Iron Chef America: Ming Tsai vs. Bobby Flay
Because Ming Tsai is known for doing a great fusion of East meets West, I would have loved to have seen him take on Morimoto. But, the Chairman chose for him to go up against the southwestern king, Bobby Flay. The secret ingredient was duck.
The judges tonight were Queer Eye’s Ted Allen, Vishakha Desai (Asian Society), and old standby Jeffrey Steingarten. Chef Tsai prepared five dishes, including one dessert. He offered up a foie gras shumai with tea smoke duck breasts (which Ted said was subtle and delicate), wrapped duck breast and shrimp mousse, braised duck legs with sweet potatoes, roasted pekin duck with duck leg crepe, and for dessert, foie gras crème brulee (which Jeffrey called a brilliant dish).
Chef Flay presented duck breast skewers (which Jeffrey said the duck and tortillas didn’t really go together), duck and sweet potato hash with poached duck egg, duck confit in a corn crepe (which was very spicy – as Ted said, it “smacked” him), jerk marinated duck breast (which Ted said worked together beautifully), and deep fried duck with 10 ingredient grits.
When the voting was over, Chef Tsai won by quite a margin (48-43), but it really came down to taste. Chef Tsai scored a 26 for taste, a 10 for plating, and a 12 for originality. Chef Flay scored a 21 for taste, a 11 for plating, and a 11 for originally.
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