It’s time for another pre-Food Network episode for your viewing pleasure.
The challenger entered the field of cooking at the age of 18 and studied classic French cuisine for 12 years. He first encountered California Cuisine while working at Spago in Rappongi. He was personally trained by the legendary Wolfgang Puck at Spago in Los Angeles. He returned to Japan as a California Cuisine expert and opened his own restaurant in 1995. As of late 2006, he was still leading the kitchen at Rellenos Sugawara.
What makes this episode a rare and special treat for current Iron Chef fans is that it comes from the time before Iron Chef was aired on Food Network. It was recorded from one of the local stations broadcasting the show. (In fact, it still has the local commercials intact.) It is in Japanese WITH English subtitles. I know you will enjoy being able to experience this rare episode not shown in North America in over 10 years.
There are two options for viewing this episode. The pop-up player will use the usual divx encoded file. This smaller, lower quality file can also be downloaded directly using the “Download File” option. Also in the download menu this time is an option to download a higher quality VOB file (approx. 1.3GB). (You can play the vob file in VLC Player)
New in the video database this week: 435s – Corn Battle – Sakai vs. Sugawara (subbed)
It’s time for another pre-Food Network episode for your viewing pleasure.
The challenger, Shinsuke Shimada, is a famous comedian in Japan. He is also known to be one of the best celebrity chefs in Japan. At the age of 21, he began his show business career as part of a manzai duo. Despite appearing on as many as 11 television shows a week, he still makes time to cook at least once per day.
Shimada is currently the host of the popular Japanese television show Quiz Hexagon II. (Watch full episodes of Quiz Hexagon II on Veoh.) Unfortunately, there are two incidents in the last five years which indicate that Shimada may have problems controlling his temper. First, he attacked a female staffer at his management agency. And as recently as October 2008, he was seen confronting some young comedians during a live television show. Although he has had these problems in the past, he is still a highly sought after host in Japan.
What makes this episode a rare and special treat for current Iron Chef fans is that it comes from the time before Iron Chef was aired on Food Network. It was recorded from one of the local stations broadcasting the show. (In fact, it still has the local commercials intact.) It is in Japanese WITH English subtitles. I know you will enjoy being able to experience this rare episode not shown in North America in over 10 years.
There are two options for viewing this episode. The pop-up player will use the usual divx encoded file. This smaller, lower quality file can also be downloaded directly using the “Download File” option. Also in the download menu this time is an option to download a higher quality VOB file (approx. 1.3GB). (You can play the vob file in VLC Player)
New in the video database this week: 436s – Taisho Prawn Battle – Chen vs. Shimada (subbed)
On this date sixteen years ago, 10/10/1993, the first episode of Ryouri no Tetsujin aired on Fuji TV. And while I would love to announce that I have that first episode, I think we all know it is highly unlikely that we will ever find it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate. Take the opportunity to watch some of your favorite episodes today.
Keep voting for the next subtitled episode to be posted. A new one will go up mid-week this week.
This is the first of several pre-Food Network episodes that I will be sharing with you over the next few weeks.
The challenger, Wayne Nish, is a Japanese American chef from New York City. The New York Times gave his restaurant 3 stars. He likes to use inspirations from many different cultures in his cuisine, creating beautiful and unique dishes. The chairman chooses a theme inspired by the challenger’s home town, the Big Apple. Sakai admits to being at a disadvantage because of his previous apple battle (305). Does the American challenger have what it takes to get a victory in his Grandfather’s homeland?
According to an article in the New York Times in February 2009, Wayne Nish is now the executive chef at restaurant Prive in Singapore. (Click Here and Here for more information about chef Nish.) I can’t find any mention of chef Nish on Prive’s current website, but he is mentioned on this menu (pdf) from 6/29/2009.
What makes this episode a rare and special treat for current Iron Chef fans is that it comes from the time before Iron Chef was aired on Food Network. It was recorded from one of the local stations broadcasting the show. It is in Japanese WITH English subtitles. I know you will enjoy being able to experience this rare episode not shown in North America in over 10 years.
There are two options for viewing this episode. The pop-up player will use the usual divx encoded file. This smaller, lower quality file can also be downloaded directly using the “Download File” option. Also in the download menu this time is an option to download a higher quality VOB file (approx. 1GB). (You can play the vob file in VLC Player)
New in the video database this week: 446s – Apple Battle – Sakai vs. Nish (subbed)
I thought about saving this news until I had at least one of these episodes ready for upload, but I’m too excited to wait. In my mailbox this morning were five episodes of Iron Chef that I have never seen. They are all from the pre-FN days when Iron Chef was airing in a few select local markets across the US. These episodes were often in Japanese with English subtitles.
A while ago, an Iron Chef collector contacted me about some episodes from the local days. These episodes are very hard to find now. While the contributor wishes to remain anonymous, they have agreed to share some of their episodes with us. I have changed the episode numbers for these five to blue, showing that they will be available in the near future. (Look mid-late 1996 to find these five.) I will do my best to get at least one episode uploaded for this weekend. The contributor does visit this site, so I would encourage everyone to comment with a huge thank you.
If you have episodes on tape or DVD that you want to share, there is an address listed on the “Support Us” tab where you can send them.