Iron Chef #9 - Banana Battle

Challenger Eizo Oyama vs Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe
Iron Chef 1993 Episode 9 - Overall episode #009 - December 12th, 1993

It’s a Christmas special Dessert Showdown in Kitchen Stadium!

Christmas is the Chairman’s third most favorite time of year, after blood moons and the ides of March. Oddly, each is also celebrated with a yuletide log.

Chairman Kaga, ever the perfectionist, nailed it on the first take but insisted on several more.

Shinjuku’s Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, at 48-stories is the tallest City Hall in the world. This is where Challenger Oyama (aka the Snowman aka Kaisen-berg aka Big Meech the real Big Meech) flings his cakes right under the noses of the literal top cops.

The other podiums remain darkened because Iron Chef Ishinabe has been pre-selected for this battle. Not just because he looks the most like Santa Claus, but also because he’s the most apt to battle a French-trained pastry chef in a Dessert battle.

This is going to be a fun battle, with different approaches from each chef. Challenger Oyama is going to throw the kitchen sink of components into a single masterpiece. Iron Chef Ishinabe is going to utilize a singular component (banana-cognac flambe) into two slightly-different Alsatian bundt-cakes. Both chefs will utilize the ice cream maker as is required by Iron Chef dessert battle law.

Meet the Challenger:

Eizo Oyama

At age 20, Chef Oyama worked at A.Lecomte in Roppongi, the first authentic French pastry shop in Japan. At 21, worked at Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris and attended Koba Confectionary school in Switzerland. Chef Oyama returned to Japan at 26, working at Ma Maison at age 27.
Chef Oyama’s kitchen resembles a mobile science laboratory. Strewn about his RV are beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, xanthan gum, Bunsen burners, candy thermometers, kitty litter, and pseudoephedrine. His breakthrough came with a dessert called “Blue Magic,” a blue slice of swiss roll cake served in a ziploc bag.

Kaizen-berg does not knock if the doorbell plays *Westminster Chimes.*

Challenger Oyama’s Portfolio:

Etoile de Noel. A poinsettia inspired chocolate cake.

The secret ingredient is a flamethrower and a star-shaped mold.

White chocolate cake. Stunningly decorative and a little bit hokey, which is the essential combination to achieving Christmas spirit.

Another work of art. This one smells of grandmothers.

This one is creepy. Can we please convince the red dwarf on work detail to put down the saw? Yellow dwarf is trying to bust out of this joint.

The top of this cake is so beautiful that I did not realize there was a cake underneath it.

This looks like a Basque cheesecake on top of a marbled cake. If Chef Oyama can make a dish like this in an hour, Iron Chef Ishinabe is in for a tough battle.

Challenger Oyama’s Cut-Scenes:

In the kitchen, wrist twistin’ like a stir fry (whip it).

Showdown:

Tale of the Tape:

Challenger Eizo Oyama vs Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe!

The Chairman’s Fit:

Speaking of the Chairman's fit, I'm glad you asked

Outerwear is Saint Nicholas of Myra, underneath is *alllll* Krampus.

The Reveal:

The Chairman reveals bananas in an understated way. That was a rough sentence. The chefs both look happy with the secret ingredient. This should be a fun one.

The Chairman's Wisdom:

“With vanilla”

Bananas and vanilla do go well together. No arguments here. Both chefs will use vanilla bean today. The b-roll starts with the Arc de Triomphe and ends with clip art of a banana.

Allez! Cuisine!:

The chairman is thrilled, the chefs are languid, per usual. A one-hour time limit for a dessert challenge should be more stressful than normal, given the potential amount of baking and ice cream making.

In the Booth:

Fukui: We are going bananas today in Kitchen Stadium!
Dr. Hattori: Bananas emit radioactivity at 0.1 microsieverts due to potassium-40.
Fukui: Doc, did you learn that in…. Sundae school?

The Battle:

Iron Chef Ishinabe is the first to reach for the liquor, pouring cognac over whole peeled bananas. A good start to any battle.

Challenger Oyama is right behind, with sliced bananas flambe’d in… St. Giles gin? Interesting choice of liquor. This will taste like banana cough syrup.

Heeding the Chairman’s wisdom, Iron Chef Ishinabe isn’t shy with the vanilla beans. The Challenger is doing the same (see Knife Life). Thus far both chefs are employing the same formula: bananas x liquor x vanilla = yum.

Challenger Oyama has prepared a creme brulee pond in which his flambéed banana slices will float.

Iron Chef Ishinabe is standing in front of the microwave like it is 2am after a night of bad caloric decisions. The cognac-bananas are in there. The Iron Chef pauses to check his prep list but it is just a blurry phone number on a bar napkin.

As expected, challenger Oyama pours the creme brulee base over the flambéed bananas. Though the dish is already plated, the whole plate will go under the broiler to finish. No ramekins in sight. This is an unusually shallow creme brulee.

Challenger Oyama has an ice cream base with more liquor. This explains the shallow veneer of a creme brulee, as the ice cream will be piled atop.

The Snowman utilizes a saccharimeter, an instrument for measuring the concentration of sugar solutions. Appearing content with the purity of his ice cream base, Chef Oyama thanks his plug (the Chairman).

Iron Chef Ishinabe has an ice cream base going as well. He doesn’t need a saccharimeter to know this is a home run.

Challenger Oyama is sculpting white chocolate on an anti-griddle with a library card and a twenty-dollar bill because of course he is.

Challenger Oyama’s banana hubcap is out from under the broiler.

At the halfway point, both chefs focus on their garnishes. Chef Oyama is painting chocolate onto leaves, which are then assembled into pinecones. Is it edible? Does chef Oyama care?

Not one to be out-garnished, Iron Chef Ishinabe makes straws.

Next on challenger Oyama’s garnish list are poo emojis studded with almond slivers.

Iron Chef Ishinabe’s microwaved cognac banana mixture is ready to be spooned into a cake two cakes.

Iron Chef Ishinabe has two cakes ready to be sliced and layered into a bundt-pan for a striped effect.

Chef Oyama makes white chocolate banana candles. One of roughly ten thousand components on his dish.

Iron Chef Ishinabe’s cakes were cut with a sword and then stacked in a gugelhupf (mini bundt pan).

The Curse of the ice cream machine claims its first victim. Our favorite sous chef claims his third.

The challenger’s cold banana ice cream was eventually extracted and plated on the hot creme brulee. There’s still 10 minutes remaining in the challenge. Ice cream soup is forthcoming.

Iron Chef Ishinabe wisely uses his last ten minutes to make a bread pudding with all his scraps. His sous chef is here if you need anyth… no? Okay, then.

Sure enough, the challenger’s banana ice cream glacier has melted into the Sea of Creme. A powerful statement on climate change by chef Oyama.

Final touches. The challenger torches the melting ice cream.

Iron Chef Ishinabe drizzles his swizzles for shizzle.

Challenger Oyama plates all his components on a single dish: Flambéed bananas, creme brulee, banana baked Alaska, chocolate pinecone, chocolate logs, white chocolate candle, and a skiing Santa Claus (of course). He could not resist diving into the toy chest.

That Knife Life:

Challenger Oyama slicing bananas with a paring knife.

Challenger Oyama carefully splitting a vanilla bean and scraping out the vanilla meat.

Like Joffrey on his name day, Iron Chef Ishinabe cuts a cake with a sword.

The Judges’ Table(s):

J-Pop record producer Yasushi Akimoto (22 battles).
Co-wrote the *Bananas in Pajamas* theme song. The proceeds paid for his third home, the Bananadome, which by design has no stairs.

Etiquette expert Minako Imada (1 battle).
A ghost from the Meiji period. Her unfinished business is to teach your unrefined self to stop rubbing your chopsticks together.

Food critic Asako Kishi (199 battles).
Judge Kishi once had a fly in her soup. She made that soup fly. 13-stitches.

Dishes:

Challenger Oyama completes one dish:
Santa came from the mountains

This is not a dish, this is a narrative. A disaster movie. Santa checked his list twice and is now rapidly descending banana ice cream mountain in a fury. This is a scene of a dozen beautiful accoutrements in various states of suboptimal temperature. The ice cream has melted. There's no way the brulee has retained the crust. The chocolate pinecone is not edible. Surprisingly, Ski-Santa is edible due to being molded with elf paté. We get one oishi from Judge Kishi.

Chef Oyama does not agree with the feedback. He’s furious nobody ate Santa. That was the waygu of elves.

Iron Chef Ishinabe completes three dishes:

Iron Chef Ishinabe’s first dish:
Tropical Banana Ice Cream

A banana ice cream quenelle and pirouline on “tropical” fruits (raspberries and strawberries). This dish came together in the final minutes. A fancy banana ice cream on a Dole fruit salad cup doesn’t sound bad, but it didn’t win any points with the judges.

Iron Chef Ishinabe’s Second Dish:
Banana Pudding

The first of two banana bundt cakes. This one features vertical striping from slicing two sponge cakes into a circus tent. In the middle of this one-ring show? You guessed it. The banana-cognac mixture that went into every dish. Garnish of strawberries and mint.
Lengthy positive feedback was provided by the judges. If the second banana bundt cake is serviceable, the Iron Chef will have won.

Iron Chef Ishinabe’s third dish:
Gugelhupf

Pardon me for referring to this medieval Alsatian classic as a mere bundt cake. This gugelhupf is closer to a bread pudding in a mini-bundt pan (also called a gugelhupf), likely due to the Iron Chef (Eiserner Koch) having a lot of leftover flambéed bananas. You know the East German judge Kishi approves.

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?!

The Challenger took a big swing by plating a single dish with many painstakingly crafted components. The Iron Chef used the same banana flambe mixture in three dishes, two of which were bundt cakes. Doppelt gugelhupf. The latter approach prevailed.

The Iron Chef’s dishes would be possible to make at home, substituting a bundt pan for the gugelhupf. Challenger Oyama used an anti-griddle and saccharimeter, which I’m sure we all have in a cabinet. Accessibility at home is not a criteria for the judges, but accessibility to the eater is. The judges appreciated the art, but didn’t seem to know where to begin eating the ice cream soup.

Episode notes:

My favorite dish was challenger Oyama’s Santa came from the mountains, purely from an effort standpoint. The actual flame on the white chocolate banana candle was thrilling.
This is the first of three banana battles.
The next episode should be the 1993 finale, episode #010 - Chicken. However, I am having difficulty sourcing a decent quality rip of that episode. Episode #011 is Pork.