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)