The Sage of Sichuan Cuisine

Iron Chef Chen Kenichi was called the Sage of Sichuan Cuisine, his father Chen Kemmin is often referred to as the man who invented Sichuan Cuisine. Chen had 67 wins and 22 losses in his six years as Iron Chef Chinese and was the only Iron Chef to be on the show for its entire run. He had a winning streak of 14 straight battles. Chen was often called the Crazy Uncle on Iron Chef and I have to say that Uncle Chen does not disappoint..

Tonight I went to the Shibuya section of Tokyo which is three stops away on the JR Yamanote Line. As the run of Iron Chef was coming to close Hiroyuki Sakai (Iron Chef French) opened a restaurant called La Rochelle in Shibuya and convinced his friend Chen to open up a branch of his famous Szechwan Restaurant a few blocks away. These two restaurants helped to propel Shibuya into an upper class area of Tokyo. Tonight I had myself the pleasure of finally eating Chen's food, granted it was not cooked by him as he was up in his Akasaka location. All of the chefs in this restaurant are personally trained by Chen to make sure they cook up to his standards... They actually have a book at the front desk with all the chefs and their papers signed by Chen.. :) I tried to take a picture but the lady gave me a dirty look so I didn't...

They have four Grand Menus, the cheapest being $85.00 and the most expensive being $215. The difference between them was very small in my opinion. My meal had a Shark Fin soup with crab in it, the next one up replaced the crab with prawn, the next one up replaced it with abalone, the next one replaced it with roe. The only other difference was mine had a pork with red pepper dish, the next one up had chicken, the next one beef, the next one had beef and chicken. I don't think those additions qualified the price difference..

Anyway, enough with the pre-show.. Oh, wait.. I should probably tell you about the journey there.. Well.. It was raining when I got out of work so I grabbed my Mets jacket so I wouldn't get wet, by the time I left the hotel three people stopped me and asked how the Mets did this year.. It was very odd, they would look at me and point to their chest saying 'Mets'o'. I would nod and they would say 'How'd Bob Vay's team do this year?'. I answered 'did ok, they didn't make the playoffs but they finished in 2nd' to which they would reply 'better than his Marines this year'.. Apparently there are a lot of Mets fans here because Bobby Valentine used to be their manager and they all look up to him. I can understand them looking up to him since he is a big part of "fixing" Japanese baseball. This trend didn't stop by the way, people on the train and walking down the street all did the same thing.. :) Makes me glad I brought this jacket, good to hear people talking up about the Mets for a change, most people in America say 'You're a Mets fan, really?'... Where was I... oh Right...

So, Emiu (a girl from work) takes the train over to that section of Tokyo to grab a connecting train home so she asked to show me how to get there, since I had not used the JR lines I accepted her help and was glad for her company since she is pretty cool. We talked a bunch on the train and walk to the restaurant, she said that everyone in the office is so surprised that I have no fear about wandering around the city and that they are all surprised at what I will eat and do. She made a comment that I was not a typical American and that it was good to see someone come over here and enjoy themselves.. :D Funny cause I got a lot of the same comments in Singapore.. Why are Americans afraid of different cultures, don't they know that's what makes the world a great place? So not going to start on that rant...

One of the other things she told me was that La Rochelle has a regular sit down restaurant right around the corner from Szechwan, she is going to show me on the map tomorrow at work and get me it's phone number so I can try and get there next week.. So this means I will have eaten at Morimoto, Chen and Sakai's restaurants. Does this mean I should look up Kobe's restaurant? He always was the lame Iron Chef.. I guess I can figure that out next week, part of me wants to just so I can say I ate there, but part of me just does not care about him..

So, finally... The food revue.. :D The first course was "Chinese Appetizer" which was three small dishes, one was a wok fried fish, one was a spinach roll, and the third was a chicken in spicy peanut sauce. The spinach roll was not spicy at all, it was chopped up spinach wrapped in some dough. It was very tasty, sorta like a spinach and feta taste.. The fish was wok fried with a spicy sichuan sauce, very very good - I probably could have eaten a whole meal of just that. The last one was the Chicken in spicy peanut sauce served over a tomato, the spice came on strong and by the time I was done eating that small portion my lips were tingly.. I love peanut sauce so it was very good..

The next course was "Stir-fried shrimp and vegetables with Yuzu pepper sauce", this was slightly spicier than the chicken and remember that my lips were already a bit tingly. It had four big shrimp (tails removed) over mushrooms, scallions, onions, and some other unknown vegetables. It was great, the bad thing was I was already starting to get full but I couldn't stop myself from eating it all.. At this time I had no sinus problems. You know how some spicy foods kick you in the mouth when you first eat it and how some the spice grows as you eat it. Well this was the kind that kicked you and then grew..

Onto the third course.. "Shark fin soup with crab meat and Yuba".. Shark fin is one of those food items that I was a little intimidated by, I've never really eaten shark fin that was not massively deep fried and I was afraid of how it would taste and feel. Well, I should not have worried, it tastes just like a shark steak but it's got a jelly like consistency which works well in soup. When you see the picture (on the japanpics page) you will see that this soup looks like an egg drop soup, it does indeed look and have the feel of an egg drop soup, it even sort of tastes like one. Well one if you mixed it with the spiciest hot and sour soup you've ever had. I was sweating by the time I finished this one and was getting nervous because each dish was getting progressively spicier and I had two more to go...

Fourth course was "Stir-fried pork with red pepper". This dish should have been called slightly cooked hot fucking peppers with a little bit of pork to balance the heat.. You know those peppers I cut up and put in my chili? This had those kind of peppers but they were whole, when you bit into them it was an explosion of heat in your mouth. Maybe it was because the dishes were getting progressively spicier but I didn't mind the spice in this dish because the flavor was great and the pork was cooked perfectly.

So, the fifth course was a choice.. You could have either "tofu with minced meat & hot chili sauce" or "Chen's original famous spicy noodle".. I went with the noodle since it's one of his signature dishes.. Speaking of Chen's signature things... X-O Hot Bean Paste! I love that stuff and ever since Iron Chef I have added it when I cook Chinese Style dishes. Remember that dish I cooked for Sara's house? I put about one tablespoon of X-O Hot Bean Paste in that and that was for a bunch of tofu and veggies and rice which fed a small army. This noodle soup had a lump about that big in the middle of it which I got to stir around and watch dissolve into this little bowl of soup. What an amazing taste but what an amazing burn. My fear was right that every dish was going to get hotter and this dish was certainly hot, hot, hotter than hell... I don't like spice when there is no flavor behind it, but there is reason this is one of his signature dishes.. It was so good, the waitress brought over a new wet napkin for me to wipe my forehead with... Apparently they do that for most people who eat this dish.. Phew... I was looking for the waiver that I apparently forgot to sign...

Finally dessert... The last course was called "Chinese dessert", it was a chocolate pocky, scoop of blackberry ice cream and two pieces of fruit. The ice cream and fruit helped quell the spice rage.

During this meal I had one glass of wine, one bottle of water and one glass of chinese tea.

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After dinner I walked around Shibuya and found a LUSH, I went in and took a picture of Tramp soap which has Kanji lettering on the bottle.. I also saw a sign for American Spirit cigarettes which I thought was totally bizarre so I took a picture of that too.

One thing I forgot to mention.. I got a "Suica" card which is their version of the Oyster card so now I'm armed with a real train ticket.. Going to get much use out of next week.. Actually I am going to use the JR line to get to the Tokyo Dome, Disney Sea and Studio Ghibli so I will be a pro come Monday morning..

I'm not going to get around to posting pics tonight.. I have to get to bed... I have a bunch I want to post and I will post them in the morning.. For tonight you just get a blog and I get some sleep..