If Bryan Caswell seemed to slide under the radar in the first episode of The Next Iron Chef, this week he showed he has skills to be reckoned with.

With the most cursory of introductions, we get right to the action: The nine chefs meet around a reconstructed diner counter, told to make "innovative" dishes from the breakfast staples of coffee and doughnuts.

Caswell again pulled from his love of Vietnamese cuisine, creating a version of Vietnamese coffee from buttermilk donuts and some French toast, which apparently is called pain perdu by fancy people.

He lands squarely in the middle of the pack after squabbling with Marco Canora over whether his dish was donut-y enough and with Ming Tsai over Tsai's less-than-original glazed donut sandwich. Tsai had never heard of such a thing — apparently he's never been to a state fair.

For the chairman's challenge, each chef must reinvent a diner classic — meatloaf, burger, chicken pot pie, etc. Since chef Chauhan won the breakfast challenge with her donut grilled cheese, she pairs the dishes with the chefs.

Time is the key factor in this challenge, with many chefs struggling to make traditionally slow-cooked dishes in under an hour. Caswell was assigned to innovate on an openfaced turkey and stuffing sandwich. Though he seems in his wheelhouse, as time runs down and his turkey is only cooked medium rare, he begins to get nervous.

"I'm flirting with disaster here," he tells the camera.

If that was the case, the judges didn't notice. Caswell earns high praise for his perfectly-cooked slow-roasted turkey served with brioche, giblet dressing and cherry mustard.

In the end, the judges pick Caswell's turkey and Marc Forgione's inside-out chicken pot pie as home run dishes, but Forgione wins a narrow victory. Mario Pagan's odd-looking tropical meatloaf gets him sent home, with a close call for Ming Tsai, who made a great corned beef but hid it under, as one judge mused "everything else in the kitchen."

"I'm pretty pissed I didn't win," said Caswell in the wrap-up. "But when somebody gives me that much praise and no criticism, it makes me blush like a little schoolgirl. You can't buy that feeling."

With his near-win, it looks like Caswell's name has been added to the top contenders, alongside Forgione, Chauhan, and Tsai. And next week's challenge includes catching and preparing your own fish — we look forward to seeing the Reef guy show them how he rolls.