A Little More Regarding The Next Iron Chef

In part because you don't really want to hear my thoughts on Win a Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, except that Ms. Tequila seems to dress anticipating the need for an emergency application of Vicks VapoRub to her sternum. Since she lives in the sunny part of the West Coast, I find this dress code odd.

As for the Next Iron Chef, while others have thought the challenges were America's Top Chef lite, I actually found the competition better than Top Chef. For one thing, we weren't treated to endless and irritating scenes of the competitors having to live together in some dorm. In fact, all the competitors, even in the challenge where they were instructed to screw each other over, were relatively collegial. The "atmosphere of hug" was refreshing.

Also, I thought the challenges were better-tailored to actual Iron Chef-ing; think fast, deal with the wacky situation and various food failures, and nobody steps in mid-way and changes the rules (a stupid tension-increaser used all too often on Top Chef). My favorites were the "resourcefulness" challenge, where the competitors had to cook two dishes in an hour on a cheap barbecue grill using mostly random items chosen for them by another competitor, and the challenge of assembling airline food.

My only gripe is that, despite the Chairman unsheathing a katana and playing with it during the opening and commercial breaks, we really didn't get to see him do anything cool beyond that. If you're going to have a martial arts star around, you should use him.