D.C. chefs have a checkered history on Iron Chef America. In his first visit, Roberto Donna of Galileo suffered one of the great meltdowns in IC history and wasn’t even able to complete a full complement of dishes. He came back, though, with Battle Squid to outdo the Iron Chef of Iron Chefs, Masaharu Morimoto. Farrah Olivia‘s Morou Ouattara didn’t quite stack up, losing to Bobby Flay in Battle Frozen Peas.

But José Andrés (Jaleo, Oyamel, Zaytinya, Cafe Atlantico) had a chance to exact some revenge for Ouattara last night, when he took on Flay in Battle Goat.

Revenge exacted: Andrés destroyed Flay, outscoring the Iron Chef in every category. Flay mostly stuck with his Southwest schtick, turning out, for instance, a goat-stuffed chile relleño. Tasty, sure, but only about the 17th time Flay’s dropped a chile relleño on an IC episode.

Andres, on the other hand, did his Spanish tapas-meets-molecular gastronomy thing. He didn’t go quite as nuts as, say, Wylie Dufresne or Homaru Cantu did in their ICA appearances. But Andrés’ goat dishes just looked more delicious.

This thing was all over when Andrés’ henchmen pulled the bell jar thingys off the top of his goat ribs, releasing a cloud of applewood(?) smoke into the judges’ faces. Unbelievable. And he still hadn’t served his goat-milk ice cream with the weird congealed wine-reduction droplets.

Congratulations, José: You just totally pwned an Iron Chef in one of the great challenger performances in IC history. On par, perhaps, with when Flay beat Morimoto on that 2000 IC special.

At least you had the good sense not to mount your cutting board.

Tim Carman Chimes In: “As soon as I saw that he brought along Katsuya Fukushima as his sous chef, I knew Flay was toast. Few full-blown chefs in the country can sniff Fukushima’s wooden spoon, let alone one of Flay’s underling flunkies.”