Homaru Cantu and chefs from Chicago's weird-science restaurant, Moto, faced off against iron chef Morimoto in January. The challenge ingredient was beetroot, and Moto's chefs stole the show with this postmodern beet maki surrounded by edible paper printed with maki-zushi ink.



Another favorite was a frozen sphere of beet -- "made by injecting a balloon with liquified beet, freezing it with the liquid nitrogen, and burning the balloon off with a baby blowtorch--over yogurt with a spike of yuzu." Despite the iron chef's more traditional preparations, and one future-forward liquid nitrogen encrusted beetroot ice cream, Moto won!



First Science: "Perhaps Cantu's greatest innovation at Moto is a modified Canon i560 inkjet printer (which he calls the "food replicator" in homage to Star Trek) that prints flavoured images onto edible paper. The print cartridges are filled with food-based "inks", including juiced carrots, tomatoes and purple potatoes, and the paper tray contains sheets of soybean and potato starch. The printouts are flavoured by dipping them in a powder of dehydrated soy sauce, squash, sugar, vegetables or sour cream, and then they are frozen, baked or fried."


Cantu is now working with superconductors and handheld particle guns to create a system for levitating food in front of customers.

More details in the Chicago Reader article.