A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that we had acquired two episodes that had not aired on Food Network. The first of those to be posted was the Japan Cup 2002. This week, we present the second of those exclusive episodes, the Millennium Cup.
The Millennium Cup was the first Iron Chef special produced after the final Kitchen Stadium battle at the end of the King of Iron Chefs tournament. It originally aired on January 5, 2000, a mere 3 months after the final Kitchen Stadium battle.
The first battle pits Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi against Zhao Ren Liang with abalone as the theme ingredient. The second battle finds Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba going against Dominique Bouchet in a kobe beef confront. All four chefs are also competing to have one of their dishes named the “Millennium Dish.”
You may recognize one of the judges/guests from one of our Beyond Kitchen Stadium videos. He is Goro Inagaki of the popular Japanese singing group SMAP. He had the honor of cooking for Takeshi Kaga when he was a guest in Bistro SMAP. (He is on the blue team.) You can watch that video here.
The Millennium Cup is also known for the introduction of two “new” Iron Chefs, IC Chinese Yuji Wakiya and IC French Mitani Seigo. These two Iron Chefs never did battle in Kitchen Stadium as Iron Chefs. We have had a clip of their introduction in Beyond Kitchen Stadium for a while. Now you get to see the episode from which that clip was taken.
As I was looking for information on the challengers, I came across the website of Mr. Dominique Bouchet. I found this quote: “on 5 January 2000, in front of a Japanese television audience of 25 million, he was awarded the Millennium Cup and given the title of World’s Most Powerful Chef.” Among the pictures on his website is Bouchet having dinner with Taro Hakase, husband of frequent Iron Chef guest Mayuko Takata. I would encourage looking through his website, which is available in French, English, and Japanese.
This episode is in Japanese with no subtitles. The episode contains the commercials and breaks and is presented as it originally aired in Japan.
Because of the length of this episode, we split it into two files.
New in the database this week: 801a, 801b