“Iron Chef,
New York Battle”
Sunday at 9 p.m. on the Food Network
IN case you are so uncool that you don’t know/don’t care/have never seen “Iron Chef” – the Food Network’s latest cult fave – let me refresh your memory.
In December, I first reviewed “Iron Chef” – the weirdest cooking show since the classic “Twilight Zone” episode entitled, “To Serve Man.”
I described “Iron Chef” as a cooking show about “an eccentric millionaire with a frightening dye job, and what looks like the stolen wardrobes of Seigfried and Roy, who has a sick obsession. Each week, he makes the best chefs in Japan fight each other in a vicious cook-off that would give Betty Crocker a breakdown.”
And now, in that short time, it’s become the Food Network’s second highest-rated show. Too bad it got canned in Japan. (I know that sounds like a tuna fish joke; it’s not.)
Anyway, at the urging of the famous foodies, Nina and Tim Zagat, the Japanese producers took their show on the road – to New York City, as a matter of fact – to pit one official TV Iron Chef, Masaharu Morimoto (of Nobu), against pan-brat Bobby Flay (Mesa Grill and Bolo). And it’s a lot of fun.
First off, don’t bother with Part One unless you have a desperate need to see the Zagat’s 15-room house in Connecticut and the four official Iron Chefs and the rich dungeon master with the bad dye job being promoted around NYC like bad authors with good publicists.
After leaving the Zagat’s house, the chefs go with Gordon Elliott (a la Elliott’s “Door Knock Dinners“) to knock on a stranger’s door and offer to cook dinner at her house, using only ingredients found in the house. Of course, the word “house,” in this case is slang for what looks like the former summer home of King Farouk.
Anyway, then it’s back to the city, where there’s a really bizarre – and I do mean bizarre – segment. They show Morimoto preparing for the contest the night before the big cook-off, apparently in hot-as-lava restaurant Nobu’s kitchen.
He’s told he has a guest, and in walks this family from Arizona with a kid, “little Tommy” who’s about eight. The child is dressed by his mother in a terrifying Iron Chef costume, carrying a big fake cleaver.
Now even The Food Network has stage mothers.
They make the kid say all kinds of weird things about how he wants to be Morimoto when he grows up. Weirdest of all – how did this family get reservations for Nobu? I mean, even the Pope can’t get in!
Anyway, aside from that bizarre bit, it’s best to just skip right ahead to Part Two.
First, they make Flay and Morimoto do the cook-off at Webster Hall, which isn’t a kitchen, but a nightclub. Right off, they should have grounded the wires a little better.
Flay literally gets electrocuted – although he doesn’t pass out or fizzle or anything. But he does blow up – with anger.
Morimoto who was calm throughout, does finally blow, too. It happens right after they finish cooking, and Flay jumps up on the counter and pumps his fists in the air.
Morimoto, aghast, seethes, “[Flay] is no chef! After he finished, he stood on the cutting board! In Japan cutting boards and knives are sacred to us!”
The Zagats, Donna Hanover, and an audience member get to judge which chef does the most creative work with rock crabs (the one ingredient that had to use in all courses).
No one on “Iron Chef” ever says the completed meals stink – and they don’t on the “New York Battle” either.
No. I’m not going to tell you who wins.
But if you are a foodie, or just a weirdo, you will love it.