Chef Cantu Wins on "Iron Chef America"

By Rachelle Bowden in Food on Jan 24, 2007 1:13AM

We're a little behind on this because we missed the Sunday show and just watched a recorded showing last night, but did anyone see Chef Homaro Cantu on Iron Chef America on Sunday night? Kitchen Stadium had never experienced anything like it. Cantu was up against Chef Masaharu Morimoto, and he sure gave him a run. We thought it would be a pure-traditional vs. way-modern matchup, but Morimoto did end up pulling out some liquid nitrogen himself.

There were two highlights for us. First off, Cantu made maki rolls but instead of using nori, he used edible paper with maki rolls printed on it, and then on the top he put a copyright notice. Secondly, at one point Cantu and his team stopped and posed for a photo while toasting with some horchata-citrus drink. Then they hooked the digital camera that took the photo up to a laptop and printed out the picture on horchata-flavored paper. Later on it was served to the judges. Awesome. When Cantu was getting ready to serve the chefs, Mark Dacascos asked him what his inspiration was, and he said "USB cables and personal computers."

In the end, Cantu won, but only by one point! To read more about this episode of "Iron Chef," check out the Reader's food blog.