Hi, everybody. (“Hi, Dr. Nick” Oops. Wrong show.)
It’s finally time to share the very special special episode that was sent to me at the end of last week. It is the special episode of Iron Chef that aired on New Year’s Eve 1996.
The episode is in Japanese with NO English subtitles. Here are some things I think I noticed and/or understood. As always, if someone with much better knowledge of Japanese than I have wants to correct anything I say, please do so.
- Oosechi = food served during the New Year’s holidays
- As usual, Michiba is all business. He won’t even let Ohta into the dressing room before the battle.
- Previous challengers come into Kitchen Stadium to offer gifts welcoming in the new year. It’s kind of cool to see all of the challengers coming back through.
- “If my memory serves me. . .no. If my watch serves me correctly, 1997 begins in one hour, fifty one minutes.. The top class of Japanese chefs are here for a new year countdown.”
- This will be Iron Chef Michiba’s first battle in Kitchen Stadium since he retired in January of this year (1996). There are going to be 100 people tasting the dishes.
- It really is chaotic in Kitchen Stadium as each chef has 10 assistants to help prepare the large amount of food needed.
- They will have 100 minutes to prepare their dishes.
- This has to be the most creative way the theme ingredient was chosen/revealed.
- Possible choices for theme #1 (Meat): Beef (Ushi), Chicken (Niwatori), Pork (Buta), Duck (Kamo)
- Possible choices for theme #2 (Vegetable): Carrot (Ninjin), Daikon, Sweet Potato (Satsumaimo), Green Pepper (Piman)
- Possible choices for theme #3 (Fish): Salmon (Sake), Japanese Amberjack (Buri), Lobster (Iseebi), Octopus (Tako)
- Theme ingredients chosen: Pork, Sweet Potato, Octopus (We will see many of the other ones not chosen in the chefs’ dishes because the ingredients were there in case they had been chosen as the official themes.)
- Kishi Asako is looking sharp in her kimono. And we get a rare appearance from original Iron Chef French Ishinabe.
- I hate to say it, but the first part of this feels like ICA, where the assistants just go off and do their thing with little to no input from the Iron Chef.
- The white stuff on Nakamura’s side is something with Shiratamako (Rice Flour)
- On Nakamura’s side backstage, most of his crowd seems to be his bosses from the restaurant. On Michiba’s side backstage, there are only two people: his wife and his daughter.
The file can be found in the database: 452NYE-OA