ICT: Battle Uni: Sakai vs. Wakiya

BATTLE DATA FILE
Japan Original Airdate: 6/17/94
Episode: 33


The Challenger: Yuji Wakiya, a revolutionary of Chinese cuisine in Japan.  He fuses ingredients from around the world with genuine Chinese flavors.  He is here on the recommendation of culinary critic Masuhiro Yamamoto, who has criticized the selection of challengers on the show lately.  He says that, while the challengers are no doubt top chefs, they only specialize in one field.  Wakiya, he says, specializes in multiple areas.


The Iron Chef: Iron Chef French, Hiroyuki Sakai.  So far he's three for three...can he make it four?


The Battle:

Actress Mayuko Takata, once again, joins Fukui and Hattori in the announcers' booth.

9 months since the opening of Kitchen Stadium, Kaga doesn't doubt the caliber of the 30 or so challengers who have stepped into Kitchen Stadium thus far, despite the fact that one Masuhiro Yamamoto does.  Indeed, here he comes, leading Wakiya in.


"His name's not a household name like those of the Iron Chefs, but his skills are definitely comparable," Yamamoto says of his hit man, who is ready to take down one of the three men ascending into Kitchen Stadium...but which one?


Sakai!  So far undefeated in Kitchen Stadium, says Fukui.  That could change with Wakiya knocking at his door.


"We know how discerning Mr. Yamamoto is about food.  I had a tough time deciding on today's theme," Kaga says.  "It was his words that gave me a hint: 'To beat an Iron Chef is not that difficult.'  It's quite a 'thorny' expression, don't you think?"

I don't really see what's so thorny about it, but OK...


"Thorns.  Yes, it's the perfect time to enjoy that ingredient."


Which one, you ask?  UNI!  Sea urchin roe, for the Japanese-linguistically-challenged.  And Sakai looks as though he's under pressure!


"Eggs for eggs."  That's how you get the best out of this ingredient, according to the Japanese.


So it's a top class-chef backed by a discerning critic against the Iron Chef French...and we are underway with Kaga's trademark call of "ALLEZ CUISINE!"


And Sakai did NOT look happy when that theme ingredient was unveiled...although Hattori says raw uni isn't that uncommon in French cuisine, so maybe it's not so bad...


Sakai is cutting his sea urchins with scissors, while Wakiya has shark's fin and wonton skins on his side--Ohta's dub voice sounds...different today.  Strange, not as fast.


Wakiya is now deep-frying his wonton skins as, according to Ohta, Yamamoto is already pre-calling Sakai's menu: uni scrambled eggs, NOT a mousse, and a dish with red miso.  Huh-kay.


Speaking of Sakai, he's laying raw uni on top of raw tilefish--Hattori predicts he'll steam that (technical term: vapeur).  Wakiya, meantime, is mixing his uni with tofu--they predict that will go with the wonton skins.  Lotus leaves on Wakiya's side, according to Ohta...but we don't know for what.  Yet.


Sakai is delicately opening eggs (just the tops off), as the 15-minute mark is announced.  And Wakiya's...already plating?  The tofu-uni mixture is down with the deep-fried wonton skins, with some raw uni on top and another wonton skin...this will probably a mille-feuille, they say.


Wakiya's already sweating and we're barely halfway through.  Sakai has the beginnings of an egg dish, while Wakiya has minced okra and XO sauce with uni in those lotus leaves.  Sakai proves one of Yamamoto's guesses correct (eggs), while the commentators get a kick out of Wakiya flipping his shark fin mixture over in his wok (quite the show, that)...so it won't be a soup?


Mushrooms go into the egg crepe on Sakai's side, which has uni mixed in.  Back on Wakiya's side, bamboo shoots are being delicately cut into fan shapes (tail feathers, it looks to me)...his blender is also in action.  And either this battle is going fast or they've heavily edited this one, but we're already halfway home!


Break in the action as Ohta gets some words from Yamamoto, who says both chefs are "doing wonderfully."  Yamamoto says Wakiya can win if he can break the Japanese mindset of raw sea urchin--in other words, cook it.


Sakai is folding over his egg crepes...while Wakiya is piping some mixture onto the bamboo tails.  Fukui thinks it's lard (gross), but his serious guess is white fish meat paste.  He's making those tails look like swans (or cranes, I suppose), though...and there's word of spinach rice flour from his blender mixture elsewhere on his side.


Soup on Wakiya's side, perhaps a chawan-mushi.  And Sakai is stuffing prawns into sea urchin shells, along with mussels.  And there are Wakiya's spinach rice flour balls...but one of them doesn't look so good.  What does, though...swallow's nest on his side!


Sakai has curry powder into a sabayon sauce...and Wakiya has the makings of sea urchin dumplings with his spinach rice flour.  The uni going into those has already been steamed, and Hattori bets he'll dip those into hot water.


Sakai is steaming his eggs that he spent some time taking the tops off...and we have just 20 minutes left as he's steaming some herbs as well.  So many steamed items, comments Takata...Hattori says it's the trendy thing to do these days (bear in mind that was 1994).  Wakiya's working with his swallow's nest now (which Takata misnames "sparrow's nest"), and Sakai is spooning uni on top of his steamed eggs (he would later add his sabayon sauce and some prawns).  And uni on top of Wakiya's chawan-mushi...it's everywhere today!  Go figure, it's the theme ingredient.


Wakiya plates abalone and wakame near his shark's fin...but where is the uni in all that?  Maybe I missed something.  But Sakai is plating his tilefish from the very beginning...and cutting some plain white bread.  Croutons or breadsticks, perhaps?  Wakiya's cranes are doused with sauce of some kind.


Those breadsticks go with Sakai's egg dish, while Wakiya's swallow's nest goes straight on top of the spinach dumplings--perhaps like a dim sum item, Fukui says.  Five minutes to go as there is plating about here...


Three minutes now, and Wakiya is laying on the sauce on his mille-feuille.  Sakai is spooning a soup into the uni shells, but we don't know where it came from...


And the swans land on the shark's fin dish on the challenger's side.  Sakai is laying on another sauce onto his tilefish dish (as he fumbles the saucepan)...one minute left as Sakai gets in a sly ad for his Tokyo restaurant, saying the eggs are symbolic of the skycraper where his restaurant is.


15 seconds left, some colored sauces go down on the egg crepes...the final seconds tick down...


"And THAT'S IT!  The cooking's done, the Uni Battle is OVAH!"


And Yamamoto sneaks a taste test as Ohta interviews the combatants.  Sly devil.


Challenger Wakiya's five dishes:
--Sea Urchin and Tofu Hors D'oeuvre
--Sea Urchin in Egg Soup
--Stewed Abalone and Shark Fin, Sea Urchin Sauce
--Sea Urchin Grilled in Lotus Leaf
--Sea Urchin Dumpling


Iron Chef Sakai's four dishes:
--Sea Urchin Soup
--Steamed Egg with Sea Urchin and Sabayon Sauce
--Sea Urchin Crepe
--Tilefish and Sea Urchin


On the panel today for the Uni Battle are:
--Novelist Tamio Kageyama
--Actress Mayuko Takata
--Rosanjin Scholar Masaaki Hirano


Wakiya's up first, as is the tradition...


"What I tried was to accentuate the natural flavor of sea urchin roe," he tells the panel.


Takata likes the contrast of the wonton skin with the sea urchin roe, while Hirano likes how he chose to be modest in his first dish.  Whatever that means.


Kageyama likes the duality of flavor in Wakiya's second dish.  Takata can't get over how different the uni on top and the uni on the bottom of the bowl taste so different.


Hirano comments on Wakiya's skill through the ingredients he used, but Kageyama says the shark fins came out a bit tough.


Hirano says the first few dishes were simple and flat, but likes the intent of intensity in his fourth (stemming from the spicy XO sauce).


Kageyama doesn't feel the sea urchin in his last dish, but Takata says it eventually hits her.  Hirano thinks the uni could've been highlighted a little better.


As for Sakai's dishes...


Hirano says the use of the shell makes a powerful statement in the opening, and Takata likes the extensive use of seafood throughout the dish.


They all like the egg dish, for what it's worth...


The crepe, says Kageyama, draws out the sweetness of the uni better than the other dishes.


His last dish Kageyama calls orthodox...and Hirano is getting tired of uni.  Though he says if it was served by itself, he'd enjoy it.


Kaga concedes Yamamoto was right about the caliber of the challenger, but who ends up getting pricked in the end...the Iron Chef or the hero of French--natch, Chinese--or whatever the hell he specializes in--cuisine?


"Tetsujin, Sakai Hiroyuki!"


And relief on Sakai's face as he extends his winning streak!  No doubt his toughest challenge yet, but a win's a win!


My take: You have to give Wakiya credit for being incredibly creative in his dishes.  I definitely think he won in that department, as Sakai's dishes looked like standard French fare with a markedly Japanese ingredient.  But in all Iron Chef battles, there is a such thing as going way overboard (something we'll see of Morimoto in the later years), and I think Wakiya went too overboard with his approach.


And can we get a new panelist, please?  Hirano says a lot without saying anything meaningful at all.


Watch this battle at the Iron Chef Collection here.

Bob Holness: 1928-2012

I'm a little late on this news, but my first entry of the new year is a rather sad one.  One of my favorite international game show hosts (and one of my biggest hosting influences as I've been doing my own game show at USC), Bob Holness, passed away on January 6.

Bob Holness, on the set of Blockbusters

Bob was the host of the British version of Blockbusters for 11 years (1983-1994).  While he may be best remembered for that, it should also be noted that he was one of the first actors to portray James Bond in a radio adaptation of Moonraker.  Sounds like an urban myth, but isn't.  (Another rumor about him playing a saxophone solo, however, is.)  He began his career as a radio DJ and actor in his native South Africa, and returned to the UK in 1961.

Now, granted, I'm an American blogger posting about a British personality...therein lies the magic of YouTube.  I discovered the British version of Blockbusters thanks to a (sadly now-defunct) broadband online version of the game, in which Bob prominently featured.  He's a stark contrast to the American Blockbusters hosts, Bill Cullen and Bill Rafferty--Rafferty was definitely friendly to the contestants, and Cullen had a sense of humor that you just had to understand to know how he ticked.  But Bob--who dealt the hard questions to 16-to-18-year-old kids on the show--had an avuncular air about him.  He was authoritative without talking down to the contestants, not to mention warm and inviting as well.  Amidst all the silly mascots the contestants brought on, their antics, and the occasional request for a "P", Bob kept a straight face through it all, but still had a lot of fun himself.  He would play along with all the jokes thrown around, joined in that silly hand jive the kids did at the end of the Friday edition of Blockbusters, and even had a mascot of his own (pictured below), which apparently was a Christmas present of his from his wife.

Bob Holness with his own mascot, Harold the Hedgehog.

 

 

 

I've looked up to him as a role model of sorts, really.  Colleagues and former Blockbusters contestants remember him as one of the nicest game show hosts around, having lunch with the contestants and really getting to know them from their first step into the studio to their last one on their way out.  I admire the fact that he criticized the BBC's decision to axe his later show, Call My Bluff (a sort of Balderdash-esque panel game) in 2003, saying that he disliked the notion of a move towards quiz shows of avarice instead of education--you don't really think about learning from TV, but it's a tool, after all, so why not use it for that?  It's a shame, really, that the ratings prove that the viewers want otherwise.  And I'm not ashamed to admit that I've adopted some of his mannerisms on my show as well, short of his trademark roar of "THAT'S BLOCKBUSTERS!" when the contestant makes that connection across the board.  And unlike many game show hosts today (who I'm convinced do very impressive reads off a teleprompter, or cue cards, or some kind of script), Bob was a natural.  He never needed a script, and if he had one, went off it quite often.  Though viewers could never tell the difference.

The parting shot on the last Blockbusters

It's a real shame health issues dogged him in the last 15 years or so of his life, shortly after Blockbusters ended.  Several strokes weakened him considerably, though through all of that he had coped with it all.  If there's any consolation to this at all, it's that his family said he died peacefully in his sleep.

They don't make 'em like Bob anymore--a warm, inviting, all-around nice guy on television.  A far cry from a lot of TV--not just game shows--we see today.

IN PACE REQUIESCAT

BOB HOLNESS

1928-2012