He passed the appetizer round by making a chilled black radish key lime broth with marinated tuna belly. His entrée was a seared leg of lamb with lassi spinach purée and beans. In the last round – the dessert competition – Clark made an almond butter cake with ricotta.

The premise of the show is for four chefs to use surprise and unusual ingredients to create three dishes. After each round, one chef is “chopped,” or eliminated. Some of the ingredients Clark had to cook with included bacon popcorn, toban djan (a spicy chili bean sauce), mashed-potato candy and rambutans (a hairy tropical fruit).

Clark may not have won the competition, but he still gets to boast that he is executive chef of Gwynette St. restaurant, which Esquire magazine named one of the 20 best new restaurants in 2012. The restaurant is in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Herald Staff