Although the Iron Chefs did not make an appearance last night at the Wolves’ Den, students, faculty and staff at N.C. State may have been fooled.

NCSU Dining hosted the second annual Chef’s Challenge to cap off Culinary Showcase Week.

The show is similar in premise to the local contest, but as Steve Edwards, director of the board of operations for University Dining pointed out, there are some considerable differences.

“These guys have been working on their stuff for a long time,” Edwards said. “The show always has that ‘mystery ingredient.’ Here, we can show our chef’s talent and get creative in a way that will benefit students in dining halls.”

Reviewed by a celebrity panel of judges, chefs from Case, Fountain, Clark and University Catering displayed their remarkable talents under fire.

“We really want people to understand that we have chefs that are talented,” Edwards said.

The chefs had to adhere to strict guidelines. Bringing pre-submitted recipes and sticking to them, the chefs had the chance to prepare their meals in advance.

While last year’s entree included chicken, Bill Brizzolara, executive chef for dining and director of the Culinary Chef’s Challenge, said this year’s ingredient was fresh grouper.

“The chefs will have a 30-minute prep time and one hour to cook,” Brizzolara said. “They’ll have two burners and two skillets that we provide; they can bring more if they need to, but only one hour to do one entree, two sides and at least once sauce.”

Students can taste the winning recipe in dining halls across campus.

Judging great food is not always easy, but comes natural to some.

“I love to eat,” Bill Leslie, anchor for WRAL-TV and part of the celebrity panel of judges, said. “I just think it’s neat that N.C. State is trying to elevate its culinary art. Colleges usually get such a bad rep for their dining.”

While Leslie is an alumnus of UNC-Chapel Hill, he has faith in NCSU’s culinary experts.

“This is going to be better [than UNC-CH],” Leslie said. “Food generally at colleges is better now than it used to be. Chefs take more pride in their food, and the presentations are more colorful.”

While the standards for food service and dining may have increased across the board, this challenge was strictly regulated. The dishes were awarded points for categories including nutritional and culinary skill and execution and taste.

Although Bob Pasarelli, CEC culinary judge and food consultant for U.S. Food Services, said nutritional balance might be an important judging category for the contest, the standards aren’t always the same for a different audience.

“People say they care about that, but they really don’t. They want food that tastes good,” Pasarelli said. “Why else would they fry Twinkies at the State fair and even make jalapeno cheese poppers? I always say eat anything — just don’t eat a lot.”

The judge speaks. Taste matters.

A self-proclaimed “big fan of big taste,” Pasarelli said he judges on a balance of five flavors: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, which is a Japanese word for ‘peak of flavor.’

“You don’t taste [umami] from your tongue, you taste it on the top of your mouth,” he said. “That’s the full flavor — that fifth flavor. It’s a fairly new discovery in food science.”

And taste always wins.

For example, Fountain Dining Hall cooks Barbara Sanders and Izesta Brown brought on the umami with their sweet-and-spicy, chile-rubbed grouper with sweet mango coulis and a tangy citrus and red onion marmelade.

While the dish sounds mouth-wateringly good, don’t expect the results at dining halls across campus to be exactly the same as what the celebrity judges ranked as best.

“It’s a lot different when you’re cooking for four, and when you’re cooking for 400,” Edwards said. “It’s hard because it doesn’t translate well, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t try. We used to not have actual chefs here [in the dining halls].”

What may be different about the translation is certainly the presentation of the food.

“How does it look? I take a glance, but I don’t really care,” Pasarelli said. “Some of the scariest stuff I’ve eaten has looked great.”

Students can check www.ncsudining.com for a schedule of when the grouper will be debuted.