I swear some of these Iron Chef victories make no sense (maybe spoilers).

[cartman]

The Morimoto vs Flay rematch victory seemed odd. The panel made some negative comments about Flays second dish, and were raving and cheering the whole time over Morimoto's , but Flay won! What the heck!

[BoatDrinks]

Hey Cartman! :D

I think it was a setup for a third match... at least that's the only reason I can come up with. I agree with your thoughts about the episode.

[cartman]

guyo... errr... BoatDrinks! I've had reservations about a lot of the decisions on Iron Chef, but this one was just so wrong. Oh well, it is TV :).

[LoveCheapDVDs]

It made no sense whatsoever! Must have been fixed :rolleyes:

[cartman]

Originally posted by LoveCheapDVDs
It made no sense whatsoever! Must have been fixed :rolleyes:

Do you really think a "fix" is out of question? On the "chat" after the show aired, he mentioned that they asked him to be in a "final showdown" with Morimoto...

[Iron Chef]

I can't wait for the rematch.

[DigIt]

I've noticed the same phenomenon before -- a chef gets bad remarks but still wins. I think it has something to do with the fact that a dish may be different, causing more vocal reactions, but ultimately ingenuity is rewarded over more traditional, uninspired dishes.

[DJLinus]

Based on the judges' comments, I thought for sure that Bobby Flay was going to lose. I can't say he rightfully won, because I didn't taste any of his dishes.

Am I the only one who was annoyed with that little Tommy kid? Get a haircut, guy.

[stevevt]

Originally posted by DJLinus
Am I the only one who was annoyed with that little Tommy kid? Get a haircut, guy.

It was like they put the kid in some kind of cryogenic stasis between the shows or something.

I give Tommy a .05% chance of growing up to be a well-adjusted adult.

[alexkat]

Originally posted by stevevt
Originally posted by DJLinus
Am I the only one who was annoyed with that little Tommy kid? Get a haircut, guy.

It was like they put the kid in some kind of cryogenic stasis between the shows or something.

I give Tommy a .05% chance of growing up to be a well-adjusted adult.


Come one, the kids last name is Mothershead, this kid is going to have a hell of a time growing up.

As far as the battle I though it was kinda fixed at first due to the low scores Morimoto got, 14's and 15's, but he really didn't do that much with the lobster, a roasted lobster and raw lobster and I think that hurt him.

[renaldow]

While I was disappointed in the outcome, I don't think it was fixed. I've seen a lot of the IC, and it's not uncommon to get bad/odd comments and win. As someone mentioned, they'll do that with a dish they're not used to.

The dish they dissed was his tamale, and I'm really surprised he chose to made one. A lot of people in the US don't even know what a real tamale is, let alone Japan. I think it was a gutsy move, but it appeared to have paid off.

If you look at the scores at the end though, having the US Embassy guy and Akebone on the panel seemed to have paid off. They both gave Morimoto 14 or 15's (If memor serves me correctly) which really brought his score down.

I'd heard somewhere that they were going to have a special with all of the IC's as a team going against the FoodTV chefs as a team. Anyone else hear about that, or have I been hitting the crack pipe too much?

[Slumbering Fist]

I dont think I've missed one Iron Chef since the show began airing, and while they will forsake fair judgemnet for drama sometimes, I dont think it was a fix. Its not like they show you every single comment the tasters make (or every single dish they taste); they do soimetimes choose to air comments that will have you leaning towards one chef winning, when in actuality, he loses. Now that Iron Chef has been cancelled in Japan, its doubtful theres going to be any rematch.

[renaldow]

Originally posted by iaido
Now that Iron Chef has been cancelled in Japan, its doubtful theres going to be any rematch.

Not at all. The weekly series went off the air in Japan in 9/99. FoodTV only started carrying Iron Chef 2 in 7/99 The original match and the IC3 rematch were all specials.

The show wasn't cancelled due to poor ratings, but because the IC's are all working chefs and had careers they needed to go back to, and that the budget for ingredients was getting way out of hand. Didn't it make you wonder how Morimoto was the Head Chef of a NY restaurant (and now his own in Philly) for the past 2 years, yet managed to get to Tokyo every week for taping?

The IC's are still under contract for the show and instead of a weekly series they make a few 2 hour IC specials in Japan a year. This allows the chefs to have their careers and for the show to have ingredients like the Kobe beef and $10,000 of lobster we saw last night. The original NY Battle and this IC3 show were both specials.

I don't think there's any doubt there will be another rematch of some sort.


http://www.ironchef-usa.com/images/Iron_Chef/kagapepper.jpg

[DJLinus]

In Japan, is winning/losing on the show a big deal or do they ham it up, kind of like WWF or something? Just curious if it was a disgrace to lose or a great honor to win. No doubt that the exposure on the show helps the business of each chef's restaurant.

[Slumbering Fist]

Originally posted by renaldow
[QUOTE]Not at all. The weekly series went off the air in Japan in 9/99. FoodTV only started carrying Iron Chef 2 in 7/99 The original match and the IC3 rematch were all specials.
Okay...I had thought it was just cancelled. I know since they began broadcasting it here a year behind that was why they still had 52 new episodes on the way, but since I thought it was just cancelled I thought there would be an additional 52 episode season on the way.

[renaldow]

Originally posted by iaido
Originally posted by renaldow
[QUOTE]Not at all. The weekly series went off the air in Japan in 9/99. FoodTV only started carrying Iron Chef 2 in 7/99 The original match and the IC3 rematch were all specials.
Okay...I had thought it was just cancelled. I know since they began broadcasting it here a year behind that was why they still had 52 new episodes on the way, but since I thought it was just cancelled I thought there would be an additional 52 episode season on the way.

Yeah, for some reason a lot of people think it was just cancelled. I think someone found out that the show had been cancelled and then posted something about it, you know how it goes.

There's a lot of IC left. It ran weekly for about 5 years, and there were almost 300 shows made. FoodTV has only gotten a very small portion, including the upcoming season of 52 I think they've only gotten about 80 or so. At the end of next year we'll have seen about 1/3rd of the IC shows. Plenty left to go :)

[lorenzoh]

The outcome reminded me of boxing. All a set-up for a third match. I think I saw Don King in the crowd. And what is with making celebrity chef's girlfriends famous. Is Bobby Flay's girlfriend going to fight The Naked Chef's wife on pay-per-view soon?

[elektra]

Finally got around to watching this. I didn't find them dissing any of Bobby's dishes. They were critical, but in the sense of, "A Japanese chef wouldn't do this." They didn't say they didn't like it. The comments they did air were very praiseworthy of Morimoto.

I thought it was very good and although it's possible it could have been fixed, I would lean towards not. Can't wait to see more of these though. I really love this show.

[jade]

Here's the weird thing I thought about the Morimoto-Flay match this weekend. The audience was LOUD. Not just the Americans, either, but there were Japanese fans with signs and shouting and waving and such, and that's pretty out of the ordinary for the normally sedate crowd. What gives?

Forget Bobby Flay, I want to see Emeril on IC. (Not that he's my favorite chef, but I bet it would be funny to watch!)

[elektra]

Jade - Ditto! I always thought it would be cool to have Emeril compete. He has such a great personality. I think that he would do well.

[big whoppa]

My observations:

I knew the outcome by reading these threads but it was still surprising Bobby Flay won with all the raves the Iron Chef received for his dishes.

Bobby Flay-#1 chef in NY. I know he owns a restaurant and a TV show on the Food Network channel but is he really the #1 chef in NY? :)

The people who do the voice-overs are hilarious.

For an impartial ruling, the judges should not know who cooked the meals until after the winner is announced. That would mean they wouldn't be allowed to watch the chefs prepare the meals.

The Japanese host is flaming. :)

[Scheherazade]

They ALWAYS do this. I've seen at least 5 shows where they told the iron chef that such and such a dish sucked and marvelled over the competitor's yet the iron chef won. Not sure if it's set up, but it certainly wasn't a rare experience if it happened during the one with Bobby Flay.

~Scheherazade who hates when drinks are considered an entry.

"... well for this dish I put pieces of peach in the bottom of a glass and poured champagne over them."

[big whoppa]

I guess they edit the comments to make it appear one of chefs is favored to win when the real outcome is different.