ICA: Flay vs. Stein
After taking a few weeks off so the sugar addicts could satisfy their Jones with some mind-numbing cake bake-offs ICA is finally back for some real cooking. It’s the Windy City vs. the Big Apple when Chicago-based Chef Todd Stein enters Kitchen Stadium to take on Iron Chef Bobby Flay. Who’s cuisine will reign supreme?
Chef Todd Stein has been a mainstay of Chi-Town’s restaurant scene for several years going back to his apprentice days at Gordon Sinclair’s self-named Gordon Restaurant. From there he worked his way up the lardon ladder with stages at Le Bernardin and Moulin de la Vierge before being named Chef de Cuisine at MK the Restaurant in 2003. Two years later he was promoted to executive chef.
Stein left Chicago in 2006 to take the position of Consulting Executive Chef for Minneapolis’ B.A.N.K. and a year later he was off to Sin City to run the show at David Burke Las Vegas. In 2009 he returned to Chicago to take command of Roof, then Cibo Matto (where he was employed during taping) and ultimately to head up The Flourentine starting in 2010.
Along the way he has collected an impressive list of accolades highlighted by being named Best New Chef by Chicago magazine and making Cibo Matto a 2010 James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant and Time Out Chicago’s Best Hotel Restaurant.
If you’d like to learn more about Chef Stein the good folks at Zagat sat down with him last year for a terrific interview that you can read HERE. With a back ground in New American cuisine and classic French it is the flavors of Italy where Stein’s star shines brightest. We’ll see how bright when he enters Kitchen Stadium to take on Iron Chef Bobby Flay in Battle Mussels.
Chef Flay was once again assisted by Sous Chef Rene Forsberg (who I believe oversees Flay’s Mesa Grill outpost in the Bahamas) and Christine Sanchez, Culinary Director of the Iron Chef’s company, Bold Food. The two cutest sous chefs in all of Iron Chefdom, when do we get to see Renee with her own show? The judges for this battle were Julie Chen, David Rocco and Laura Calder.
If you haven’t already be sure to check out my exclusive interview with Iron Chef Bobby Flay (HERE) or my extensive interview with judge David Rocco just before the Cooking Channel went on the air last year (HERE).
Check below for the outcome.
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Flay Stein
Taste: 25 Taste: 25
Plating: 12 Plating: 13
Originality: 12 Originality: 10
Total: 49 Total: 48
Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw
Respected but largely unknown New York City chef Tony Bourdain wrote a book called Kitchen Confidential over a decade ago. What has followed since is nothing short of the American dream. More books, TV shows, fame, fortune and family. Recently Bourdain released his latest, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook and is aiming for a paperback release later this year. In order for a little pay back, Tony is offering lessor known writers (like myself) a chance at stardom. Here, let him tell you:
Here is my entry:
Well Done: The essence of all that is cooking boiled down to fit comfortably in the proverbial nut shell.
I know people who insist that making tuna salad is “cooking.” They make the same argument for a bowl of cereal, can of soup, bag of chips and even Pop Tarts. They are “eat to live-ers” and are as alien to me as a Klingon. I, undoubtedly, am just as alien to them. Why would anyone grind chuck roast just to hand pat a burger when they could easily roll by a window and get a fat burger for under three bucks? Sadly, for them anything that doesn’t involve a combo number is “cooking.” Tragic news to someone who has enjoyed cooking since he was five years old. At the same time, good news for someone who has made a living from doing it for them. Life is a series of trade-offs.
For a cook, cooking is pseudonymous with creating; it is art. Whether that creation is an elegant Beef Wellington or a simple reduction sauce to bring life to an otherwise boring piece of chicken it is the process itself that draws us to the kitchen. There is rhythm in the chopping of onions and melody in the sizzle of bacon. At the risk of sounding overly metaphoric the kitchen is Pink Floyd and the meal is “Dark Side of the Moon.”
I have had people tell me that the food I cook at home tastes as good as restaurant food and they mean that as a compliment. Few restaurants, no matter how extravagant can touch a really great home cooked meal. A great meal is a communal event; it brings people closer together. Yet it is also an intensely personal experience. Intimacy only serves to accentuate the sensation. There is nothing more intimate than to cook for someone. Well, nothing that is considered appropriate in a public setting.
There is a place and a time for going out and having a great dinner at a restaurant and those times should be cherished. But every meal, everyday? Any idiot with an American Express card can walk into an Le Bernardin and have a meal that excites the senses. But it is a whole other animal to create that meal with your own imagination and energy. There is a self-satisfaction that cannot be replaced no matter how much money you throw at it.
To cook well, to cook really well is to elicit an emotional response that goes beyond the palate. Truly great food either conjures memories or creates them. It can be seen in the “oh face” of your fellow diners. The first bite of a truly great meal suspends time; that bite is like “the first time” and one should savor it for what it is, ecstasy. Crunchy, gooey, cheesy, acidic, sweet ecstasy.
Like it? Of course you do. So go vote for it HERE.