Washington chefs fell to 1-2 in Iron Chef America competitions, as Bobby Flay defeated the uni-monikered Morou in Battle Frozen Peas last night on the Food Network show — two months after Galileo’s Roberto Donna avenged his own loss to Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Morou — the former Signatures chef who had earned the right to take on an Iron Chef when he topped former 1789 chef Ris Lacoste and Tosca’s Cesare Lanfranconi in the regional precursor battle — lost resoundingly to the hated grill king by failing to incorporate peas more fully into his dishes and by falling way short on flavor.
Although the Associated Press originally reported that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams would serve on the culinary battle’s judging panel, the District’s lame duck executive instead cheered on the hometown Morou from the sidelines. Asked by floor reporter Kevin Brauch about Morou, Mayor Tony replied, “He’s bringing innovation, experimentation — that’s what we want to see. That’s what D.C. stands for.” Apparently, by “innovation, experimentation,” his Honor was referring to the District’s fledgling public school system and Marion Barry’s longtime drug troubles. Respectively.
Morou’s five dishes looked fantastically tasty. But the judges — the CBS Early Show’s Hannah Storm, Julie & Julia author Julie Powell, and gluttonous curmudgeon Jeffrey Steingarten — repeatedly objected to Morou’s not making peas an integral part of the dishes. The single exception was when Powell enthusiastically concluded that Morou’s pea- and peanut-laden lamb with pea salad had “much ‘pea-ness’ going on” — apparently unaware of the hilarious sexual homophone she’d uttered. (Yes, we’re six years old.) Worse, perhaps, Steingarten said he thought that the pea sauce in Morou’s extremely creative pea dessert — a frozen sweet pea, chocolate-dipped cream cheese stick with pea beignets — tasted like tobacco. Mmmm, Marlboro Lights. Indeed, the judges ultimately rewarded Morou for his creativity, but slammed him in the taste category.
Although Morou’s cuisine didn’t reign supreme, he doesn’t have much to worry about. In September, the Ivory Coast native will open a restaurant called Farrah Olivia on the site of Old Town Alexandria’s old Blue Point Grill. And besides, Morou’s most important victory was emerging unscathed from his involvement with lobbyist Jack Abramoff — for whom Morou served as executive chef at Abramoff’s Signatures restaurant.
A repeat of the episode next airs on Thursday, July 13 at 9 p.m. on the Food Network.
