America's Culinary Cup

The first episode was a bit dull. Too much talk and not enough cooking. The H2H format didn't generate much and the stupid scoreboard takes too much time from cooking. Padma whining about making a tough decision was painful. Have everyone running to get ingredients, have time limits, and show them cooking all together. Also less of the judges is better than more.

I didn't think this was too bad. Padma Lakshmi liked to show her cleavage but it could have been worse. The contestants were interesting and worked hard, i.e. they weren't complete doofuses. I actually didn't care who won and would have liked to see more cooking but they did show what these chefs could do. One had to suspend belief at times because we couldn't really tell why one chef got a top score and the other didn't, i.e. the judges comments while tasting didn't give away the reason's for this. All in all, though, this wasn't the worst cooking competition I've seen. I sure wish we count have an update of Iron Chef. Anyway, we'd say: "watch if you like this kind of cooking competition (but stream it so you can skip past parts that you don't enjoy."

While I liked the competition which was excellent, I loved getting to know the chefs and appreciation for their skills and determination to be a better/best chef ! The part that I had a hard time with was Padma Lakshmi, I really felt she was making the show showcase herself, that she was the hi-lite of the show. It was very obvious she was BANK rolling ($$$) the show; her outfits, self enhanced appearance and center of attraction. Very self centered on her part, it is not a modeling show, its a cooking show. She could learn from Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, etc. Padma Lakshm is so much drama, the show should consider another host if there IS another a 2nd season.

Stick with the contests on the Food Network like Tournament of Champions or Great British Baking Show on Netflix. America’s Culinary Cup is vulgar and mean. I started watching it with my daughter in the room and quickly had to turn it off. There’s better cooking competition shows out there.

You should judge the cooks on the same dish. I hate it when you give different items out. They should all cook the same dish to there standard. Then judge on the difference. Everything should be blind tasting. That is the only fair judgment.