Iron Chef America Review

Mario Batali vs Roberto Trevino
(spoilers)Catfish (live)(end spoilers)

As with last week, the show started into the action very very fast. The ingredient was a bit surprise to me. I was wagering that they wouldn't do a live ingredient for some time into the show, and certainly not in the second regular episode.

I really like Batali. He's got a lovely flair, and is fun to watch. His interaction with Alton Brown is fun. He also keeps breaking into Italian, which is also fun.

I also like the fact that we can understand the chefs in this show. It was something that we didn't get from the Japanese version. I think the coverage of the dishes is a little more to my liking in this episode. A very mild complaint: while I don't mind seeing the assistant chefs, I really wish the focus was on the main chefs more. It sometimes seems like the chefs are being ignored to show what the assistants are doing. Worse, I can't tell which side the assistant chefs are on half the time.

I wish there was no five dish requirement. The Japanese version had no minimum requirement, and it was fine. It seems kind of stupid and overly restrictive to require five dishes. And, again, we only see them plating one of each dish. I would prefer to see them show all.

Batali has some trouble finishing, it appeared. Did he actually finish? I couldn't tell. I like Trevino. It's nice to see a Puerto Rican chef.

All three judges are food experts. I like seeing the opinions of non-experts. That's what celebrities are for. I want some ditzy actress.

Just looking at the scoring... 20 points per judge, so each chef has a maximum of 60 points. Moving onward, I miss seeing the dramatic presentation of the dishes like in the Japanese show. There is a little of it, but it's right before the dish is served and if you blink you miss it.

This one wasn't even close... but I'm personally pleased with the result. And I think this one was better than the first one, if only because I prefer Batali to Flay any day of the week. I don't expect to do long reviews like this for any other episodes... in fact you'll be lucky to get one of my rapid reviews. For this one, four non-edible starfish.