Laksa

Not really. Morimoto specializes in Japanese cuisine, not Chinese. Logistically speaking, a Chinese restaurant is more likely to have the equipment and ingredients he needs, woks, big Chinese cleavers, etc. It would be really cool to have in Philly a King of Iron Chefs battle between Chen-san and Morimoto-san though. What wouldn't I give to be on that tasting panel...

Michael, have you experienced traditional Chinese opera before? If you haven't, it should be a real ear-opener. IMHO, Chinese opera is less accessible to the modern day Chinese person than Italian opera is to the modern day American. I cannot stand Chinese opera myself. It hurts my ears! I like the costumes and make-up though...

What happens if you lose?

That's interesting. Does he have more defeats because he fought in more battles, or does he also have a higher loss ratio? (or a lower victory ratio). I always had the impression from watching the show that he had a very good battle record. Edit: I should've checked ironfans before I posted my question. Chen-san has the fourth highest win ratio of all the iron chefs, at 73%. Yutaka Ishinabe won 88%, the highest, but he only had 8 battles. Michiba-san has 84% from 38 battles, Sakai-san 81% from 86, Nakamura-san 67% from 37, Morimoto-san 67% from 24, and Kobe-san 65% from 23.

Iron Fans Online has an article about Chen Kenichi's visit to Philly. The article goes on to say that the meal will be in the vicinity of $100. Anyone from Philly thinking of going? I'm in NY but I'm seriously considering making the trip. Also, does anyone here have any more information or update on this?

I've never met a pakora I didn't like. It's just like pizza - even when it's bad, it's still good. Unless it's too salty, then I might still eat if there's enough of that sweet relish. Then again, I may just have very low standards.

I generally find that a semi-dry wine works best with Chinese food. I tend to like spicy Chinese, so I avoid tannic wines or acidic wines. I've enjoyed Chinese food with Riesling (not the dry ones), and sometimes a lighter style red like Pinot Noir might work. Chinese tea is probably the most common drink to have with Chinese food. Traditionally, when alcohol is called for, the drink of choice would be the 150 proof Mao-Tai Jiu. Nowadays, it's more common to see whisky or brandy at Chinese banquets.

Why can't the implied 15% service charge be made mandatory in the United States? Or does that sound too radical? I can imagine that if the service charge is added to the bill as a separate line item, or be included in the price of the food, life would be simpler for everyone. The restaurant can then pass the money on to the the staff in the form of a "variable pay" by tallying the service charges collected, or in the form of higher wages. If service has been extraordinary, diners have the option to leave more on top of that. By making tipping an implied requirement, but really still an option, it just complicates the dining experience unnecessarily.

Hi Steve, one of my favorite cheeses is aged or vintage cheddar. The American varieties that I've tried have almost invariably been creamy in texture, similar to an unaged cheddar, or say, American yellow. The texture of vintage Australian or New Zealander cheddar tends to be drier, and rather crumbly. I haven't done side-by-side comparison, but from I can remember, the sharpness of the American vintage cheddar, while strong enough to satisfy me most of the time, doesn't quite match its more crumbly cousin. Does the driness or crumbliness of aged cheddar play a part in how sharp the cheese tastes? Or is the texture playing tricks with my tastebuds? Also, does the length of aging determine how crumbly a cheddar is? Or is it due to other aspects of cheesemaking? Can you recommend a good aged cheddar, American or otherwise? Thank you very much for any advice you can offer. David Wong

Although it's been seveal years since I left Australia, fond memories of the years I spent in Melbourne have never left me. There are so many memories of food that I just don't know where to begin. During my childhood, the primary sources for comfort food were the fish and chips shop and milk bar. After school, I would sometimes get a "bag of chips", or potato cakes from the chip shop. Chips are like American french fries, of course, but thick cut. The best ones are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I have not seen the Australian potato cake anywhere else. These are deep-fried flat disks, made from potato flour (I think), about the same diameter as a dunkin' donut, with a crispy exterior. Chips and potato cakes are best with a small sprinkling of salt and white vinegar. Of course, Four 'n Twenty (a pie and pastry company) pretty much dominated my school lunch diet. Meat pies, pasties and sausage rolls were the staple of most secondary school "tuck shops". "Tuck", short for "tucker", is Australian slang for food. And I cannot leave out the Chien Wah "dim sim", which you can have steamed or fried, but served with copious amounts of soy sauce either way. The dim sim is a shaomai-like dumpling quite unlike any "dim sum" that you'll find anywhere in the world. I don't know given a choice if I'll ever eat them today, but they sure tasted good then. For dessert, how about a loganberry pie? or a peanut butter and honey sandwich? After I graduated from the meat pie, though never straying too far from one, I started on the souvlaki and the turkish pide (turkish pizza). That coincided with my move to East Brunswick, where very, very good turkish pide and lebanese roast meat sandwiches can be found. In my college years, restaurants in Clayton and Springvale offered a new world of pleasure, in the form of beef pho and banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches). I had countless bowls of "large special beef" during that time. That was also when I discovered the pleasure of scones with fresh cream and strawberry jam from the Uni (short for university, not sea urchin roe) cafe. I can list many other items that were favourites throughout my stay in Melbourne: congee at 3am at the Supper Inn, the ubiquitous roast leg of lamb, La Porchetta pizzas in Carlton at practically give-away prices, all you can eat felafel from a franchise whose name I should remember but have forgotten, Little Bourke Street - enough said. Well, let's not forget dim sum (Australians tend to say "yum cha") and dinners at Sharks Fin Inn and all its branches. Excuse me for rambling, but writing about that time in itself gives me so much pleasure that I don't care if everyone else finds my post boring.

Interesting. Why? Do you have an alternative short-form or do you always speak the entire word?

Well, Ota has a habit of speaking very quickly when he interrupts Fukui-san to tell you what ingredients the iron chef or challenger is using. As for Chairman Kaga's "If memory serves me correctly", I don't completely buy that Kaga says it merely because it's part of his culture... He even uses it with entirely factual, or easily verified statements like: "If memory serves me correctly, it was in 1995 that Marco Molinari earned great acclaim by winning the International Pasta Contest", or... "If memory serves me correctly, it is customary for me to chomp on a bell pepper at the beginning of every show..." Okay, I just made that one up.

Yetty, I reacted the way I did to your photo because I'm not a well person. I've already called my therapist, so hopefully I'll get better soon.

Inspired by this thread, we decided to cook two dishes with fermented soya products this weekend. First, a grilled country style pork ribs in a foo yu marinade. The marinade comprises light and dark soy, shaoxing wine, sugar, garlic, some thai chillies, oil (light olive because they say it is good for my cholesterol), and of course foo yu. I blended everything in the mixer and poured it on the ribs to marinade. After 5 hours, it is on to the grill: Now, it's ready to eat! The second dish is grilled eggplant with a miso and honey glaze. Some Japanese vinegar is added to give the paste the right consistency. Bang the gong, the battle is over!

Sexiest from recent memory is the passing of an unbroken egg yolk from mouth to mouth in Tampopo. From the same movie, the intriguingly deviant upturned bowl of live, vigorously wriggling tiger prawns and liquor (cognac?) on the woman's belly.

He could be timing himself...I think. If memory serves me correctly, I saw him on tv demonstrating how to debone a chicken in 9 seconds... As he did it, he went "1, 2, 3, like this, 4, 5, like this, 6, 7, 8, 9. Hah! bone! less! chic! ken!" He speaks English like one would speak Chinese. He utters each syllable as if they were individual words. Edited for clarity.

Almost forgot... favorite phrase that should be used more often than it is: Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto: "Let's Cooking"! which is probably a literal translation of Chairman Kaga's "Ah-reck Keyzeem!", which wins the award for most original pronunciation.

Quite frankly, I don't care for your "who cares?" attitude... Hmm... does that mean I actually don't care myself, and I don't care for the fact that I don't care? hmmm..

How about Chairman Kaga's "If memory serves me right...". Over-used, but still captivating! I happen to like Ina Garten, and her grunting. She seems so motherly and nurturing.

I absolutely concur. I never knew pictures of food could make me feel this way... but I think I need to take a cold shower now... Yetty has wonderful skills with the camera.

I prefer the small, glutinous, jelly-like disks underneath the fish eyes (in the eye socket) myself. And any fleshy part of the fish head, like the cheeks and the part just behind the top of the head.

The mole I tasted had very little chile flavor. Thinking back, I think the sauce had bitterness and sweetness in equal measure. I don't mind bitterness in my food. Actually I grew up eating bitter gourds (bitter melons) and Chinese bitter greens (not sure what it is in English). I guess what I'm not used to is the bitterness of chocolate/cocoa and the accompanying sugary sweetness. I think my tastebuds weren't sure if I was having a savory course or a chocolate dessert. However, I am very intrigued by it. I've been told that chocolate can be used in non-dessert dishes (probably gleaned from watching Chocolat), but I hadn't tasted one till now. I am in Poughkeepsie, NY. Not exactly a place well known for its Mexican cuisine .

I grew up in a culture that values food (and herbs) for its medicinal/health benefit as much as viewing it as a source of sustenance or a source of pleasure. So learning to overcome initial dislikes, for things like ginseng chicken soup with no added salt, the bland excess liquid from congee, and armadillo soup made with bitter herbs that was meant to cure some forgotten illness, was to me a necessary burden of childhood, just like homework and getting kicked in the nuts by the schoolyard bully. If I had never received the "training", would I now be enjoying uni, liver pate, tripe, and countless other items that I did not like the first time I tasted them? I still won't drink bitter armadillo soup though.

Yay!! Let's start a chant! down. with. no. aroma. thai. durians. down. with. no. aroma. thai. durians. down. with... okay, that's enough. You know what I resent most? Reality TV making durian eating a challenge. Over the weekend, I caught an episode of a dubious reality show on E! that got the contestants to down a liquid blend of durian and fish guts. Oy!! Durian abuse!

Last night, I had Enchilada con mole at a local neighborhood Mexican restaurant. This was the first time I've ever tasted mole sauce, so I had no idea what to expect. The color was a dark brown, and my first impressions were that it was bitter, smoky and sweet. The flavor was strong, perhaps overly so. Curiously enough, the sauce was not spicy at all, and only slightly salty. However, the bitterness pretty much dominated the dish as I was not able to taste the ground beef filling of the enchilada. My question is... how should a good mole sauce be? Is it unusual to have such a strong tasting sauce for enchilada? I'm curious because I am not sure if I just had a poor rendition of the sauce or, that was just the way it's supposed to be. Appreciate any insights you guys could give.