Iron Chef #14 - Tai Snapper Battle

Challenger Toshio Tanabe vs Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba
Iron Chef 1994 Episode 4 - Overall episode #014 - January 30th, 1994

The Chairman has a moment of clarity during a brain freeze. Gone are lingering thoughts of amateurs battling the Iron Chefs. Those synapses are frostbitten out of existence. It's time to bring in a professional challenger AND professional fighter to do battle in Kitchen Stadium.

Back to the regular format, a pre-selected challenger will battle an Iron Chef without any pre-battle contest. The Chairman, perhaps taking “battle,” too literally has selected a challenger uniquely battle-tested. Will those skills aid him in Kitchen Stadium? No, but it provides a nice B-plot as we get to witness Iron Chef Michiba absolutely in his zone.

Put your gloves on, because it is Battle Tai Snapper!

Meet the Challenger:

Toshio Tanabe

Tanabe is as talented a chef as he is an athlete. He was an Olympic gymnastics hopeful while attending Nippon Sports Science University. Feeling like gymnastics didn't allow him enough opportunity to give his opponents Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, he became a professional boxer. In five years he won 15 matches, losing just 5. Chef Tanabe peaked as the #6 bantamweight boxer in Japan.
After giving up his professional career, he spent three years studying culinary arts in France and the "sweet science" in neighboring Belgium under Colonel Guile (then known as Jean-Claude Van Damme).
Chef Tanabe worked at a French restaurant A-Ta Gueule in a restored train carriage in Koto City, Tokyo. At the time of filming, Tanabe is the chef of Misaki Seafood and Misaki Bison (M. Bison, for short).
Despite becoming a professional chef, he never gave up his love for pugilism. Chef Tanabe is still an active "Street Fighter" as evidenced by him showing up to the battle with a head wound.

Challenger Tanabe’s Sizzle Reel:

Tai Snapper, asparagus, tomatoes, and garlic butter. How fortuitous.

A dark plate of horagai (conch). Contrary to the more accepted techniques of steaming or a hammer, chef Tanabe extracts conch meat by having a sous chef throw them at his sturdy skull.

Shucking oysters. A French cuisine chef with a seafood specialty. He's like Eric Ripert except more Bloodsport and less Buddhist.

Lathering Chilean Sea Bass with clarified butter.

Showdown:

A champion's introduction from the Don King of these proceedings, who is definitely standing on a box. #TeamBox

Straight to business. No pointing. Challenger Tanabe calmly requests the reigning heavyweight champion, Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba. *It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of fight!*

Title Card:

Challenger Toshio Tanabe vs Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba! *Rising up to the challenge of our rival!*

The Chairman’s Fit:

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

Today the Chairman got confused as to what fighting video game we would be parodying, and showed up as bedazzled Sub-Zero despite the producers insisting on (again) no fatalities.

The Reveal:

Pink Sea Bream (not actually a snapper, but a porgy) to be exact. A sushi bar favorite, but it also extremely versatile (fried, steamed, baked, soups, etc). We know the Iron Chef will produce a sushi or sashimi and a soup. Challenger Tanabe's portfolio indicates he is familiar with this ingredient as well, in an albeit more French tradition. This should be a fun battle with two very different approaches to the same fish.

The Chairman’s Wisdom:

I couldn't find a translation for this. It has something to do with the etiquette of eating the head of this fish. Let's just say watch out for the sharp two front teeth and move on to the montage.

The Chairman gives us a montage while we ponder his wisdom.
1. The same b-roll of fishing boats in a bay we see every seafood episode.
2. Fresh Tai Snapper looking embarrassed to be a part of these proceedings.
3. Tai Snapper in soup looking... well, not looking at all.
4. Tender bite of braised Tai Snapper.
5. Tai Snapper clip art. Probably the same one I used for the title image.
Profound.

Allez! Cuisine!:

Neither Chef defers at the pass, and neither makes eye contact. This is a change from the last two "I'm just happy to be here and have some fun" challengers. *Kumite! Kumite!*

In the Booth:

Play-by-Play Kenji Fukui (right) and Color Commentator Dr. Yukio Hattori (left).

Fukui: Is it true that you can cook a whole fish with one Hadouken?
Dr. Hattori: It very much depends on the size of the fish. As anything smaller than salmon would be incinerated in approximately 45 frames.
Fukui: What if you accidentally Shoryuken?
Dr. Hattori: Then you would be spite-punching a fish. As we know, only octopi do that.
Fukui: Right you are, Doc!

The Battle:

The chefs share the loot equally, each with one large and three medium Tai. I'm not going to call them Sea Bream just for internal consistency. Consult your local ichthyologist with any questions or concerns.

Challenger Tanabe's wife and two sons, Ken and Ryu, are in the stands.

The sage, Iron Chef Michiba, artfully writes out his menu. Today it reads "Sushi sushi sushi sushi rockin' everywhere."

Challenger Tanabe leaves the filleting to his sous chefs. It'll be a cold day in Kitchen Stadium if Iron Chef Michiba were to do the same.

Sure enough Michiba prefers to scale and break down the fish himself. While his forlorn sous chef watches from as far as possible without his shock collar triggering.

Challenger Tanabe is separating the organs. I'm intrigued. A French dish with fish offal. The creation of new dishes adapting the ingredients is another reason Iron Chef is great. [Insert Iron Chef America Chef] hasn’t touched a fish organ in a decade.

Iron Chef Michiba is splitting the fish heads as now both his sous chefs are auditing this class.

Challenger Tanabe proves that anything is French if you add dairy. Even fish offal. This quick blanch in milk will remove some of the smell of the offal before it is further cooked.

Iron Chef Michiba unleashes his trademark Broth of Vigor, a katsuobushi dashi with enough bonito flakes to build a snow man. He's forgone this broth in his last two battles, ending with a split 1-1 record. He's back in his zone.

The fish offal has finished blanching in the milk and is now going to get smoked over some corn silk and bay leaves for about five minutes. Everything he has done up to this point is new to me. I hope the judges respect the technique.

Iron Chef Michiba gets his Tai sashimi out of the way early. No surprises here… or *are there?* Just some perfectly sliced glass translucent tai snapper which would be a winning dish by itself. Just wait until judges table. He’s playing chess while we’re playing checkers.

Iron Chef Michiba has kelp, tai, and tofu in a steamer. To this he will add brown beech mushrooms. If you know Iron Chef Michiba, you *know* this will be served in a hollowed-out yuzu.

Iron Chef Michiba's knife safety leaves a lot to be desired. No wonder his sous chefs won't get near him.

Challenger Tanabe begins preparing the requisite salt-baked tai. Chefs have been using this to dazzle judges in cooking competitions since *Beat Bobby Archestratus* in 400 BCE.

Iron Chef adds a heavy pour of sake and Sanbokan (a sour mandarin orange) juice to his drunken steamed tai, tofu, and mushrooms dish.

Sideline Reporter Ohta: How did your husband get that cut on his brow?
Etsuko Tanabe: Shadaloo.
Ohta: Excuse me?
Etsuko Tanabe: You're excused.

Iron Chef Michiba puts the steamed kombu, tai, and mushrooms in a yuzu peel. Bingo, you won!

Challenger Tanabe has a rich fish stock going with all the bones, heads, fins, and a large pinch of saffron. That is going to be deliciously gelatinous.

Iron Chef Michiba has braised fish heads and collars in a large soup bowl, as the braising liquid further reduces to get poured on later. This would normally be his closer, but remember the surprise I alluded to earlier.

Challenger Tanabe effectively pounds his saffron fish stock through a chinois, before delegating the task to his noodle-arm sous chef. We'll have a classic French soup de poisson.... eventually.

Challenger Tanabe takes a white wine break. He learned that after three years in France.

Challenger Tanabe's sous chef has some melba toasts ready. This might also be part of the Challenger's wine break and not part of this competition. Where is the other sous chef with the Boursin cheese?

Time for the Michiba dance! You put your left nori in, you take your left nori out, you put your right nori in, and toast it all about. He's having so much fun right now.

Challenger Tanabe's smoked tai entrails are plated next to the raw sliced tai on a bed of celery leaves... and that's it. I applaud his for “using every part of the buffalo,'“ but the cooking process of the offal was more interesting than the final product.

Iron Chef Michiba's reduced braising liquid (katuobushi dashi, soy, and mirin) is being ladled over the tai heads, collars, and burdock root. I can practically taste it, and it tastes divine.

Challenger Tanabe's salt-crusted tai is out of the oven. He looks happy with it, though he won't know until he breaks it open for the judges.

Challenger Tanabe's soup de poisson has thickened nicely and has a great color from the saffron. The points he’ll inevitably lose for the smoked offal will be made back by this dish.

The Judges’ Table(s):

Columnist Kotari Yuji (2 battles).
Judge Yuji never recovered from the experience of this first battle. He relocated to a small sea side town where each morning he dips sashimi into green tea as tears roll down his cheeks interrupted only by spurts of maniacal laughter.

Actress Mitsuko Ishii (7 battles).
Sadly this is the expressive Judge Ishii's last battle until 1998 (four seasons later). Despite her limited appearances, she is a lock for the Iron Chef Judge Hall of Fame. I just made up the hall of fame, but it should be an extant thing that we can visit just so we can see an animatronic Judge Hirano give a 11-minute diatribe on the fall of Babylon and how it relates to yoshoku cuisine.

Food critic Asako Kishi (199 battles).
May actually be animatronic. Judge Kishi will be the A.I. godhead that will enslave us all.

Dishes:

Challenger Tanabe completes three dishes.

Challenger Tanabe’s first dish:
Thinly-sliced Tai with Smoked Offal

Chef Tanabe’s plan is to challenge the judges with an experimental first dish before easing them back into the familiar.
The tai organ and intestines were given a soak in milk then smoked over corn silk in an effort to tone down the funk. It is served around a pile of raw tai scraps with chives. Embrace the funk, chef Tanabe. This is Iron Chef. Predictably mixed reactions from the judges.

Challenger Tanabe’s second dish:
Soup de Poisson

This is challenger Tanabe’s finest dish. The forthcoming salt baked tai may have theatrics, but is not the star.
This classic French fish soup is infused with saffron and topped with a melba toast surfboard. This began with a rich tai stock utilizing bones and fins then punched through a chinois. Simple but elegant and technique-driven. Challenger Tanabe knows he rocked this. The judges agree.

Challenger Tanabe’s third dish:
Baked Salt-Dome Tai

Chef Tanabe breaks out a classic competition dish of salt baked fish. It is a wise time management strategy to pour a bunch of salt over a whole fish and stick it in the oven while other dishes can be worked. The judges respected the technique. Plating a rock of the salt dome was an interesting choice. More visual than practical, unless I was a malnourished bovine.
That's a solid two good courses from the challenger, but it takes more than that to defeat Iron Chef Michiba.

Iron Chef Michiba completes four dishes:

Iron Chef Michiba’s first dish:
Tai Sashimi

We knew Iron Chef Michiba was going to make a beautiful tai sashimi expertly sliced to be translucent and retain an edge of red. There are few better starts than this. There is a bit of a surprise coming for the judges. This will be incorporated into the final dish and not to be eaten yet. Just admire the beauty of windowpane sashimi and hang tight.

Iron Chef Michiba’s Second Dish:
Citrus-steamed Tai

Tai nuggets, beech mushrooms, and tofu steamed and plated in a yuzu with sake and mandarin orange juice poured atop. Elegant presentation and an appropriately light, if boozy, second course from the kaiseke master. This is not the first nor the last time Iron Chef Michiba has plated in a yuzu. If it works, it works. The dish is met with unanimous approval from all three judges.

Iron Chef Michiba’s third dish:
Braised Tai

Iron Chef Michiba delivers some heartier fare. The braising liquid (soy, mirin, katsuobushi dashi, tai head stock) was reduced to a sauce-like consistency and poured over the tai collars and burdock roots. The coursing trends heavier with stronger flavors. The importance of Iron Chef Michiba's menu planning is being demonstrated this battle. Positive feedback from the judges how have until now favored the lighter dishes. Michiba is about to reward them with quite a surprise.

Iron Chef Michiba’s Fourth Dish:
Tai Tea

No, not Thai Tea. Tai Tea. The rebel is at work. Remember the tai sashimi from the "first" course? Well that is scooped into a bowl with toasted nori, herbs, and wasabi then hot tea poured atop. Served with a few dipping sauces, rice, and more nori.

The challenger's salt-dome theater has been surpassed by the Iron Chef’s own theatrics.

Judge Yuji found the meaning of life in this bowl.

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?!

Iron Chef Rokusaburo Michiba! The heavyweight champion of Kitchen Stadium.

Iron Chef Michiba's menu was precision calibrated, playful, and demonstrated a little showmanship. It was unlikely he was going to lose with this combination of dishes and execution to any challenger. When Michiba is at his best with an ingredient he has decades of familiarity with, he is not going to lose.

Challenger Tanabe fought defensively. He knows his strengths are classic French, and he produced a terrific soup de poisson. The smoked offal was a haymaker that unfortunately missed the mark. Lastly, the salt dome baked fish may have not been the "wow" factor he was expecting it to be. You don't think Judge Asako Kishi has been served a salt baked fish before? To climb the ranks, you must battle those ranked higher than you, and challenger Tanabe did an admirable job in that.

This battle demonstrates why during his tenure, Iron Chef Michiba is the undisputed heavyweight champion.

Episode notes:

My favorite dish was Iron Chef Michiba's Tai Tea. Everyone in the room knew he was going to make a tai sashimi. He brought it out, had the judges admire it for the duration meal, then turned it on its head creating a dish I've never seen before but would absolutely love to try.
This is the first of three Tai Snapper battles.
The next episode is the fifth of 1994, and 15th overall - Battle Prawn.