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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.
It’s time for the Obon Festival in Japan. (It usually is held in mid-August. This episode originally aired on August 15, 1997). The challenger is a buddhist monk who prepares what the chairman calls “Nouveau Vegetarian Cuisine.” She is the younger sister of the challenger from episode 237. The chairman announces the theme by talking about its “. . .purple color. Yes, that vegetable. . .” The chairman says to remember that Obon vegetarian dishes should have “light, simple flavor.” (淡味 or “tanmi.” I can’t find it defined but the kanji literally mean “light” and “flavor”. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.)
This episode does show the winner announcement, but we don’t get the see the scores.
New in the database this week: 531OA
Tonight, the Iron Chef Collection served its 100,000th file.
A big thank you goes out to everyone who have enjoyed any of the clips and episodes on the site. Keep it up.
I still have more ICC Exclusives to add in the coming months. In fact, there is an episode uploading right now. It should be available to watch and download later tonight. (And I’m hoping to make another announcement soon about some possible episode acquisitions. Stay tuned.)
–Keith
It’s time for another ICC Exclusive episode. This week, I present the second battle of Iron Chef Italian Kobe’s Kitchen Stadium career. Of course, he lost his debut in the Short Pasta Battle (522OA).
Iron Chef Kobe lost his first battle in Kitchen Stadium. Chairman Kaga was not happy. To challenge Kobe this time, the Chairman brings in a true Italian chef. He has cooked for many famous people, including Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bill Gates, and that 3rd tenor guy. He began cooking at the age of 13. At the time of this battle, he had only been in Japan for two months. (BTW, if anyone speaks Italian and can translate what the challenger says, please post it in a comment. Thanks.)
Will the new Iron Chef finally overcome the pressure to get his first victory? Watch and find out.
New in the database this week: Cabbage Battle – Kobe vs. Tabacci (528OA)
I’m going to try to get two more episodes posted before the end of the weekend.
I’m always surprised at how frequently I come across Iron Chef connections in the other Japanese media I enjoy. While I now actively search for BKS videos, a lot of my early contributions to Beyond Kitchen Stadium were found purely by accident while watching other Japanese shows. Today, I present a few new videos that were found when my other Japanese entertainment interests intersected with Iron Chef.
I got this message not too long ago: “Just wondering if that guest judge on Chen bean sprout battle was the guy that Fujimoto Miki did the enka song with. He looked familiar.” I looked up the episode in question and found that it was indeed the same singer. Takao Horiuchi was a judge for three of our episodes. (Judge: Milk-529OA, Spanish Mackerel-612, Bean Sprout-717). Below are six songs that judge Takao Horiuchi sang with members of Hello Project. Most of these came from the Japanese television show Uta Doki! Pop Classics. (You know some of the girls from Hello! Project from Ryori no Tetsu-Kappa, Ryori no Tetsu-Musume, and these two BKS videos.)
Coming later this week, two new Japanese language episodes.