Iron Chef America

Tomorrow starts the series Iron Chef America. And I am damned excited.

Still, based on the few episodes they ran last year and what I hear about the series, it doesn't sound like it's going to be as good as the Japanese version. For one thing, the host of the show isn't nearly as insane as the Japanese guy. Understandable I guess. Alton Brown is acceptable as the commentator and is probably as good as the guys they had in Japan, though 2 commentators would be nice to create some banter. Of greater concern is the tasters. This was the biggest weakness in the first American shows. The worst was when they had the guy who played Big Pussy in the Sopranos on there. He knew nothing about food except for Italian food and because one of the chefs used proscuitto, he voted for him. It was just really terrible. Even if they had stupid actors on the Japanese show, at least they seemed to know something about food.

A couple of other concerns. The Japanese show used up a lot of time before the cooking started. This worked pretty well because watching people cook for nearly the whole hour got kind of boring in the American version. Hopefully, they don't show quite as much cooking this time. Also, the chefs have a say in what ingredient is featured, which is kind of lame.

Nevertheless, tune in tomorrow and root for Rick Bayless to kick the hell out of that punk-ass bitch Bobby Flay.