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BROWN: Each and every week in this arena,
our inscrutable Chairman takes a big risk.
He matches one of his talented Iron Chefs
against a formidable culinary foe.
But time after time, he rolls the dice.
Maybe the Chairman's love of gambling,
explains why he has summoned
a challenger from Las Vegas today.
A culinary dynamo,
who will battle the one Iron Chef
who's got a connection to the Vegas restaurant scene.
Today in Kitchen Stadium, it's vaya con Vegas, baby.
Oh, here we go.
This is "Iron Chef America."
Time?
WOMAN: 3...
Go, go, go, go!
...2...
We need to start making this happen.
...1.
Whoo-whee!
Time's up.
Oh, what a girl would do.
Hey, food fans.
Frank Sinatra, the American crooner
and de facto chairman of the rat pack once said,
"Las Vegas is the only place where money really talks...
and says goodbye."
Well, in Kitchen Stadium,
the losing chef always endures a not-so-fond farewell.
And nobody wants that fate.
So, I'm sure chefs today are going to be going for broke.
Now, Iron Chef, Bobby Flay, who I see up at the altar.
He owns a signature restaurant in Las Vegas.
Now allow me to introduce
another vaunted Vegas restaurateur, Chef Angelo Sosa.
SOSA: I'm Chef Angelo Sosa.
I am the chef/owner of Poppy Den in Las Vegas.
I've been cooking for over 18 years.
My specialty is Asian food.
I spent a lot of time working at Asian kitchens.
I bring a lot of opulence, a lot of sophistication.
I'm a Vegas kind of chef.
But Iron Chef Flay is the mac daddy.
I think it's gonna be definitely a battle.
Yes, it's an all Las Vegas showdown
here on "Iron Chef America."
Luck be a ladle tonight. [ Laughs ]
Let's go up to the man who never rolls snake eyes, the Chairman.
Iron Chef Flay, welcome.
Chef Sosa.
During my many trips to Las Vegas, I enjoy the Keno,
the baccarat, and especially the fine dining.
Winners will boast and losers are toast.
Are you both prepared to go all in?
I'm ready to throw the dice, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman, I have my red underwear on.
SOSA: In Chinese culture,
red underwear brings the gamblers good luck.
Excellent.
Today, you will go head-to-head in a battle
based on the high-end, high-flying lifestyle
of Sin City.
Your theme today is...
...a Las Vegas High Rollers Meal.
[ Cheers and applause ]
FLAY: This is a really nice offering by the Chairman.
Beautiful beef, Kobe style, wagyu, rib eye, oysters.
SOSA: Truffle, lobster, caviar.
FLAY: Beautiful chocolate and champagne.
Thank you, Chairman.
SOSA: This is gonna be pretty amazing.
To work with these ingredients is really a chef's dream.
Chefs, you will take these extravagant ingredients
and create five luxurious dishes.
Your initial dish must be served to my judges
during the first 20 minutes of battle.
Later in the hour, I will reveal my culinary curveball.
But that is all I will say at this time.
Good luck and may all your dishes be aces.
So, now America,
with an open heart and empty stomach,
I say unto you in the words of my uncle...
...allez cuisine!
BROWN: Our Vegas High Rollers Dinner is on here in Kitchen Stadium.
Thanks. Thanks for running, guys.
We've got pretty gosh darn tasty stuff up on the altar today.
And, of course, very luxurious.
Here. How many of these you want?
Three.
We've got oysters, and we've also got Maine lobsters,
the sustainable caviar raised from white sturgeon.
We've also got truffles, champagne, chocolate.
Also, last, but not least, we've got some wagyu beef,
which is now in the hands of Iron Chef Flay.
All right, so, Renee?
Yeah.
Use the flap outside to make the skewers for surf-and-turf.
Okay.
Kind of like we do in Atlantic City, but we're going to Vegas.
Okay.
The middle part, I want you to grind this with 80/20 fat.
I'm gonna make a cool burger.
All right, thanks.
All right, chocolate, passion fruit, gold leaf --
all the things that are luxury.
Yep.
Okay, cool.
FLAY: When I think Vegas, I think luxury, decadence.
Push the envelope until it falls off the table.
Okay, this is what we're gonna do.
We have lobster and then let's do a carpaccio.
And then oysters. I'm gonna take the oysters, do a sorbet.
Okay?
Oui.
Let's go.
Okay.
Vegas is obviously about opulence,
but also sophistication.
And think by bringing little glitz and glamour
of the Vegas scene.
BROWN: So we're going to have oysters, lobsters, chocolate --
a few of my favorite things to be served --
and we'll see what these chefs decide to do with them.
Right now, we can see Kevin Brauch,
rocking the Vegas look down in Kitchen Stadium.
Chef Sosa.
How we doing?
Look at this, it feels like home for you.
Exactly. Exactly.
So, you're working with these elevated ingredients
each and every night of the week at the Poppy Den.
Yep. Exactly.
Your home place.
You know, as a chef we just want to let the ingredients shine,
just like Las Vegas shines, right?
You're too young to have cooked for Sinatra.
Oh, come on.
Who's the biggest star you've ever cooked for?
The Dalai Lama.
He cooked for the Dalai Lama, Bobby Flay.
That's tough to beat.
Good luck today here in Kitchen Stadium.
Awesome. Thank you.
Iron Chef Bobby Flay, what's your first dish for the 20 minutes?
FLAY: A super burger.
A super burger.
Yeah, with that wagyu beef,
we're gonna have some Roquefort cheese on it.
I'm gonna make a red-wine ketchup,
a quail egg, and of course the black truffles.
Does that come with a giant novelty check
that says winner on it?
Exactly right.
All right, good luck.
Thanks.
I just want to make the ultimate burger in 20 minutes, hopefully.
A little slider.
Wagyu rib eye had really the perfect amount of marbling.
So, I knew it was gonna have lots of flavor.
Cooking it in a cast iron pan
because I wanted to get a really nice crust
on the outside of the burger, which is key to a good burger.
Red-wine ketchup made sense to me
because red wine and beef go really well together.
Red wine and blue cheese go really well together.
Red wine and eggs go well together.
And red wine and black truffles go well together.
So, it was basically, to me, all these ingredients
that go really well together on a burger.
BROWN: Over on our challenger Chef Sosa's side,
Chef Sosa actually blending watermelon now
to make himself a puree.
And he added a little bit of Thai bird chilies went into that.
So we've got chilies and watermelon.
That's kind of sneaky.
And kumamoto oysters being opened up by Sous Chef Froilan.
Looks like they'll be serving those on the half shell.
They're being very careful in their shucking.
So obviously that's gonna probably be
for this first course.
Oysters, where are my oysters?
A minute. Oui?
BROWN: Which of course has to be served within the first 20 minutes
of battle here in Kitchen Stadium.
15 possible points for that.
Our goal for the 20-minute dish
is to get this puppy up as soon as possible
because that's gonna give us more time for the other dishes.
So, Froilan is shucking the oysters
for what I call the bluff.
Oyster, straight up, we're just gonna shuck it,
keep it in its simplest form.
And Jonas is doing the Asian mini mac.
Chef, veg.
I'm gonna dazzle that up with some watermelon
and Thai chili sorbet.
And then caviar just with a little bacon cloud
on top of that.
BRAUCH: He's making it rain with liquid nitrogen.
SOSA: I don't have time to use the ice machine.
A little nitrogen goes a long way.
BROWN: Right, a lot of vapor.
See that watermelon sorbet probably frozen hard as a rock
in that stand mixer.
What's the time?
Six minutes to get your courses up to the judges
as our challenging chef, Chef Angelo Sosa,
rolls the dice against Iron Chef Bobby Flay.
The heat is on here in Kitchen Stadium.
Our theme, Las Vegas High Rollers Meal.
And we'll get back to the action
when "Iron Chef America" returns.
We are back in Kitchen Stadium.
This is "Iron Chef America" and the clock is ticking away
on our Las Vegas High Rollers Battle
between two Vegas-connected chefs, Iron Chef Bobby Flay...
Renee, are you okay?
FORSBERG: Fine.
...And challenger, Angelo Sosa.
Caviar. Guys, I need caviar, Froilan.
FLAY: How much time?
5 minutes and 15 seconds to get that plate up.
Now, they've got some pretty great culinary minds.
But so do our judges, and to introduce them, we go up to Kevin Brauch.
Kevin.
Konbon wa, ladies and gentlemen, Alton Brown.
Here come the judges.
Leading off, he's a fashion editor and a food critic
who once judged battles for the Chairman's
next Iron Chef competition in Las Vegas.
He's also judged several food fights here in Kitchen Stadium.
This is Hal Rubenstein.
Next, she is no stranger to high-stakes cooking contests.
She's an Iron Chef on the British TV series,
"Iron Chef UK."
She is Judy Joo.
Finally, they call this guy The Culinary MC.
He's the host who's front and center
at numerous foodcentric events.
But believe it or not,
this is his first appearance here in Kitchen Stadium.
So, let's welcome Billy Harris.
BROWN: Chef Sosa's already got his first course being plated.
Look at this fancy -- they're serving on a sword,
oyster, caviar, watermelon Thai chili sorbet.
The sword represents my style, Asian cookery.
BROWN: Wow, Chef Sosa's already on his way up to the judges.
Grab those quail eggs out of the broiler.
Iron Chef Bobby Flay is not quite ready,
but there's still time.
All right, the first course taken up to our judges
from Chef Sosa.
Unbelievable. One of the fastest presenters.
I mean, this is how Vegas rolls.
SOSA: Thank you.
Our first course, oyster, caviar,
watermelon Thai chili sorbet and I call it bacon love.
Just shoot it all at once.
You have the sweetness,
the spiciness of the watermelon sorbet.
The beautiful umami, savory notes from the bacon
and the beautiful brininess of the oysters.
Voila!
How much time?
BROWN: Two minutes to get your burgers up to the judges.
FLAY: Chef Sosa was up there so quickly.
What am I doing wrong here?
Billy, you must have run into Chef Sosa in Vegas.
HARRIS: I have, actually.
What do you think of the oyster presentation?
You know what? It was great.
You almost got a little lost that,
"Oh there's an oyster under there?"
'cause there was so much to it.
It was a lot of fragrance and aromatics in it.
But it hit the theme spot on
just because Vegas is all about excess.
It's about excess, but it might have been excessive.
The heat on the oyster was incredible.
But the bacon at some point jumped ahead of everything else.
I think there was so much going on in the oyster,
I almost lost the oyster.
But granted if that's the theme,
let's stack it all on top as much as we can,
then we hit the nail on the head.
BROWN: All right, excuse me Kevin, Iron Chef,
we've got 10 seconds to get your dish up to the judges.
No matter what I do, it's always the last second,
especially for the 20 minutes.
It's just, it goes really quickly.
BRAUCH: And here comes Iron Chef Bobby Flay
with his first offering, the high roller burger.
FLAY: Welcome.
This is a wagyu beef burger, black truffles, quail egg,
Roquefort cheese and red-wine ketchup.
BRAUCH: Judy doubling down on that.
Mmm.
Enjoy. Thank you.
You got to do things that really showcase the luxury,
but with a deft hand because the luxury ingredients
can really be overwhelming to a dish.
This to me screams, "Vegas, baby!"
This is all about excess. This is all about luxury.
Very impressed that he got this done
with all the different elements on the plate here.
And the fact that he actually made a burger --
ground meat, made the burgers.
And even like the oysters before,
there's so many layers to this -- amazing.
RUBENSTEIN: However, the burger remains the star.
The burger is the star.
Hit me. Hit me. Hit me with another one.
BRAUCH: So, now each of you have to award our chefs
up to five points.
We will add those up,
and Alton Brown will announce the scores momentarily.
All right, get back to it Kevin Brauch, and stay out of the liquor, will you?
Where we at? Chawanmushi is going on next, yes?
OFFENBACH: Yes.
Chawanmushi is going in in one minute.
All righty, we got
some kind of Asian-inspired courses coming up.
Right now we can see sous-chef Jonas at this moment
working on a mixture of eggs, some dashi, and sesame oil.
SOSA: I'm working on a chawanmushi,
which is a baked Japanese custard.
The next dish, it's a beautiful chawanmushi.
You have to first make a dashi with kombu, which is seaweed;
Bonito, which is dried tuna;
water; and you steep it like a tea.
BROWN: And then we take that base, and we add some eggs to it.
All right, now they've wrapped those in plastic wrap
and they'll steam them
until they have kind of a tofu-like texture.
How you looking, Jonas?
Good.
SOSA: And then just top with a osetra caviar and beautiful champagne.
This is the ultimate high rollers hangover dish.
Chef, chawanmushi going in right now.
Chawanmushi going in?
Oui.
Froilan, where we at with lobsters?
SARENAS: Soft and working.
BROWN: Yes, we've got lobsters over on Chef Sosa's side
back in the sink being chilled down by Sous Chef Froilan.
Don't know where those are gonna be headed.
We've also got lobsters over on Iron Chef Flay's side
being skewered by sous-chef Renee.
FLAY: How's your lobster?
FORSBERG: In my hands, good. Good.
Sous-chef Renee also sectioned up
big chunks of that wagyu rib eye a little earlier in the battle.
So maybe that's gonna be a surf-and-turf.
So, my next dish is surf-and-turf skewers,
which I think is a really cool thing
because surf-and-turf is so old-school Las Vegas.
But it also is Las Vegas luxury.
It's with lobster and we use some of the wagyu rib eye,
the outside, the flap of the rib eye, to make cubes to skewer.
And I made two different flavors, one for each one.
For the lobster, an orange honey mustard and horseradish glaze.
Then for the rib eye,
Korean red-pepper paste with some honey.
So, the idea is to kind of wrap the surf and the turf
with butter lettuce leaf, wrap it up and go for it.
Bobby, you cool over there?
I'm always all-in, you know that.
You are always all-in.
Chef, that's the first thing I learned about you.
Guess so.
BROWN: All right, we're only halfway through the battle
here in Kitchen Stadium.
But our challenger, Chef Angelo Sosa,
is already all-in against Iron Chef Bobby Flay.
The tension is high. The pressure is mounting.
But keep in mind, the Chairman's gonna be bringing out
his card of culinary chaos here any moment
and throwing in his curveball.
We'll reveal the judges' scores for the 20-minute dish
when our Las Vegas High Rollers battle continues
on "Iron Chef America."
Hi, kids, welcome back to "Iron Chef America,"
where our Las Vegas High Rollers battle rages on
between Iron Chef Bobby Flay...
Bobby, this good?
Yeah. Not bigger than that.
...and challenger, Angelo Sosa.
Where's my wagyu?
Right here, right here.
Thank you.
Give me three minutes, you'll have your carpaccio.
I have here in my hand the scores for the first dish,
which, of course, had to be presented to the judges
in the first 20 minutes of the battle.
Chef Sosa at 9 points.
Iron Chef Flay, a perfect 15, giving him a significant lead.
Hey, this is my first time, Alton.
Here we go. Another win for Flay, right?
What-what?!
I'm not rooting against Chef Sosa, of course.
But I'm glad he has 9 points as opposed to 15.
But it's still anybody's battle. So, let's get back to it.
SOSA: We're still in the game.
But every dish has to be perfect.
Every dish has to be seasoned to the "T."
BROWN: Over on the challenger's side,
we can see that big fat-cap being taken off
of the bottom rib portion of that rib eye.
SOSA: This is melting in my hand.
BROWN: Wagyu, of course, typically has a lot of fat.
Far more than you would see in a typical prime rib.
We're calling this next dish "The Essence of Sin City."
This is a beautiful pan-seared wagyu.
Jonas, where you at?
BROWN: All right, we also see Chef Sosa
with a mixture of soy, mirin, some chili, some garlic.
He also added some chocolate to that sauce.
This is a soy, garlic, and chocolate sauce.
Completely umami-packed Asian sauce,
except that it's got chocolate in it.
But oddly enough, chocolate and soy do go together
if the proportions are controlled.
SOSA: Chocolate and beef, it's a great combination.
The chocolate really brings and accentuates
the earthiness of the beef.
It's big. It's bold. It's wagyu, chocolate.
We have some Asian pear and some seared bok choy.
It's all that you want in Las Vegas.
I can feel a comeback coming on.
How much time is left?
BROWN: 24 minutes, 10 seconds.
And there is the Chairman with his card of culinary chaos.
You never know what's under there.
It could be an ingredient.
It could be a piece of hardware.
It's got to be something high rolling.
Chefs, the time has come to reveal my culinary curveball.
The culinary curveball came at the worst time
that I have a long list of items
I need to still put on the plate.
Chefs, I would like you to utilize
these cotton candy machines.
Oh, Lord.
As you continue to prepare your four remaining dishes.
Ow.
Oh, my God.
No, thank you.
Listen, this is you.
Yeah.
Thankfully, I have Josephine, so I knew she had a clue.
Take some chilies because red chilies and chocolate
go really well together.
Right.
So, put it in at the end.
SOSA: This really is a curveball.
I have never used a cotton candy machine before.
That's why I gave it to Froilan to handle.
SOSA: Froilan, you know how to use this puppy?
SARENAS: You want to do a sugar, soy, we can use it for a lobster.
We can use it for the steak.
Let's do something with the lobster then, okay?
Yeah.
BROWN: I would be really interested to see
if Chef Sosa can make like a soy sauce cotton candy.
My God, it's doing it.
Now, apparently, the cotton candy machine
was actually invented in Nashville, Tennessee
by a dentist.
And they didn't call it cotton candy.
They called it fairy floss.
Now sugar goes into that heating element
spinning there in the center,
which melts it into a liquid form.
Centrifugal force then pushes the liquid sugar
out of tiny little holes and solidifies in the air
and falls into the surrounding bowl.
It is very, very sticky stuff.
BRAUCH: Iron Chef Bobby Flay, so the curveball,
the cotton candy curveball, a cotton candy machine.
You're gonna leave that to your Sous Chef Josephine, correct?
No, because Josephine has a lot of experience with this stuff.
She's the pastry chef extraordinaire.
We're gonna dip it into some red chilies
because she's making a really luxurious chocolate dessert.
Red chilies and chocolate have a great affinity for each other.
Yeah, it's wonderful that you can actually incorporate a flavor.
It is sometimes harder to get a flavor into cotton candy.
Yeah, but we're all about flavor on this side.
All about flavor on this side of Kitchen Stadium.
Good luck, Bobby Flay. Hey, have fun double down.
We wanted it to have something to do with our dessert.
But I wanted it to be actually an interesting element.
Dried red chilies actually have a nice fruitiness.
And we're making a really decadent chocolate dessert --
devil's food cake to start, a salted caramel ganache,
also, a milk chocolate feuilletine,
which has, like, this sort of crispy crunchiness
that kind of runs through it.
And then also white chocolate mousse.
And then finish with a passion fruit sauce
that has gold leaf kind of running through it.
I mean, we wanted to really bring
that Las Vegas pizzazz to it.
And I think it's a great way to finish it.
BRAUCH: That is a gorgeous-looking dessert.
BROWN: That is a gorgeous dessert. There goes the ganache.
See, that's how you do it.
You put it on a rack like that, a cooling rack,
and you just spoon it on and let it run down the side.
That will harden?
Absolutely.
But it will harden without getting really, really hard.
She added corn syrup to that,
which is gonna keep that nice and soft.
But it's still gonna set.
There's a less delicate procedure
over on Chef Sosa's side.
Pounding away on those lobster bodies.
Cooked with the lemongrass and some tomato product
and some broth stock for the lobster course.
All right. Let's check in with Kevin now down with Chef Sosa.
Chef Sosa, okay, the cotton candy machine.
Is that a curveball?
Do you use one of those in Las Vegas?
More like a knuckleball. It slowed me down.
How are you gonna combat this pitch
that the Chairman has given you?
We're gonna do soy sauce sugar.
We're gonna serve this with the lobster.
So you're actually gonna try and incorporate the flavors
of soy sauce into your cotton candy?
Exactly. Why not kick it up a notch, right?
The judges will appreciate this.
Awesome.
All right, good luck with the rest of the battle.
Thank you so much.
SOSA: My next dish is Hot Hand, Cold Hand.
When the high rollers are at the table,
sometimes you're gonna get that hot hand,
sometimes you're gonna get that cold hand.
The hot-hand part,
butter-poached lobster with fenugreek.
Fenugreek is a spice indigenous to India.
The flavor, it almost tastes like burnt caramel.
And the cold-hand part is cubes of watermelon seasoned with salt
to draw out a little bit of that moisture
dipped in chocolate.
And I use a little liquid nitrogen, flash freezing.
Fenugreek, lobster, soy,
we thought it'd be the great combination.
So, why not in the cotton candy?
BROWN: All right, looking back over on Iron Chef side of the room,
we can see Iron Chef Bobby Flay has rolled his pasta out
into basically what I'm gonna call spaghetti.
All right, now that was eggs, flour,
and also a lot of black pepper.
FLAY: So, what I do is I made a black pepper pasta --
black-pepper spaghetti carbonara.
Now, carbonara is a wonderful dish.
There is a lot of disputes about how it got its name.
One of the stories is that it was something
that the coal miners made in Italy.
And so that's why there's black pepper on it.
It's supposed to emulate the idea that it's the coal.
So, what I do is I made a black pepper pasta.
But I also wanted to continue the idea of the coal
with the black truffles.
Carbonara is bacon, some shiitake mushrooms.
I made the fresh pasta, of course,
and I coated it with the egg and parmesan cheese.
Then I took a squash blossom,
and I filled it with ricotta cheese
and more black truffles.
Renee, at some point when you fry,
you're gonna fry that, too, okay?
Got it.
I am taking a classic, almost peasant-like dish
and putting a big high-roller spin on it
with those expensive, delicious black truffles.
Renee, are you almost done?
RENEE: Yes.
BROWN: All right Sous Chef Renee, she's got the soft-shell crab.
I think that Iron Chef Bobby Flay
is probably gonna be serving something like a fritto misto.
Fritto misto is different fried things.
A lot of times it's vegetables or seafood.
BROWN: It looks like they may be doing them
in a couple of different ways.
She's got a couple of different mixtures there.
FLAY: So, what I utilized today was oysters with blue cornmeal.
We fried the crab meat in yellow cornmeal,
and then I fried the lobster in rice flower --
and fried parsley.
So, everything is fried.
Then I've dropped them into caviar sauce,
almost like a buerre blanc, so to speak.
BROWN: A much different preparation
going on over on Chef Sosa's side.
His Sous Chef Jonas is making
very thin slices of that beautiful wagyu beef,
which must be for the carpaccio course
they mentioned earlier in the battle.
So we're gonna do a beautiful wagyu carpaccio.
Basically, thin slices of meat
seasoned with a little salt, a little oil.
With the osetra caviar and the pickled onions,
Sriracha mayonnaise in a shiro dashi vinaigrette.
You can't go wrong.
BROWN: Now, here's the problem, okay,
looking over at the cotton candy machine on Chef Sosa's side,
see how that's really grainy up against the side of the bowl?
I'm afraid their sugar mixture
might not be the right consistency.
BRAUCH: Well, could that theoretically render the machine unusable?
Could it clog it?
Yes. It could clog it.
Oh, my goodness.
It might be too moist. It's too moist.
SOSA: I really don't know what to do.
I need to kind of just chill out
and continue my prep and let my sous chef handle that.
How much time is left in this thing, please?
BROWN: 13 minutes 15 seconds remaining in the battle.
As our challenger, Chef Angelo Sosa...
Froilan, what are we doing with the cotton candy here?
...tries to take down the house.
Iron Chef, Bobby Flay...
You have everything fried?
Yes.
...with a Vegas High Roller meal.
Well, our Las Vegas High Rollers battle continues
and the chefs must cope with the Chairman's culinary curveball
when "Iron Chef America" returns.
Guys, we got to go.
Hi. Welcome back to "Iron Chef America."
This is the Las Vegas High Rollers battle
raging on between Iron Chef Bobby Flay...
Renee, all your prep is done?
FORSBERG: Yes.
...and our challenger, Chef Angelo Sosa.
Plating. Plating. Go.
Take your time. Take your time.
If you can't take the heat, you are
in the wrong Kitchen Stadium casino-type place
because the competition is clearly heating up around here.
How much time?
Just under 11 minutes.
10 minutes and 50 seconds here in Kitchen Stadium.
All right. I'm plating.
Iron Chef Bobby Flay not quite into plating mode yet.
The dessert still coming together.
There's so many components into that dessert.
A little book of gold leaf
in the hands of sous-chef Josephine.
That's the feuilletine mixture,
which is like this crunchy pastry stuff.
Like almost inside a crunchy chocolate bar.
And she's wrapping that in gold leaf.
This is so hard to work with.
When you work with gold leaf, you go into a room
where there's absolutely no air flow at all.
Because if it gets away from you, it just goes.
Over on the challenger's side of the world right now,
I can see sous-chef Jonas right now plating the carpaccio dish.
And putting the yuzu vinaigrette
that was made earlier in the battle.
There's some of that shiro dashi on there,
the Sriracha mayonnaise.
A lot of Asian flavors
whether that's considered high roller or not, I don't know.
And I still have seen no cotton candy.
Kevin Brauch is up with Judy Joo and in fact they're talking
about this risky move with the soy cotton candy.
I think they are definitely taking a risk
trying to incorporate soy.
A, I don't know how the machine is gonna handle that
because it's not really built to take on liquid.
I mean, I think it'll evaporate, a little bit will burn off.
But it doesn't have a very nice aftertaste,
like the way caramelized sugar tastes.
So they have to get that right balance.
BROWN: I think he's gonna get a clumpy mess
and not much in the way of actual cotton candy.
How he chooses to make up for that, I don't know,
'cause I got my doubts.
I'll be really honest with you.
There's just no options, right?
It's not like we're gonna throw in the white flag.
We got to use this culinary curveball.
BROWN: On the grill, skewers on Iron Chef Flay's side,
both with the lobster and some of that wagyu.
That's gonna be a surf-and-turf.
Look at this carbonara.
If that's not high roller, I don't know what is.
Beautiful dish put together by Iron Chef Flay
with a lot of truffle.
Delicate.
And then those stuffed squash blossoms.
That's definitely a high-roller dish.
FLAY: I need the fritto misto.
Come on, Renee.
Yes.
Ah, there.
The chawanmushi, that steamed Japanese custard,
is getting a huge couple of spoonfuls of caviar.
So that is most certainly a high-roller dish.
BRAUCH: Give me a market price on that.
What would they charge in a Vegas restaurant?
If they follow the typical chawanmushi style,
that'll be right in the middle of the meal.
You know, in Japan that's served for hangovers.
Well, I mean, that would be great
although our dishes have not yet had any champagne.
Well, they'll get champagne in foam form
in this chawanmushi.
And some gold leaf going down on top of that champagne foam
with the chawanmushi.
Now we've got some more gold leaf also in play
over on Iron Chef Flay's side.
The cotton candy with New Mexican chili powder
and now gold leaf.
And gold leaf not bringing any flavor obviously.
RUBENSTEIN: Gold leaf doesn't really.
Gold doesn't taste like anything. It's just very high roller.
All right, now over on the challenger's side,
plating the lobster.
That is with that lobster broth foam with the vinaigrette.
More sauce. More sauce. Pour it down, foam it over.
A lot of foams coming together on that side.
A lot more technique as far as the molecular gastronomy.
And of course we've got a lot of Asian flavors.
And they do have some cotton candy now.
I didn't think it was gonna work.
Does seem to have some of the brown specs of soy.
So, hopefully it did impart some of that soy flavor into it.
Well, I think so. Either that or it just burned.
Froilan, what are we doing with the cotton candy here?
SARENAS: Right here?
On the side.
It's going over the lollipop,
or the watermelon dipped in chocolate.
And now that's gotten the cotton candy on top of it.
I'm starting to plate the beef, yes?
Oui.
Over on Iron Chef Flay's side of the world,
the fritto misto coming together.
A bounty of vegetables and luxurious seafood, fried.
FLAY: Where's the fried parsley?
FORSBERG: Here.
Wow, the dessert -- check that out.
BRAUCH: Whoa. Beautiful.
Oh, Jesus, God. Give me 10 more of these.
PACQUING: I'll be right back.
FLAY: Josephine hit all kinds of components, which sometimes scares me.
If you're working on too many things at once,
how is the quality gonna be?
That's really the question.
BROWN: That's just ridiculous.
Chocolate glazed cake with a ganache
with gold-flake chili cotton candy.
Chef Sosa's final course is very different from the Iron Chef's.
Instead of cake, he's got wagyu beef with a chocolate soy sauce.
An interesting way of going,
but that's the way you got to play in Kitchen Stadium
if you're gonna stand out with the judges.
Plating still happening on both sides of Kitchen Stadium.
Let's line them up. Let's clear up to pass.
Chef Sosa almost done,
his high-roller meal and ingredients.
Wagyu carpaccio,
chawanmushi topped with caviar and champagne foam.
Let's see, butter-poached lobster with lobster foam.
A chocolate watermelon lollipop
and soy flavored cotton candy, the curveball.
All right, the Iron Chef's menu,
fritto misto with lobster, oysters,
and caviar from the altar.
Black-pepper and truffle carbonara
with truffle-stuffed squash blossoms.
And his dessert, dark chocolate devil's food cake
with chili cotton candy.
WOMAN: One minute to go.
Oh, wait. The Iron Chef is missing a dish.
[ Bleep ] I need this dish.
All right, it looks like he forgot to plate his surf-and-turf course.
He had better hurry.
Whoa!
All right, that's the grilled lobster wagyu cubes
with the butter lettuce.
FLAY: At this point, I'm trying to get my dishes finished.
So I'm not really looking for the next thing to do.
I got it.
I mean, I just have to be focused.
The time goes so quickly, and I want everything to be on-point.
15 seconds to go.
BROWN: 15 seconds and it's got to be on the plate,
no exceptions.
Iron Chef Bobby Flay still working his surf-and-turf.
8, 7, 6, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1.
All right, high rollers, put it down and walk away.
The battle is over.
Chef Sosa and his boys coast in.
Iron Chef Flay cuts it a little close,
but everybody makes it in under the wire.
The cooking is over here in Kitchen Stadium.
It's time for our judges
to dig into their delicious, albeit difficult, task.
But before they do that, let's go up to Kevin Brauch
for an explanation of the judging rules, Kevin.
Absolutely, Mr. Brown.
Okay, everybody, here is how it works.
Each judge can award a chef up to 30 points
with 10 points possible for taste.
Another 5 points for plating design.
5 points for the originality
in the use of today's theme ingredients.
5 points for the use of the Chairman's culinary curveball.
Finally, 5 points for the dish presented
during the first 20 minutes of battle.
And, as always, may the better chef prevail.
And now let's go to the Chairman
and get the judging underway.
Iron Chef Flay,
please tell us what your approach was
to today's Las Vegas High Rollers meal.
FLAY: You know, one of the things that was Vegas,
the food has come such a long way.
But there's still, you know, things like fried calamari,
which were part of the lure of Las Vegas a long time ago.
The next course is what I'm calling
a "Fritto Misto Extraordinaire."
All those incredible ingredients that you gave me
with a couple of extras.
You know, you can still fry food,
but hopefully with better ingredients.
So, it's fried seafood, crispy lobster, blue crab,
Wellfleet oyster, and then the sauce
is a caviar and champagne sauce.
I really like your use of caviar here.
Mm-hmm.
Works really nicely with the champagne.
And the lightness of the batter, this is excellent.
And I like the fact that you even deep fried
your parsley leaves.
Oddly enough, the fried parsley
is my favorite element of the dish.
Really?
And I don't mean that as an insult to the rest of the dish.
The aroma of the herbs kind of pervades everything else
when you take a bite of it.
You've chosen to fry wisely.
Like, I like the fact that you've got the tempura,
which is very crisp and light.
But then you take the cornmeal,
which is a deep kind of nuttiness to it almost.
And it's a balance there.
Did you say he decided to fry wisely?
Fry wisely.
That sounds like a bumper sticker. Fry wisely.
You don't really get that sense that, "Oh, my God, I'm eating fried food."
'Cause he fried wisely.
Because it doesn't have that weight.
Because he fried wisely, as Judy said.
It's the bumper sticker.
They're selling that at the gift shop downstairs.
Thank you, Iron Chef. Next course, please.
Iron Chef.
Okay, the next dish is what I'm calling "Surf & Turf Skewers."
So, we just took the flap of the rib eye off --
it's so incredibly tender -- and skewered it and grilled it.
And then I took lobster tails, skewered them, as well.
And there's two different flavors.
On the rib eye, it's a Korean red-pepper paste glaze.
And then on the lobster, it's orange and horseradish and mint.
These skewers...Wow.
JOO: Wow.
This dish is a really tremendous success,
simply because you've taken a lot of different elements
and fused them together.
And the wagyu is so rich and buttery.
And then you've toned that down
with a really nice, sweet lobster.
And I like the fact that you added citrus to that.
The sweet, the heat, the meat, the seafood.
It was really delicious, and I did like it in the lettuce.
It adds a nice little layer to it.
You need to lick your fingers.
I'm gonna lick my fingers.
She's a mess.
I'm getting dirty. It's good.
There really are like little explosions of flavor
on the plate.
Like, "Wowza here, wowza there."
And that's really how you want Vegas to hit you.
You want these sort of wonderful sensory experiences
happening as you walk down that great strip.
And I think in some ways,
there's something going on like that in the plate.
Thank you.
That was a pretty complex review
right there for a little bite of lobster.
It was delicious.
And I should apologize for this?
[ Laughs ]
Thank you, Iron Chef. Next course, please.
Iron Chef.
Okay, for the next course we have
a homemade black-pepper, black-truffle pasta.
It's cooked in the style of carbonara
and then folded in some mushrooms.
And then some crispy squash blossoms
that have a little bit of black truffle ricotta.
I am so intoxicated by the smell of the truffles.
This dish in Las Vegas would probably cost about $200, right?
Thank you, Chairman.
You're welcome, Iron Chef.
Well, out of all the dishes so far, Bobby,
this is really the most complex in flavor.
It's really special.
There's a lot going on here.
This, I feel like I could be sitting in Rome
overlooking the Pantheon, eating spaghetti carbonara.
The texture of the pasta is sublime.
The crunchiness of the zucchini blossoms.
My favorite element is the mushrooms, though.
That really brings the whole thing together.
It gives it that deep, deep complexity.
The mushrooms also unite the... with the truffles.
It's very decadent. This is Las Vegas.
Thank you, Iron Chef. Next course, please.
Thank you.
Iron Chef.
Okay, for the Vegas finale,
this is a Vegas dessert if there ever was one.
It's a devil's food cake
with a salted caramel ganache running through it.
In the middle is a feuilletine,
which is a very thin, crispy pastry for some crunch.
And then there's some chocolate caviar on top.
The sauce is passion fruit with gold leaf,
in the style of Las Vegas.
And for the culinary curveball,
we made cotton candy with our cotton candy machine
with gold leaf and a little bit of red chili.
Red chilies have, you know, a fruity flavor, almost like a raisin.
So, a chocolate and red chili
seemed to go really nicely together.
This tastes naughty. I shouldn't be eating this.
I shouldn't be doing this, but I am and I can't stop.
My kind of judge.
JOO: [ Laughs ]
It's everything right about being wrong.
Exactly.
The chili on top of the cotton candy,
I mean, that's a home run as a bonus.
So much going on, it's Vegas.
What happens in Vegas is going in my mouth right now.
Thank you very much.
Iron Chef Flay, thank you for a fantastic meal.
Thank you. Thank you.
We just hit the judge's taste buds in the right way.
But Chef Sosa's food, it looked really beautiful.
You never know how it's gonna go
until the judges turn over that last card.
When we return, today's second chef
will roll the dice right here on "Iron Chef America."
Welcome back, food fans.
The first chef has presented his offerings.
This tastes naughty.
My kind of judge.
It's now time for the second chef
to test his luck with the judges.
Chairman, please continue.
Chef Sosa.
Chairman.
Please tell us about this course.
Excellent.
So for this course, I call this
The Essence of Red Underwear.
Red underwear in Chinese culture brings good luck,
and I wore two pairs today.
What we have here is a beautiful Wagyu Carpaccio,
some Sriracha mayonnaise,
and to top it off, some osetra caviar.
JOO: Even though there's no butter in the Sriracha
it has a very creamy butteriness about it.
It's just the silkiness of the wagyu.
And it has almost like a sheen when you eat it.
You feel it kind of glistening as you go down.
And that's a little bit of love in there, too.
Aww.
No, I like the heat.
I like the heat in the first dish.
You know, and you get a little bit of it right here,
which is nice.
But on this, you don't feel that sense of over kill
that you felt with the oyster.
Where there was so -- it was almost like tumult
going on in your mouth.
You weren't even sure what was happening.
Everything here makes sense.
Yeah.
The wagyu is definitely still the star
even with all the layers.
No, it's really nice.
And the beef really is beautiful.
It's a beautiful dish.
Thank you, Chef.
Next course please.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chef.
So, this course -- The High Roller's Hangover.
This is a chawanmushi made with dashi.
There's a bath of champagne,
a little froth, or air if you would.
I really just wanted to have it in its purest form
where you're getting that champagne.
But it actually makes sense
with these beautiful smoked caviar once again.
Finally some champagne.
It's amazing how well the champagne goes with this.
That would be my first thought.
When you first taste it, it's almost a ephemeral.
And then with every spoonful
the flavors just get bigger in your mouth.
Mm-hmm.
I know chawanmushi. This is damn good chawanmushi.
Thank you very much. Thank you. What an honor.
It's something that you do want to eat when you're hung over I think.
Just kind of bring your body back to center.
It has these wonderful, very comforting flavors.
Thank you, Chef. Next course, please.
Chef.
Chairman.
Next, we have butter-poached lobster.
The cotton candy is a very light soy cotton candy.
Served with chocolate watermelon on your side,
which should cleanse your palate.
So, this dish really is when you go to the casino floor,
there's a lot of stimulus.
Your version of sensory overload.
Exactly.
Okay.
Your soy sauce cotton candy is really good.
SOSA: It definitely was more than a curveball.
I think it was a slider, knuckleball,
and a curveball at the same time.
JOO: This is really weird, but it works.
Like I would never have put watermelon, chocolate,
and lobster together.
It's a Vegas overload, but the watermelon is very salted.
I think with the saltiness,
then with the chocolate on top of that, just that bite alone
is a whole lot of love going on in that bite right there.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
As much fun as I think it is to eat,
I didn't really feel like it added anything to the dish.
It looks like a distant relative.
It just, like, it doesn't,
you know, like I didn't mean to invite you.
You just showed up.
The cousin that you just don't like.
Even though you've found it the most challenging element,
I think your cotton candy is the star.
Oh, wow.
It's the salty sweetness of it.
It's got that umami going.
Right.
So, I commend you on your inventiveness
and creativity and your innovation here.
I do love the cotton candy.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chef. Next course, please.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chef.
So, for our next course,
I think we're gonna go out on a ***.
We have a beautifully roasted wagyu.
An Asian pear
for a little sweetness that contrasts the beef.
And just to finish off, we have a soy garlic chocolate sauce.
Obviously you didn't mean this to be dessert.
Not at all.
Okay, just checking.
Japanese pear, right?
Just even that with the chocolate on its own
is like a little mini dessert on the side.
It's definitely a chocolate sauce.
That sauce makes this dish.
It's got sweetness. It's got the saltiness.
It's got the silkiness, the chocolate undertones.
It's a little cup of chocolate love.
I call it liquid love.
It's gorgeous.
It also complements your beauty, as well.
Are you talking about me?
Are you buttering up?
Oh, thank you so much. Oh, her. Oh, well, whatever.
This really is truly the secret ingredient.
And without this, it's good, with this it's special.
Thank you.
Chef Sosa, thank you for an excellent meal.
Thank you, Chairman. What a great honor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I think the judges' feedback was amazing.
We're only down by six.
We might have a shot at a comeback.
BROWN: Right, fresh from the judges' table,
the scores for the use of the Chairman's culinary curveball,
the Iron Chef 14 points.
Chef Sosa a perfect 15 points
narrowing the Iron Chef's lead to 5 points.
Will the house win?
The final tally of scores when "Iron Chef America" returns.
Welcome back to "Iron Chef America."
Our final result is just around the corner.
Iron Chef Bobby Flay currently leads
the challenger, Chef Angelo Sosa,
by a mere five points.
Either Chef could win,
so let's go up to the Chairman and see what he's got to say.
Today, two champions met in a Las Vegas High Rollers battle
here at Kitchen Stadium.
Iron Chef Flay.
Chef Sosa.
The judges have spoken.
The winner is...
...Iron Chef Flay.
[ Cheers and applause ]
SOSA: It was an honor to be here at Kitchen Stadium.
We took some jabs in the beginning.
But I think we had a strong comeback.
I really wanted to win this one really badly.
You know, I have a restaurant in Las Vegas,
and, you know, I have to go back there and represent well.
See you in Vegas.
Comedian Artie Lange once said, "Vegas is comedy, tragedy,
happiness, and sadness all at the same time."
We certainly experienced that here today
as we witnessed one chef gamble it all
and strike it rich,
while the other came up snake eyes.
But hey, that's life.
Wherever the risks are high, and the rewards delicious.
I'm Alton Brown.
On behalf of the Chairman, Kevin Brauch,
and everyone here at Kitchen Stadium,
I bid you good eating.
-- Captions by VITAC --