When a Side Dish Saves the Day — Alton's After-Show

When both Round 3 dishes contained flaw, it was up to judge Simon to consider more than just granola bars to decide the winner.

Related To:

Alton Brown and Simon Majumdar

Photo by: Eddy Chen ©2014, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

Eddy Chen, 2014, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

So often in the Cutthroat Kitchen arena, chefs split their focus between the challenge dish and a side dish or two to round out their offerings for the judge, only to find out later that the sides did more harm than good, perhaps detracting from the primary dish or suffering a flaw that the judge cannot ignore. But on tonight's all-new episode, it turns out that the side dish saved the day for one competitor and ultimately clinched his win.

It was up to judge Simon Majumdar to decide which of two chefs' granola bars was worthy of the prize, and while Chef Julio's plate indeed featured a bar, Simon noted of the taste during the After-Show, "It wasn't the best granola." That prestige was awarded to Chef John's dish, as Simon explained, "John's was really good granola, but it wasn't a bar." Therein lies the problem. "The fact that both of them had real problems — one didn't have a bar and one didn't have great granola — meant I had to judge the dish as a whole," Simon said, "and [Chef Julio's] pineapple dish was really great." While such a judgment doesn't happen regularly on Cutthroat, Alton Brown told Simon, "In that case, it was the side item that sealed the victory."

Click the play button on the video above to hear more from Simon and Alton, then catch up on more After-Show commentary on FN Dish.

Don’t miss an all-new episode of Cutthroat Kitchen on Sunday at 10|9c.

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