Why are Iron Chefs like Pokémon?

Gotta catch 'em all of course!

I am either really insane or really awesome depending on how you want to look at it..

Tonight I am going to Rokusan-Tei which is Rokusaburo Michiba's restaurant. Michiba was the original Iron Chef Japanese, he had the best percentage of any Iron Chef. He had 32 wins, 5 losses and 1 tie for a 86.5% win ratio. He was also in the most battles of any Iron Chef Japanese with 38 battles over his three years as Iron Chef Japanese.

Tomorrow I am going to La Rochelle which is Hiroyuki Sakai's restaurant. Sakai had the most wins in Iron Chef history with 70 wins, he had 15 losses and 1 tie for a 82.4% winning percentage. As Jessie would like to point out his 70 wins are 3 more than Chen Kenichi, and he was named "King of Iron Chefs" when he beat Chen Kenichi in the final tournament. To end the show they had a final tournament, round 1 was Sakai v. Morimoto and Chen v. Kobe, Chen and Sakai each won round 1 and met in the championship battle. He joined Iron Chef in the second season when original Iron Chef French (Yutaka Ishinabe) left the show.

Wednesday night I go back to Japanese and this time to Koumei Ariake which is Koumei Nakamura's restaurant. Most people, including myself, think of Nakamura as the short lived Iron Chef Japanese gap between Michiba and Morimoto. Nakamura had 24 wins, 11 losses and 1 tie in his 2 years on the show, his 11 losses are the most of any Japanese Iron Chef and he had the lowest winning percentage out of any Iron Chef. Ironically all the reviews I have read online are saying his restaurant is better than Michiba's, which I will be able to have an opinion on now.

Thursday night I finish off my trip with the "the Prince of Pasta", Iron Chef Masahiko Kobe. Kobe was the only Iron Chef Italian, he joined the show for the last two years and saw 23 battles. He lost his first battle which ironically had pasta as the secret ingredient! That loss must have made him try harder because he is the only Iron Chef to never lose consecutive battles and he never lost another battle against an Italian Chef. His final record was 15 wins, 7 losses and 1 tie.

Iron Chef checklist: (Original Iron Chefs in black, ICA Chefs in blue)
-Iron Chef Japanese
--Rokusaburo Michiba - check
--Koumei Nakamura - check
--Masaharu Morimoto - check
--Masaharu Morimoto - check
-Iron Chef Chinese
--Chen Kenichi - check
-Iron Chef French
--Yutaka Ishinabe - no (*)
--Hiroyuki Sakai - check
-Iron Chef Italian
--Masahiko Kobe - check
--Mario Batali - no (Babbo Ristorante and Lupa in NYC)
-Iron Chef Southwestern
--Bobby Flay - no (Mesa Grill and Bolo Bar in NYC)
-Iron Chef Hellasian
--Cat Cora - no (**)
-Iron Chef Mediterranean
--Michael Symon - check
-Iron Chef Austrian/German?
--Wolfgang Puck - check (***)


* - He only had 8 battles and left the show because of the "stressful nature of the program", he could not deal with the time limit and hated to be judged on National TV. Does that sound like an Iron Chef to you?

** - She has no restaurants! Oh, and she is apparently the first and only homosexual Iron Chef. She lives in Santa Barbara CA with her partner and two children. Hellasian is her term of her cooking, it's apparently a merging of Greek and Asian.

*** - He was Iron Chef for four episodes and had one battle which he won.

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I am also planning on going over to the Tokyo Tower tonight after dinner. It's about a mile walk from Rokusan-Tei.

---Diversion of the Day
The mother of a 17-year-old girl was concerned that her daughter was having sex. Worried the girl might become pregnant and adversely impact the family's status, she consulted the family doctor. The doctor told her that teenagers today were very willful and any attempt to stop the girl would probably result in rebellion. He then told her to arrange for her daughter to be put on birth control and until then, talk to her and give her a box of condoms. Later that evening, as her daughter was preparing for a date, the woman told her about the situation and handed her a box of condoms. The girl burst out laughing and reached over to hug her mother saying: 'Oh Mom! You don't have to worry about that! I'm dating Susan!'

---Thought of the Day (yes, it's back)
If someone adds you as a friend on a site like Facebook or Myspace and you ignore/reject their friend request why would they friend request again two days later?