'Tournament of Champions': What happened when OKC's Kevin Lee took on Brooke Williamson?
Oklahoma City's chef Kevin Lee survived to fight another round in "Tournament of Champions V" with a single-point win over past-champion Brooke Williamson.
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Lee's win means he moves on to the Super 16 round of competition where he will face Shirley Chung, a two-time "Top Chef" competitor, also known as the Dumpling Mafia Queen who defeated chef Joe Sasto in Sunday's episode.
"I didn't think I had a chance today," Lee said after winning his round. "I was a backup for the qualifier, too, Guy, I had a two day head's up to come here and I just beat the No. 1 seed. Is this a dream?"
What happened when Kevin Lee took on Brooke Williamson in 'Tournament of Champions?'
Like all battles, the Lee vs. Williamson fight began with a spin of the Randomizer to decide the 30-minute competition round's ingredients, tools and more. The pairing were tasked with creating a dish that included pork loin, cauliflower, and steel-cut oats. The dish had to contain tart flavor elements and chefs had to utilize a ricer in preparation.
Lee's dish for the judges was a steel-cut oat crusted pork tonkatsu with a mascarpone cauliflower puree, smokey currant cauliflower rice and a pomegranate fennel salad, while Williamson presented a dry rub roasted pork loin with cauliflower puree and hibiscus pickled cauliflower.
"Man it was rough, I mean I was in the qualifier, but the main bracket is a different game," Lee told the cameras as he walked back to his trailer to await the judging.
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Culinary greats Donatella Arpaia, Andrew Zimmern, and Ming Tsai were on hand to provide a blind judging for the night.
All three judges commented on the overall visual appeal of Williamson's dish as well as her masterful cooking of the pork. Arpaia said the tart on Williamson's dish was "more successful."
However, Tsai called Lee's pork "perfectly executed" and said there was "tart everywhere on this dish."
"After tasting both of them, this was a more successful use of the pork itself," Zimmern said of Lee's dish. "I thought this was an extremely successful dish."
In the end, Lee beat out Williamson with a score of 88-87 to move on to the next round.
"I'm happy for him, you know, like he battled his way in here and he is the round one upset now," Williamson said of Lee. "It's anyone's game, anything can happen."
How did Kevin Lee make it to this point in Tournament of Champions?
Thirty-two chefs gathered together for the launch of "Tournament of Champions V," on the Food Network on Feb. 19 and after four battles took place that night, Sunday brought Lee's chance in the arena to the small screen.
At stake for competitors is the title of champion and the highest prize in competition history, $150,000 to the chef who wins it all. The single-elimination tournament pits the chefs — who include iron chefs, top chef winners, James Beard recipients and more — against one another in a seeded bracket.
This year, the number one seeds are the four previous TOC champions, Brooke Williamson, Maneet Chauhan, Tiffani Faison and Mei Lin. Their competition for round one were the four winners of Tournament of Champions: The Qualifiers and that's where Oklahoma City's Lee joins the picture.
Lee, chef-owner of Birdie's by Chef Kevin Lee, 2201 NW 150 Street in Edmond, battled his way into the main bracket by defeating three other chefs in a play-in qualifier round, landing him as the number eight seed in the West A portion of the bracket and granting him the chance to take on Williamson.
The Super 16 episodes of "Tournament of Champions V" will air at 7 p.m. March 17 and 24 on Food Network. Tune in to cheer on Lee and see if he can take down Chung to advance to the quarterfinals.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Did OKC's Kevin Lee advance on 'Tournament of Champions V'?
