Alton Brown is the best part of Iron Chef America, but overall its a pretty bad show compared to the Japanese version, of course though in IC Japanese the Chances of a non-jap winning are pretty slim because they always pack asshole actors and losers for the judges who know jack shit about international cuisine. Thats the ONLY thing the US version has over the Jap version, they have real judges.

And I agree, the last time i watched Iron Chef America, I think the mystery ingrediant was trout... OoOoOoOoh that would be hard as shit, i mean NOONE knows how to prepare fucking trout. I prefer to see them be forced to work around using like Cow anus or something. A real challenge, and then we get to watch the pin head actor judges say "oh my I havent eaten rectum in some time, so good."