the competition so long as he can create a harmony between his two selections. MacMillian looks like a spaz as he runs back and forth from the ingredient area as he builds his coconut stew. While it looks like chaos, they have a plan. Both men feel confident when they present. Zakarian gets worried when one judge says is halibut is a tad overcooked, while MacMillian is lacking some heat and doesn’t need the grilled pineapple. In the end, it’s Zakarian’s crudio that wows the judges and MacMillian is sent home hungry for redemption some other day.
As all the chefs shake off the competition, Brown announces that they are heading to NYC to continue the chase for the big white hat.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.