Kyle Nabilcy
A cynic might see the standing room-only crowd packed into the Bar at Estrellón to watch a Food Network show and think, well, the millennials certainly are cutting the cable cord these days. There was no cynicism on display last night, though: People were there to earnestly watch Iron Chef Showdown and cheer for the home team.
Chef Tory Miller finally got his moment on competitive food TV.
Wisconsin has seen little of the bright lights of reality food competitions since Top Chef pretty much launched the format in the United States in 2006, and even less on the Iron Chef franchise since it started in Japan in 1993. We’re talking New Holstein’s Grayson Schmitz, cheftestant in Top Chef’s seasons 9 and 13; and Oshkosh’s Bradley Stellings, a two-time competitor (and one-time winner) on Chopped in 2014 and 2015.
Iron Chef Showdown tweaks the format of the original Japanese show a bit. Instead of one challenger versus one Iron Chef, Showdown pits two challenger chefs against each other for a one-dish contest, and the winner goes on to face an Iron Chef champion in a battle that takes up the majority of the episode.
Miller’s “Chairman’s Challenge” opponent was no glass jaw; he faced Jenner Tomaska of Next Restaurant in Chicago. Tomaska has twice been recognized as a semi-finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Chef award, making it to the finalist ballot last year.
The challengers were tasked with creating a single dish featuring a key ingredient: potatoes. The traditional Iron Chef overflowing secret ingredient table offered a wide variety, including sweet potatoes, fingerlings, russets and Yukon Golds.
Miller’s dish of hash browns with chorizo, maitake mushrooms and a fried egg seemed to speak directly to host Alton Brown’s on-air admonishment against overcomplication of a simple key ingredient, though Brown did describe the international mashup as sounding like “visting Epcot when you’re drunk.” Tomaska’s dish of potatoes three ways (fried, roasted over fish, puréed with rhubarb) — well, that sounds more complicated.
Though Miller’s egg was “hideously undercooked,” according to Brown, Tomaska’s cider vinegar quick-pickled Granny Smith apples were a “vinegar bomb” and the halibut dish — a blatant and apparently uncredited lift from both Le Cirque and a 2007 Top Chef episode that honored it — featured “bland and underseasoned” fish. I thought Miller’s win was fait accompli once Tomaska asked Brown if he was “ready for some acid.” And wouldn’t you know it, Miller took the opening round and would go on to face… Iron Chef Bobby Flay.
Flay made headlines before this season went to air for an incident during taping where he revealed a t-shirt under his chef’s whites that read “THIS IS MY LAST IRON CHEF BATTLE EVER.” That said, in his face-off with Miller, there was no indication this would be his final battle, and Flay later claimed it was just a joke anyway.
Not a joke: The absence of celebrity chef judge John Besh, whose appearance in this episode was excised completely after Besh was accused by a number of women of sexual impropriety and harassment. This post-production work may explain the lengthy delay in the airing of this episode from the expected December 13 air date.
Other than Miller and Flay serving their dishes to an atypically small panel of Brown and chef Giada De Laurentiis, there were no obvious editorial tells like awkward mid-sentence cuts or blurred faces. Just two chefs and two judges, and one big table full of the secret ingredient: bison.
Bison, Miller points out on-screen, is a lean meat without a lot of forgiveness to it. “I’m loving bison right now,” Miller says early in the battle. “Talk to me in about 25 minutes. I’ll probably hate it.”
With 20 minutes to create and serve the first dish, the chefs begin by walking familiar paths. Miller turns to tweaked southeast Asian, with a carrot summer roll (big goofy finger quotes on that by Miller later in the episode) wrapped in a layer of pounded-thin rare bison, while Flay goes dorky Americana by way of a Buffalo-style bison “slider.” GET IT? Buffalo-style buffalo? Very dad joke. It was also just a small burger, not a slider, but whatevs.
Though messy, Miller’s summer roll with luridly fuchsia beet ponzu sauce earns the first of judge De Laurentiis’ proclamations of “spectacular,” and ends up tying on the score sheet with Flay’s nicely seared potato chip-topped burger.
Throughout the main battle, shots of Miller’s sous chef duo of Desiree Nudd (former head sous chef at Estrellón, now at the Somerset in Chicago) and Itaru Nagano (chef de cuisine at L’Etoile) were met with big cheers from the crowd watching at Estrellón — even when Brown, ahem, misprounced Nudd’s first name multiple times.
Also in the error column: the spelling of ddeokbokki, a regular at Sujeo and served for the panel, a la gnocchi, with stir-fried bison and grated bandaged cheddar. Though De Laurentiis was mostly nice about the dish on-air, Miller told me afterwards that her less-warm feelings were apparently left on the cutting room floor.
Kyle Nabilcy
Miller busted out some bison riffs on his greatest hits from Sujeo, Graze, and L’Etoile: the cheesy ddeokbokki, a bibimbap with Miller’s signature crispy rice batons, and pho with bison meatballs. Brown and De Laurentiis both swooned over the textures and flavor depth of the bibimbap (“You’ve changed my flavor bar for bibimbap,” Brown tells Miller.)
De Laurentiis didn’t care for the ratio of noodle to everything else in the pho, but there’s always a big mass of noodle in pho. Miller’s tartare-style bison larb featured still more crisp rice, as well as a gorgeous bit of woven cucumber from sous chef Nagano. This dish received De Laurentiis’ second “spectacular.”
Flay earned some boos from the Estrellón crowd (and a raised eyebrow on-air from De Laurentiis) for presenting a Korean-style strip loin bison steak against the Korean-born Miller. He also prepared his egg for a bison steak and eggs fish with the same ring mold technique as Miller in the Chairman’s Challenge, but cooked it more thoroughly.
Another bit of minor stinkeye from De Laurentiis was for Flay’s bison Bolognese, in which she wanted to see more parmigiano. (More cheese, you say? WE GOT U GIRL, this is Wisconsin you’re dealing with.) Flay’s continued use of pan-Asian flavors in a ginger-scallion-cashew pesto seemed really intentional, but Miller said last night at Estrellón that he gave Flay more trash-talk than made it into the show, so I trust he kindheartedly called Flay out for it.
I’d forgotten, in the years since I myself had cable and watched Iron Chef-brand shows, how late in the broadcast the winner is announced, but it was 7:58 and change before the show came back from break, the Chairman ascended the dais, and proclaimed Tory Miller the winner. Boom, the kid from Racine straight put it to the “dude [who] doesn’t lose,” in Miller’s words. The score was tied for the first dish and plating, but Miller edged Flay on taste and originality, which you’ll admit are kind of important.
“I knew if I could get to the second round and work with my team that we would win,” Miller tells the crowd after the applause dies down. “I brought the heavy hitters.”
The menu of Miller’s winning Iron Chef Showdown meal will be served at L’Etoile this Sunday during a reservations-only meal for $125 with optional wine pairings. Seats were still available as of 2 pm Wednesday, but in the shine of his big win, Miller may be serving to another packed house.
