Tuesday, January 1, 2008

ICA: Rubino vs Symon

tonnight's challenger was Chef Rubino against Symon. the secret ingredient is rabbit.
for those who havent seen it, heres a spoiler.

symon rubino
taste 28 20
plating 13 15
originality 11 11
total 52 46

you know, i used to get so worked up watching the show. anticipating every notion, every sound, everything about the show. it started out as a legitimate battle. but now, its just a joke. i mean, what is there?

even wrestling is more excited! (and thats all drama and fixed battles)

how do the ICA cooks (yeah! im not calling them chefs anymore!!) live with themselves? oh wait!! it doesnt matter to them, they are getting paid regardless. do you know what the salary is for an iron chef? do you? i do. 600k/year.

how do the judges live with themselves? oh wait, they get paid too.

and the scores?! whats up with them. its really shitty. you dont know the scores until they air your show. is that fair?! NO! the judges are there. they are writing the scores, so why cant they show the challengers then? it doesnt make sense ... unless you think about it.

through their editing, they change the scores. they make it seem like the ica cooks did much better than the challengers.

on our battle. there is NO WAY batali beat us in plating and originality. taste, well. we can discuss that later. but all his dishes were pedestrian, not original. his presentation was mediocre. so how did we lose by so many points in all 3 categories.

rubinos food was better plated, more original and im sure tasted more amazing that symons. so why did he lose? and by that much?

chef rubino you are not in bad company. amongst the losers on the battle, you are with the nations greatest and most creative chefs. i salute you.

1 comment:

west said...

Actually, having been to both Rain and Lolita, I've gotta say that if it were a battle of restaurants, Lolita would have won by a mile.

Not that rain wasn't good, but the food was disjointed, and the flavors seemed forced out of trying to make it a point to be creative (it was). It's not like anything was bad, but the food didn't bring any sort of excitement after you finished eating it. like you HAD to have it again. Plus they had a habit of rolling everything. did everything have to be rolled?

As for Mike Symon, yeah his food seems redundant, no mindblowing culinary madman behind it, yeah I'll give you (and he probably would too) that his food isn't exceptionally pretty and even sometimes sloppily plated, but there's just something about the food that was at Lolita that made me go back again the next night... because it was just really. really. really good. I don't think there is any creative genius in his food, but it makes sense and I think 9/10 times logic takes precidence over creativity. (with the one exception being Achatz. That guy's got it all.)

Just like why a place like Dolce Vita is packed every night. It makes sense, and it tastes good, even if everyone could probably make a proscuitto and arugula pizza at home.


Your desserts look great. I look forward to trying Soma.