The first episode of Epic Chef, the brain child of extreme cooking show Epic Meal Time, hit the internet last week. If you're already familiar with the work of Epic Meal Time and the Sauce Boss, then nothing here should be surprising besides the amount of verbal abuse the team seems ready to dole out on celebrity chefs. It's kinda refreshing, actually.
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The tructure of the show follows the basic Iron Chef format with celebrity chefs in timed competition facing off over secret ingredients. Their finished products are judged by a panel of celebrity judges and Epic Meal Time's Sauce Boss. The twist is that it looks like the judges and chefs getting pretty sloshed during the course of the meal.
This week's show was a breakfast challenge using breakfast meats, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, jalapenos and "sushi grade lard." Competitors were also "encouraged" to make use of rum, which was the alcohol of the day. Oh, and a briefcase full of bacon because this is an Epic Meal Time production and we're fairly certain they're single handedly causing the looming bacon shortage.
It's actually somewhat shocking who the Epic Meal Time guys were able to wrangle onto their show. Ilan Hall was the winner of the second season of Top Chef and a the chef owner of the LA restaurant The Gorbals. His competition is David Alvarez, previously the Chef de Cuisine for Anthony Bourdain's Les Halle and someone who has made a few appearances on the Food Network in the past.
The quality of the show is debatable. Long time Epic Meal Time viewers will likely enjoy the mandatory shot taking and the narration. Fans that were looking for a "real" cooking competition will likely be letdown since the judging standards are a little capricious and the actual dishes aren't exactly much to look at. People stumbling upon this while surfing Youtube will probably just be confused or horrified.
