"Wooden" Chef America: Mario Batali vs. Joël Robuchon

Well, possums, it seems we have a battle of the jerk-offs on our, er, hands.

From New York magazine, published January 15, 2007:

What was your favorite annoying Marcel moment?
Sam: There's no single moment, but he would switch into different alter egos in different places. On the beach he'd talk like a surfer, and other days he'd go gangster.

Ilan [Hall, line cook at Mario Batali's Casa Mono]: This didn't air, but he had to make this dish about lust and I told him that he's never lusted after a woman, all he does is go home and jerk off thinking about Joël Robuchon. And the only thing he could think of as a comeback was, "I don't jerk off to Joël Robuchon." That was it!

From the Las Vegas Weekly interview of Marcel Vigneron, published January 18, 2007:

According to a post attributed him, [Frank Terzoli] claimed you spent at least 40 minutes in the bathroom.
'That's just not true. I think it's sad that he has to resort to those kind of lies to save face. If anything, Ilan was the one that took 45 minutes in the bathroom. Probably a chronic masturbator.' He squeezes out the butt of his cigarette and lifts his hands in an open-palm gesture. 'Okay,' he says, 'enough of that!'

So, possums, which chef would you, er, raise your glass to?

On the left-hand side, we have Chef Robuchon, and on the right-hand side, Chef Batali. Closing our eyes and remembering the lardo pizza and olive oil gelato from Batali’s Otto (as opposed to any dishes from Babbo), and the lamb confit, truffled mashed potatoes, and Chartreuse soufflé from L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (as opposed to any dishes from Joël Robuchon at the Mansion), we know which hand we’d pay tribute with.