[Jingleheimer]

Congrats Mrs. Utah!

I feel weird commenting on others' dishes when I am in the competition, but I really like to critically analyze food so I waited until the voting was over.

StevieG:
I think out of all the entries, your entries were the ones that were the most creative, but also the one I needed to taste most.

Nasturtium leaves- what did they taste like? I think the strength of your app rests on the taste; visually your plate is flat, and even if you mounded something in the middle like CSC, you are relying on the strength of your flavors to carry your dish. Tough for online. I know that with a traditional carpaccio, you might have some olives or bread with your dish. Is there anything you could put here keeping with your southwestern theme that could add some variety to your dish?
For your deconstructed stroganoff, I thought this was really creative, but I again really needed to taste it for two reasons: I don't really care for normally contructed stroganoff, and also I was a little wary of the kasha and chopped chestnuts. I thought that could taste sort of bland, but I have never had it, just going by the pictures. BTW, kudos to both you and Analyst for the chestnuts, very seasonal and appropriate. Your entree was very attractive, but there were a couple of elements there that took me out of my eating comfort zone and I didn't know if I would like it or not. Just a personal thing. But overall, I liked your creativity best.

Jingleheimer:
Photo and plating of app is poor. Plate is way too sparse. The flavoring of the meat inside of the squid could have been stronger. Dish does not look particularly appetizing.
Entree looks very nice but is really just a straightforward Beef Wellington. Not very creative. Also, I thought the entree looked sort of naked on the plate, it would be nice to plate it with something else. Keep trying.

Mrs. Utah:
I liked your app best. Two quibbles: 1) If these inside out wontons are normal size, the large amount of meat on the outside may make them a little awkward to eat- how were they? Do you need a knife and fork to eat your soup? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] 2) Your app is a soup, but the photo of your finished dish is without broth!? I know that filling the soup bowl is going to drown your wontons, but you have to have a picture of the finished dish! You just needed to be a little more creative with the photo to make this happen IMO.

Your entree was gorgeous and well executed as always and obviously a lot of work for all of your sides, but my one comment here is only that it doesn't seem very creative; the beef is very straightforward in concept and preparation. Mentally, I knew this would taste good, but that's because I've had it before. So I think it suffered a bit in my eye because of it. But I'm sure it does feature the flavor of the beef well.

CSC:
Your carpaccio was cooked? Is that normal? I thought carpaccio does not see heat? Dunno. You definitely benefitted from the early entry of StevieG and the comment that his dish looked flat, but also I think you were hurt by being second, as your carpaccio didn't seem as fun to me seeing it for the second time.
For your entree, the associations with chicken-fried steak were pretty strong and my mental picutre of its taste may have suffered. As has been pointed out, the picture is pretty harsh and we don't get to see the quinoa, which I was quite curious about. Also your sauce cheat is sort of lame, although I can see why you would not be making your own veal stock.

Analyst:
I thought your flank steak margaritas were the seed of the winning app, for creativity, looks, and taste. I thought I could actually taste the marinated meat with the jalapeno jelly with your pictures- looked delicious. The margarita idea is very creative too, but in the end I thought it also looked like a bowl of meat with nothing else, which may be a little heavy for an app. Something else in there to break up the taste or the visuals would have helped it a lot, I think. What about molding a tortilla into a margarita glass shape and then frying it? Then you could place the meat into the glass and eat the whole thing. Or something like that. Dilute the meat. I thought your app needed just one more thing and it would have been really outstanding.
Entree: Nice seasonality to your choice. Funny that both you and Stevie did a southwest/Tex-Mex app and a chestnut entree. Photo of meat looked really dry- was it? If so, maybe it would have been helpful to plate your sauce on the meat. The veggie sides didn't do it for me personally, but that's just my taste- they look very good.

I hope that these comments are taken in the spirit that they are intended, just positively and constructively. As I said I really enjoy critically thinking about food (whenever we go out for dinner, we are always trying to deconstruct dishes and identify how we would improve them) and enjoy these Iron Chef OOT competitions greatly.