Miri and Marie: Two Extremes

Air Date: 04/26/2006

Contestants: Okada Miri (岡田美里), Takada Mayuko (高田万由子), Marie (マリエ), Takano Yuri (たかの友梨), Sugita Kaoru (杉田かおる), Manabe Kaori (眞鍋かをり)

Guest Judges: Okuda Eiji (奥田瑛二), Hanada Masaru (花田勝), Katsumata Kunikazu (勝俣州和)

Theme Ingredient/Recipes:
Chicken / Chicken Curry Udon and Chicken Rice

Recap: This episode was a battle of the Celebrity vs the Ai-Epu. It also featured perhaps the shortest cooking time I have ever seen, lasting barely long enough to have a quick chat with each of the chefs. They then segued into the reward that Aoki Sayaka had won during the Christmas special. In this episode, one of the celebrity judges was a star baseball player. The reward for Aoki's team was going to the stadium during a game. She actually was given the opportunity to throw a pitch (which while they called it a strike, was far from it). While normally I would complain about these segments taking away from the show itself, Aoki really had come into her own as the star of the show. While she usually comes off as this very gruff and tough competitor, there are times where you can see that she can still be a bit shy and nervous. I can't wait until the next show which is going to feature the Apron Boys, and Aoki will be one of the judges.

Kaori was the first to be judged and everyone was pretty pleased with the Chicken Rice. However on her second dish, there was way too much in the way of vegetables. She also overloaded the dish with some spices, such as cumin. The one issue most of them would have is that the Udon dish turned out to be more like a straight curry rather than a soup-based curry dish.

Which is what happened to Kaoru as well. Things looked okay with her rice and I think she was hopeful that she would edge closer to the Special Epu ranking (she is only a handful of episodes away from hitting the Iron Rule). However, she really messed up on her Udon. She added flour to the mix to thicken her soup-base, which resulted in one solid mass of udon noodles. Not only was there a reference to the Alien movie, but to the way the mass would appear to look like certain forms of kanji.

Mayuko on the other hand did a great job with both of her dishes and Yuri then followed up strong as well. There seemed to be a little friendly competition going on, and it seems that everyone had singled out Miri as the one they would all have to beat.

But before the judges could have a chance to taste Miri's dishes, they had to endure what Marie had cooked up. They did a special feature on her during the show, including a tour of her kitchen and doing the typical 'refrigerator check' that they do it hese segments. She seems to live quite the ritzy life, with her parents having homes in Tokyo, Nice, Monaco, and the United States. Unfortunately this type of life is not conducive to cooking your own meals (apparently her family has their own personal chef). Which means that both of her dishes were disasters. She put fish in with the chicken rice and neither of them were fully cooked. Her curry had an entire chicken leg sticking out of it, and there was way too much cayenne pepper used in the dish. Not only did all the judges go running for the 'bucket of love', but after trying her own dish Marie did as well.

Luckily, everyone got to enjoy Miri's cooking in the end. She was definitely a ringer, having written books on cooking and teaching cooking to her circle of friends. The judges were asking for seconds it was so good.

Judgement Time was a bit anti-climatic. Miri beat out Yuri for the Special Apron ranking and nabbed the trophy as well. Kaoru found herself moving up just a tiny bit from before, but at least no longer ranked a the Last Apron. That honor instead went to Marie, who has gotten probably about as far as one can go outside the studio without leaving the district. Both her and Kaoru ended up doing the dishes at the end of the episode. As I mentioned earlier, the next episode will feature the Apron Boys and will air on May 10th, 2006.

Ranking ( out of 111 ):

Okada Miri: 3 (Special Apron Ranking)
Takano Yuri: 14
Takada Mayuko: 45
Manabe Kaori: 69
Sugita Kaoru: 109
Marie: 111 (New Entry - Last Apron Ranking)

Trophy Or Towel: Dawn of a New Era

Air Date: 04/19/2006

Contestants: Yoshiyuki Kazuko (吉行和子), Aoki Sayaka (青木さやか), Yingling (インリン), Asaji Youko (浅茅陽子), Natsuki Youko (夏樹陽子), Macha Macha (まちゃまちゃ)

Guest Judges: Satomi Koutarou (里美浩太朗), Inohara Yoshihiko (井ノ原快彦), Hamaguchi Masaru(濱口優)

Theme Ingredient/Recipes:
Unagi (Eel) / Eel Tempura and Chirashi Sushi

Recap:

The focus of this episode was having both Satomi Koutarou as a celebrity judge and Yoshiyuki Kazuko. I'm not familiar with either, but Koutarou's big appeal is that he was one of the actors who portrayed 'Mito Komon' in the long-running drama series of the same name. Most fans of J-Drama and anime may be familiar with the story, about a wandering feudal lord who used to go around Japan fighting evil. He would usually be undercover until the climactic moment when he would reveal his true identity by flashing an imperial seal.

The cooking segment was again relatively short, I think the only reason it went as long as it did was that they needed to focus on the Yoshiyuki's struggle with her live eel. She did not want to kill it, so she asked for assistance from one of the judges. Koutarou happily obliged and helped her out.

When it came to Tasting Time, Natsuki was up first. Her tempura dish was okay, although it was more like fried eel versus an actual tempura. What really impressed the judges was the way that her sushi dish looked... until they tasted it. The presentation was fantastic, but it didn't taste that good.

Macha Macha was next up, and also missed the entire concept of tempura. Both her tempura and sushi was extremely plain looking (very white). Not only did the tempura have no taste, but it turns out that it was half-raw. Her very plain-looking sushi actually tasted pretty good. Which led to comparisons about how how her dish was the exact opposite of Natsuki's.

There were a lot of expectations placed on Aoki, considering her focus over the past few months. Questions were immediately raised about the tempura which was heavily fried. Her Top-Epu ranking was in question. This also led to a semi-heated exchange between her and Emi-chan. I sense a cooking battle between those two in the near future. On the other hand, she did a really good job with her sushi dish. While tasting it, there seemed to be some interesting insinuations about her feelings for Joushima. They even replayed a bit from the trip to Ishihara Studios where they somehow ended up sitting to next other on the bus.

Yingling... well what can be said about her cooking that hasn't already been said. Her tempura was terrible, she cooked the entire eel in baking powder. Her sushi was even worse, the smell alone was enough to make people almost sick. I'm kind of unclear on what she put into it, it appeared to be juice of some kind. Lots of trips to the bucket of love ensued, and there was some kidding about placing her under arrest. Hamaguchi had hidden a copy of the imperial seal that Mito Komon would use, and kept whipping it out to ward off the evil of Yingling.

Asaji pretty much did both dishes to perfection. Compliments were flying during the tasting. Which left Yoshiyuki as the last one to be judged. She was apologetic right from the start, and her tempura looked very fried much like Aoki's. That received a pass. However, the sushi was another matter. She had problems with the rice and I think she realized that it wasn't going to be very good. They reassured her that nothing could be worse than Yingling's. While it was pretty bad... they all tried to be as encouraging as possible.

Judgement time revealed a new change to the show. From this point on, the top ranked cook every show will be awarded a trophy. However, anyone who doesn't make it onto the Ranking Board, has to stay after the show and was all the dirty dishes. Aoki dropped a little, while Asaji moved quite high on the board. Yingling ended up on the guard booth outside the building, and Yoshiyuki also found herself just outside the studio.

Ranking ( out of 108 ):
Asaji Youko: 14 (new entry)
Aoki Sayaka: 22 -> 29
Natsuki Youko: ?? -> 48
Macha Macha: ?? -> 53
Yoshiyuki Kazuko: 93 (new entry)
Yingling: 96 -> 103

Ai-Epu vs Ishihara: Intro and Part One

Air Date: 4/12/2006 (3 Hour Special)

Contestants:

Team Ai-Epu - Captain Aoki Sayaka (青木さやか)
Sawada Ayako (沢田亜矢子), Sugita Kaoru (杉田かおる), Kawashima Naomi (川島なお美), Rinka (梨花), Satou Tamao (さとう珠緒), Tomochika (友近), Yingling (インリン), Yasu Megumi (安めぐみ), Hoshino Aki (ほしのあき)

Team Ishihara - Captain Watari Tetsuya (渡哲也)
Tachi Hiroshi (舘ひろし), Kanda Masaki (神田正輝), Fukae Takuji (深江卓次), Tokushige Satoshi (徳重聡), Kimura Noboru (木村昇), Watanabe Kuniko (渡邉邦門), Miyashita Yuuji (宮下裕治), Ikeda Tsutomu (池田努 ), Kaneko Norihito (金児憲史)

Guest Judges:
Toake Yukiyo (十朱幸代), Takashima Reiko (高島礼子), Takeshita Keiko (竹下景子), Higashino Kouji (東野幸治)

A great special where they changed up the format a great deal. Building on the setup used earlier this year in the TOKIO vs Ai-Epu battle, they've made a few modifications and brought in audience participation. The special is still divided into three stages, with the major change being made to Round 1.

Round 1 - 4 x 4 Battle: 8 members of each team compete in groups of four. They are divided into the A and B Blocks. Each Block is tasked with making a single dish from the theme ingredient. Not only must they make enough for the judges, but enough for 100 special invitees from the public. They will be scored by both the Judges and the public.

Round 2 - 4 x 2 Battle: 4 members of each team compete in groups of two. Again they are divided into the A and B Blocks. Each Block must make two dishes from the theme ingredient. Only the Judges score during this round.

Round 3 - Captain vs. Captain: The two captains compete in a battle ala "Iron Chef"

Since this is a long episode, I'm going to break the show into three segments to make it easier to follow. The challenger team is from Ishihara Promotions, a well-known group of actors who star in many action and police dramas (especially in the 70's and 80's). They arrived at the studio in police cars (many of which were their signature car in a particular movie/series it seems) to great fanfare. Special Note: Throughout the show they teams are subdivided into Blocks, which is a bit confusing to read. I'm going to use A-Team/B-Team versus A-Block/B-Block.

Round 1

A-Team: Sugita Kaoru (Captain), Rinka, Yingling, Yasu Megumi vs. Kanda Masaki (Captain), Fukae Takuji, Kimura Noboru, Kaneko Norihito

B-Team: Sawada Ayako (Captain), Satou Tamao , Tomochika, Hoshino Aki vs. Tokushige Satoshi (Captain), Watanabe Kuniko, Miyashita Yuuji, Ikeda Tsutomu

Theme Ingredient/Recipes:
A-Team: Tuna / Green Onion Soup
B-Team: Onion and Potatoes / Curry Rice

Special Guest Judge: Toake Yukiyo

Recap: Almost from the beginning you knew things were going to be interesting. Not only did they have to carve up an extremely large tuna, but the Ai-Epu A-Team consisted of some of the worst cooks on the show. Having just Yingling is bad enough, but with Kaoru and Rinka... who could guess what end result would be. As I mentioned earlier, they also had to produce enough to feed 100 people in addition to the judges, so this was cooking on a very large scale.

The first stage focused on the carving of the tuna itself, which the Ishihara team didn't have too much trouble doing. The Ai-Epu team was having difficulty, but Rika came up with a very inventive way of tackling the issue. Team Captain Kaoru also made a very wise decision and relegated Yingling to the job of cutting up the green onions. There wasn't much focus on the B-Teams, as cutting up onions and potatoes aren't very exciting. The Ai-Epu A-Team took an interesting approach and put the eye of the tuna into their soup. The Ishihara A-Team appeared to be doing things with a bit more finesse, so it was going to be interesting to see the results.

When it came time for the B-Teams to begin mixing their Curry spices, each side seemed to have some issues. There was a little burning on the Ai-Epu side, while Ishihara appeared put quite a bit of flour into their curry. Which resulted in a very light-colored curry. At this stage, it was really up for grabs based on the cooking stage.

When it came time for the tasting, the teams served their dishes to the guests outside in pink and blue bowls. After tasting the dishes, they would then drop either a pink or a blue ball into a bin, to show which one they liked the best. Meanwhile, inside the studio, they judges were having their say.

Ishihara A-Team was up first, and had a tough time with their soup. It fell flat with all the judges, it wasn't inedible but it just wasn't good. But then it was time for Ai-Epu A-Team. Everyone was expecting the worst, which is why it came as a complete shock to everyone that it was extremely delicious. It was pointed out that Yingling had only helped with the cutting, but still I think everyone was delighted with the result. They even commented that maybe putting two negatives together (Yingling and Kaoru) was actually a positive thing.

Next was the B-Teams, and again Ishihara got off to a very rough start. While the Yukiyo liked it, the other judges quickly made dashes to the Bucket of Love. Team Ishihara was a bit skeptical, so they not only had some of the team members taste it, along with getting some great reactions from the guests outside. But it wasn't a complete success for the Ai-Epu team, as it seems that their dish really didn't taste like curry.

The final judging came in, with Ai-Epu scoring a 60 with the judges, while Ishihara only got a 30. The outside guests voted strongly in favor of the Ai-Epu team as well, with the combined scores at the end of round one being 136 to 54, over an 80 point lead for the Ai-Epu team.

Part Two shortly

Ai-Epu vs Ishihara: Part Two

Round 2

A-Team: Rinka / Sugita Kaoru vs. Kimura Noboru / Tachi Hiroshi
B-Team: Yingling / Kawashima Naomi vs. Tokushige Satoshi /Kanda Masaki


Theme Ingredient/Recipes:
A-Team: Pasta / Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and Macaroni Gratin
B-Team: Octopus / Octopus Rice and Fried Octopus

Special Guest Judge: Takashima Reiko

Recap: This Round features 8 chefs, 4 dishes, and 2 theme ingredients. The teams of four are split into pairs, with each pair responsible for 2 dishes. It sounds confusing, but it makes sense when you see it. A slight change from the January special, they seemed to be running out of time so they skipped some of the judging segments (as they've been doing in the regular show.

Cooking Time was again a matter of all the interesting things happening to one team. There isn't much challenge in making pasta, but when it comes to live octopii... it was the usual Kitchen Studio fun with them crawling onto the stage even before the battle started. Hiroshi looked very apt at his cooking as did some of the other members of Team Ishihara. Meanwhile Yingling was up to her usual antics, frying the entire body of the octopus instead of just pieces of it.

Tasting Time began with Rinka up first, presenting her Spaghetti with... Meat?!? Yes, she apparently forgot the tomatoes. Then she mixed up what kind of cheese was supposed to go into the macaroni. Noboru, who was her competition, did fine on the spaghetti as well as the macaroni. Not a very good start for the Ai-Epu team. Next up was Kaoru, who remembered to put in some tomatoes and was told that her spaghetti tasted like Mom's. There was a great dig on how much drinking she does on the show. They didn't show the tasting of her macaroni, but both dishes were given an okay rating. Hiroshi was her competition and pretty much hit it out of the park. Everyone was impressed with both dishes and there was some playful flirting with Emi-chan and the other women. In fact, all the Ai-Epu's sampled his macaroni gratin it was so good. Ai-Epu was in big trouble and up next was Yingling.

There is no way to be nice about this, this was probably her biggest disaster yet on the show. It opened with her fried octopus, which was leaking ink onto the plate. To the point that Kouji started asking her "Are you crazy" in English. We discovered that she fried it in a combination of baking powder and anise. Kouji got really brave and cut the head open, which brought about Alien references. The rice wasn't much better, though it got really amusing when Kouji and Wataru Tetsuya started getting into it over how bad it was. Kouji challenged him to eat her cooking, which he did. He soon was introduced to the Bucket of Love. Satoshi had some problems, but nowhere near as bad as Yingling. In fact, he was told that he was a Pro compared to Yingling. They didn't even show the judging of his rice. Ai-Epu lost more ground at this point.

All their hope lay with Naomi, who is apparently known for her attention to detail. We didn't see the judging of her fried octopus, but they loved her rice. Masaki was the last one up and the only hope Ai-Epu had was for him to fail miserably.... which he did not. Both dishes were a success as well.

The scores for each chef follows...

Kawashima Naomi: 100
Tachi Hiroshi: 100
Kimura Noboru: 90
Kanda Masaki: 90
Rinka: 60
Sugita Kaoru: 50
Yingling: -50
Tokushige Satoshi: -10

Team Ai-Epu - 160 / Team Ishihara - 270

Final Score: Team Ai-Epu lost their 82 point lead by only scoring 296 points at the end of both rounds, as Team Ishihara finished with 324 points. Now it would come down to the two captains battling for the title.

Final round shortly

Ai-Epu vs Ishihara: Part 3 (Final)

Round Three

Contestants: Captain Sayaka Aoki (Assistant: Kawashima Naomi) vs Captain Watari Tetsuya (Assistant: Tachi Hiroshi)

Guest Judges: Toake Yukiyo, Takashima Reiko, Takeshita Keiko

Theme Ingredient/Recipes:
Bamboo Shoots / Captain's Choice

Recap: The final battle was staged just as it had been during the New Year's Special. One theme ingredient that must be used in a series of dishes. The dishes are left up to the cooks, much as you would see in an episode of Iron Chef. Each Captain has an assistant that they select from their team before the match starts. They can be used for a five minute period during the Cooking Battle, and are used at the Captain's discretion. Both took the stars of the previous battles (Naomi and Hiroshi). Before going into battle, there was a segment which featured the entire staff and Aoki going to Ishihara studios and seeing the vast collection of vehicles that they've used over the years. They also were treated to a huge feast from the head chef of the studio, who is used to cooking for hundreds of people at a time (actors, production staff, extras, etc). During the intros, Takeshita Keiko presented to each Captain a special knife engraved with their names.

As the battle started, Aoki was definitely under pressure. Tetsuya was working on several dishes at once, his main focus on a bamboo shoot and seafood stew. Secondary dishes were appearing to be bamboo shoot rice and salad, and bamboo shoots with caviar.

Aoki was also working on a rice dish, which would combine bamboo shoots with shrimp sauteed in champagne. She had to get the assistance of one of the Ishihara team members to keep the cork from shooting into the audience. Her other dishes were a bit of a mystery early on in the battle. Things began to get a bit clearer once the assistants were called on for help.

Tetsuya was first to go for the 'Help Time' button, having Hiroshi plate a combination of fish and shoots and then cook them with a blowtorch. He also got the okay to bring the rest of the team into play on helping with the presentation. They began the process of heating a large number of stones over a charcoal furnace/grill. There was some ribbing about leaving Satoshi on the sidelines, but he soon came over and helped. Before time was up, the entire team sprinkled the caviar dish with gold foil.

After Hiroshi returned to the assistant's chair, Aoki called on Naomi. She quickly (to the amazement of everyone) chopped up some shoots and created a Shumai dish with mushrooms. Before her time was up, she also got a chance to start some bamboo shoot steaks for Aoki. These would be the other two dishes created. She also got some assistance from her team with the presentation, asking them to get some flowers for decoration and to carve up one of the bamboo stalks used for soup bowls. (much like Leader did during his battle with Aoki in the New Years Episode).

The battle was over shortly, with Tetsuya looking extremely confident.

All the special judges participated in the judging and this segment pretty well focused on their reactions. Aoki was up first with her bamboo steaks, which had been sauteed in butter, soy sauce, and sake. The immediate reaction was 'shoppai' (salty) and there was a strong sake taste as well. It was still good, but just a little too much of some of the ingredients.

Tetsuya brought out his bamboo shoots and caviar, which everyone enjoyed. Aoki looked more nervous as she brought out Naomi's shumai dish. This was a hit with the all the judges, but Aoki openly admitted that all she really did was cook the dish. Naomi got a great deal of praise for her efforts. Tetsuya second dish was a combination of bamboo shoot rice with a salad and sakura buds. It had a mixed reaction from the judges, but overall they all liked it. There was some kidding that maybe there was some bias from the all-female team of judges, along with some jokes about Yingling and Satoshi getting together I believe (lost a bit in translation on that part).

Aoki's final dish was her bamboo shoot rice with shrimp, combined with a bamboo shoot soup served in the bamboo bowls. This also was a big hit with all the judges, and even Team Ishihara sampled it. Her use of champagne with the shrimp and grapefruit juice in the rice was really applauded. Everything now hung on Tetsuya's final dish, his seafood and bamboo shoot stew.

The stew was to be combined with some large prawns that Tetsuya had prepared but not cooked beforehand. As he placed the prawns into the stew, his team brought over the stones that had been baking on the furnace/grill for some time. He then plunged the stones into the stew, bringing it to a roiling boil and cooking the prawns. Everyone was delighted except for Aoki, who could only look on in stunned silence. Another home run for Tetsuya.

In the final judgement, it wasn't too surprising to see Tetsuya score a Perfect 100 while Aoki came up just five points short with 95. The tally was moot, as Aoki needed to beat Tetsuya by at least 28 points. Team Ishihara was declared the winner, but they gave part of their prize (dinner at a very expensive restaurant) to the Ai-Epu team. Tetsuya thanked Aoki for the great battle.

Overall, this was a great episode. While not as thrilling as the Ai-Epu vs TOKIO battle to start off this year, it hopefully will remain the format they use for upcoming three-hour specials. I really liked the audience participation aspect, as it added a lot of fun to the first battle. I do think that going forward they really need to consider the impact of having Yingling in the mix. Any team saddled with her is going to have to do quite a bit to overcome the odds. The Ai-Epu team would have won if it wasn't for her, and while she does add a lot of fun to the show, it does detract from the serious battles going on during the specials. But otherwise, another great special for the series.