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Apr. 25th, 2004 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaxjediHere is my informal review of Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters.
Note there are spoilers here for the outcome of the battles.
The commentator of the show is Alton Brown, quirky host of Good Eats. I think he's a wonderful choice for commentator and color for the show. He's got a wonderful wit with a great dash of goofiness. However, he's got a smooth delivery that means he never goes over the top, nort does he detract from the program itself. He also seems to have a very detailed knowledge of cooking (and/or great researchers), so he manages to explain the action on the floor well enough that the lay American can catch what is going on.
Initially, I was worried that Alton's laid back style was going to detract from the show. One of the great things about Iron Chef is the quasi-sports feel to it, and that requires a bit of frenetic energy. In the first epidose (Flay vs. Sakai), it did sort of drag it down a bit - the pacing seemed a little flat.
I felt he needed someone to play off of, a straight man. In the next few episodes, he began to play off of the floor reporter a bit. It really picked up his tempo and gave him something to work with. By the fourth and final battle, they'd both hit their stride and made for very good commentary.
The new Chairman (ostensibly Kaga's nephew) really left me cold, however. He seemed to flip-flop between two extremes of fortune cookie theatre. Either he was doing the quiet pseudo-Zen bit, or he was acting like he was in a Hong Kong action flick. I think he was chosen for the 'Americans think the Japanese are cool because of martial arts' angle. But he really didn't seem to add any flavor to the show, if you'll forgive the pun. Kaga had a bizarre flair that was part of the charm of the show. This guy seemed flat, and his tendency to try to sound really forceful and dramatic when saying names like "Wolfgang Puck" just didn't work out. His "Allez Cuisine" was good, but only because he did it as a kiai to a martial arts move.
Also missing are the monolgues from the chairman on the signature ingredient. I always liked those. They were informative and nice touches.
The American Iron Chefs were good choices in my opinion: Bobby Flay (Southwest), Mario Batali (Italian) and Wolfgang Puck (Californian). While they didn't specifically state the Iron Chefs as identified with a particular brand of cuisine (like they do in Iron Chaf Japan), it was pretty obvious. They are all great chefs, work well under pressure and have good personalities for TV.
They squared off against Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto and Iron Chef French Sakai. Apparently, Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi was unavailable for the show. The battles themselves were decent, though the Japanese Iron Chefs seemed to be taking them a lot less seriously than they do in Japan. Flay won versus Sakai in the Trout battle. Batali beat Morimoto in the Spiny Lobster battle and Puck won versus Morimoto in the Egg battle.
In each of these battles, the American chef won but a noticible amount. They were always close on originality and plating (i.e. presentation), but the Japanese Iron Chefs always lost the most points on taste. I'm pretty convinced this is due to the American judges. The American palette (even of the more Epicurean judges) is significantly different from the Japanese. The Southwest, Italian and Californian styles of the American chefs was much more familiar than the Japanese styles (even if one of them was French - Sakai has been tuning it to a Japanese audience using generally Japanese ingredients for years). In the Japanese Kitchen Stadium, I think we'd have seen more points awarded to the Japanese Iron Chefs.
The fourth battle was a tag team match. However, they switched partners on the teams - it was Sakai and Batali vs. Flay and Morimoto. Despite Flay cutting his hand, burning some food, Morimoto catching some wood on fire and generally running around with their heads cut off, they managed to beat Batali and Sakai but a substantial margin.
Overall, I liked how IC America worked out. I think they captured a lot of the feeling of teh original, but with a more distinct American flair. I think the Iron Chefs are good choices and I think it avoided the "dirty American" feel you can get from American adaptations of overseas ideas. It'd make a very good series. Though if they were to go up against American chefs, I suspect we'd see less one sided battles as both sides would be used to preparing food for Americans.
Note there are spoilers here for the outcome of the battles.
The commentator of the show is Alton Brown, quirky host of Good Eats. I think he's a wonderful choice for commentator and color for the show. He's got a wonderful wit with a great dash of goofiness. However, he's got a smooth delivery that means he never goes over the top, nort does he detract from the program itself. He also seems to have a very detailed knowledge of cooking (and/or great researchers), so he manages to explain the action on the floor well enough that the lay American can catch what is going on.
Initially, I was worried that Alton's laid back style was going to detract from the show. One of the great things about Iron Chef is the quasi-sports feel to it, and that requires a bit of frenetic energy. In the first epidose (Flay vs. Sakai), it did sort of drag it down a bit - the pacing seemed a little flat.
I felt he needed someone to play off of, a straight man. In the next few episodes, he began to play off of the floor reporter a bit. It really picked up his tempo and gave him something to work with. By the fourth and final battle, they'd both hit their stride and made for very good commentary.
The new Chairman (ostensibly Kaga's nephew) really left me cold, however. He seemed to flip-flop between two extremes of fortune cookie theatre. Either he was doing the quiet pseudo-Zen bit, or he was acting like he was in a Hong Kong action flick. I think he was chosen for the 'Americans think the Japanese are cool because of martial arts' angle. But he really didn't seem to add any flavor to the show, if you'll forgive the pun. Kaga had a bizarre flair that was part of the charm of the show. This guy seemed flat, and his tendency to try to sound really forceful and dramatic when saying names like "Wolfgang Puck" just didn't work out. His "Allez Cuisine" was good, but only because he did it as a kiai to a martial arts move.
Also missing are the monolgues from the chairman on the signature ingredient. I always liked those. They were informative and nice touches.
The American Iron Chefs were good choices in my opinion: Bobby Flay (Southwest), Mario Batali (Italian) and Wolfgang Puck (Californian). While they didn't specifically state the Iron Chefs as identified with a particular brand of cuisine (like they do in Iron Chaf Japan), it was pretty obvious. They are all great chefs, work well under pressure and have good personalities for TV.
They squared off against Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto and Iron Chef French Sakai. Apparently, Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi was unavailable for the show. The battles themselves were decent, though the Japanese Iron Chefs seemed to be taking them a lot less seriously than they do in Japan. Flay won versus Sakai in the Trout battle. Batali beat Morimoto in the Spiny Lobster battle and Puck won versus Morimoto in the Egg battle.
In each of these battles, the American chef won but a noticible amount. They were always close on originality and plating (i.e. presentation), but the Japanese Iron Chefs always lost the most points on taste. I'm pretty convinced this is due to the American judges. The American palette (even of the more Epicurean judges) is significantly different from the Japanese. The Southwest, Italian and Californian styles of the American chefs was much more familiar than the Japanese styles (even if one of them was French - Sakai has been tuning it to a Japanese audience using generally Japanese ingredients for years). In the Japanese Kitchen Stadium, I think we'd have seen more points awarded to the Japanese Iron Chefs.
The fourth battle was a tag team match. However, they switched partners on the teams - it was Sakai and Batali vs. Flay and Morimoto. Despite Flay cutting his hand, burning some food, Morimoto catching some wood on fire and generally running around with their heads cut off, they managed to beat Batali and Sakai but a substantial margin.
Overall, I liked how IC America worked out. I think they captured a lot of the feeling of teh original, but with a more distinct American flair. I think the Iron Chefs are good choices and I think it avoided the "dirty American" feel you can get from American adaptations of overseas ideas. It'd make a very good series. Though if they were to go up against American chefs, I suspect we'd see less one sided battles as both sides would be used to preparing food for Americans.
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Date: 2004-04-26 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 09:16 am (UTC)2- the floor guy was a $%## moron. he didnt even know how to say saki, and he was WAY too into their kitchens and seemingly in the way.
3- the"chairman" wasn't really his nephew. he was the $W^$^%$ actor from The Crow TV show. He is a trained ma, but thats still SO lame to me.
4-I hate Bobbly Flay. I always have, I want to know who's cock he is sucking at FN to keep getting all these billion of crappy shows he has. I think Sakai's food was MUCH better in that round. I do love both Mario and Wolfgang tho.
i think if they had made it maybe 12 episodes over the next year it would work out great. i know that is hard with morimoto being the only us resident from japan, but it still would be cool. plus they could bring in some female chefs and such.
all in all, i enjoyed it as well, and i agree they did avoid the "stupid american" feeling that it SO could have had (remember bill shatner, anyone?)