redfish

Hi Mario, Love your show, one of about three on the Food Network I watch regularly. I love the authenticity that you bring to the scene. I had a question concerning your recent Iron Chef America experiences. If you could would you please briefly describe the things that you liked or was impressed with the most, what surprised you or you did not like, and what you can tell us about any future shows, both Iron Chef America and your own. Also what it was it like to work with Iron Chef Sakai? Thanks much keep up the good work.

Fortunately I have a stomach of iron, I can eat anything once. Not too much I don't like, only ones I can think of that other people like generally are lemons (no lemonade or lemon in my tea, thank you...cooked lemons on a meal like fish or chicken, o.k.) down here in the deep South a lot of folks eat chitlins and hog jawls and such, and collard and turnip and mustard greens.. don't care for those but like just about everything else I have been to a few other countries things that were popular there I did not like was kimchi in Korea, and there was a food called balut in the Philippines that I would not eat (half hatched fermented chicken egg) that a lot of people ate as a snack.. loved sushi that I got in Japan but didn't like the seaweed snacks that are abundant there in many forms.. have ate some other "unordinary" things in other countries but not the thread for that...

Hello again everyone, It has about a month since I made a fledgling post (around page 17) concerning this topic (and I hate to drag it up and beat it down when so much discussion has already been directed towards it and it is pretty much over). However, after rereading the topic and picking up several points as well as noticing I had made a comment so long ago as a new member (I originally came here after a friend and fellow forum member alerted me Alton Brown was doing a Q & A) I thought I would summarize both my presence here and the conclusions/impressions I have come to since viewing all episodes and posts here. ( Yes all 22 pages and I now see I spent about 3 hours reading them all LOL) First, I am grateful for the lack of scathing and flaming posts directed my way as a newbie member. I would like to comment on my post about the waitress alcohol incident, I have no confusion discerning between that incident and that of the intern incident; in my state no handling or consumption of alcohol unless of age (21 due to arm twisting of federal funds for highway repairs/building). Just a clarification. Second, I can say the most important and relevant information I have obtained from the experience was Katie Loeb's post concerning overhead in the restaurant business. Like many, I also dream of opening a successful restaurant someday; which was one of the prime motivations for watching the series to begin with. Hopefully my pursuit of an MBA will aid me in steering clear of some of the pitfalls. Although, by the second season the backstabbing and betrayal and psuedo drama sucked me in like Twinkies and the National Enquirer LOL. My conclusion is that Rocco let stardom (or apparent stardom) cloud his judgement along the lines of "other celebrity chefs open a restaurant and are never there to cook so I can too" ideology. I do not know the man or experienced his product so I really can not comment about that, only from the series (editing notwithstanding) can I draw my conclusion. What amazes me the most is how celebrity chefs can let the very thing that made them successful (being IN the kitchen and creating and delivering a great product) become such a non vital part of their operations afterwards. Excuse my naivety but I like to suppose that if I did open a restaurant and promoted my involvement as heavily I would actually spend much time there ensuring standards and satisfaction. Then maybe after a couple of years I would branch out a la Thomas Keller or *gasp* Emeril and open a theme/clone restaurant. And I do think that the fact many staff were also *mainly* interested in furthering their acting careers regardless of what they say (and I appreciate the posts and comments made by same in this thread) had a bit to do with stability and consistency of product. It is only my opinion, but I believe no matter what occupation you choose as a primary vocation (i.e. med school, acting) while performing as server/waitstaff that it it is obvious your effort and attention is somewhat diverted from your restaurant performance since it is not your ultimate goal. However, it seems the majority of the problem is because of kitchen management (or lack of). I suppose I should do an introduction in the near future (in the appropiate thread). Nothing special about me, only a limited exposure to the bar and restaurant industry while filling in between jobs related to my main skills; but enough to make me realize that I really like the food service industry as long as it is toned down a bit. Not particularly interested in feeding millions daily LOL. Also would like to give a special mention to torakris whom I have talked to briefly in the Japan thread, thanks for welcoming me to eGullet.

I don't think so. I was stationed in Japan for a couple of years while I was formerly in the military service, and had the luxury of frequenting many local establishments and the wide variety of sushi available. I found anago, or eel, with a coating of a certain sauce, to be pretty much my favorite sushi. And the others I liked as well, traditional ebi, tunas, octopus and squid, etc. I am not a big fan of cucumber, or seaweed much either, so many of those type of sushi I did not eat often. But they eat the crap out of seaweed based products over there, I guess it tastes fine to them LOL.

referring to the waitress who got fired for alcohol consumption. I thought that it was mentioned that she was under the legal drinking age on the show. That is in my opinion sufficient grounds for a dismissal. I have worked a couple of years in the bar business in the past and it is a definite no no for minors to consume or even handle/serve alcohol. (at least in my state of residence) I have had many a drink with an "of age" bartender or server, although frowned upon generally is overlooked, so I understand that point of view (that it is acceptable). But if she was underage then no excuses. I really enjoyed the show, the soap opera antics enthralled me LOL. Hopefully the cancelled shows will show up somewhere on dvd or something. I hope to open a place myself someday, so any thing regarding the restaurant business, even a poor attempt, is of interest to me. You can still learn from other people's mistakes.