Bobby went traditional on palak paneer. The chef opposite him made it into lasagna and won. There is a lesson there about Bobby Flay and traditional cooking, and we will let you locate it yourself.
Manish Tyagi runs Aurum in Los Altos — modern, upscale, the kind of California Indian that takes the architecture of regional cooking and builds something new on top of it. His palak paneer-lasagna kept the spinach gravy and the cubed paneer, then layered them between sheets of pasta the way Bologna would do it if Bologna were closer to Punjab.
Innovation beat tradition. The dish was real. The judges chose it.