WATCH: Rob Zombie and His Vegan Challenge Invade ‘Top Chef Duels’

Like us on Facebook:

The current article you are reading does not reflect the views of the current editors and contributors of the new Ecorazzi

Finally! A hardcore vegan challenge was presented on Wednesday’s “Top Chef Duels.” Just who can we thank for that? Mr. Rob Zombie. Yes, that’s right, this director/musician is a dedicated vegan.

It’s very rare for Bravo’s “Top Chef” to avoid using animal products, but “Top Chef Duels” is about making these professional chefs go out of their comfort zones. Not only did this episode feature Zombie, but rockers Gary Holt and Scott Ian joined along for the vegan ride. Holt isn’t vegan, but Ian admitted to eating that way “most of the time.”

Known “Top Chef” contestants Dale Talde and Tiffani Faison took on the plant-based challenge by creating a three-course meal, including a main dish on a stick, a meal with a meat substitute and a vegan dessert with a surprise.

As Zombie told them, “Make vegan taste good.” He even gave both a hard time about their choices by saying, “Usually people think vegan, like ‘oh, we’ll just take the meat off the plate and here’s some watered-down side dish of vegetables.’”

Each course was dedicated to each rocker, and Zombie chose the meat substitute meal. “It seems like even though I haven’t eaten meat in so long you still feel like you’re hardwired to want that texture,” he revealed.

The chefs expanded on their creativity by making a spring salad on a stick, seared rice noodles, charred silken tofu, vegan ramen made from egg-less pasta, mushroom scallops, sesame mochi rice balls stuffed with peanut butter and jelly, and chocolate cake with coconut meringue. Whose mouth is also watering?

In addition to enjoying these animal-friendly delicacies, the rockers didn’t hold back on their critiques. As for Zombie, he posed a fairly good question: “Do you think that for a cook to cook vegan it really shows the quality of the cook that they are? That they don’t have the crutch of meat?”

Some of the professional chefs, judges and food critics in attendance agreed. One in particular, Francis Lam, the editor-at-large for Clarkson-Potter, admitted that there are so many more options and flavors in the plant world resulting in even more creativity for chefs.

In the end, Talde won the duel, and this episode presents one important question: Don’t you think “Top Chef” should integrate more vegan challenges?

Photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com