Call it an upset, call it well-deserved, call it entertainment, whatever. Last night on Iron Chef America, Vancouver’s own star chef, Rob Feenie, defeated Iron Chef Masuharu Morimoto in the first Canadian appearance on the show Iron Chef America, as the Food Network attempts to recreate the amazing ratings it received while airing the original Iron Chef show produced in Tokyo by Fuji Television.
The secret ingredient was crab, and Feenie shone with an ingredient he knows so well, although he told me that it didn’t really matter what the ingredient was, because the tension and pressure was so tight it didn’t really give him an advantage.
When the judges’ scores were tallied, it was 45 to 39 in favour of Feenie, and the main difference came in the ‘Creativity’ category.
Last night, Rob invited what seemed like most of the city to come to Feenie’s and watch the show. 
The place was packed and the drinks were flowing freely. Folks cheered when Rob and his sous chefs appeared on screen, and booed and hissed whenever Morimoto was featured.
Rob seemed incredibly serious for the first half of the show. He told me it was because he was very concerned about being able to finish the five required dishes in an hour’s cooking. During a previous taping, he saw a challenger only manage to complete 2. He said the show’s executive producer was in h
is face for the first 15 minutes, pressuring him to make sure he would finish the dishes. Finally, when everything looked like it would go as scheduled, he was able to relax and crack a few more jokes to camera. What he didn’t know was that the fridge he was using to gel his peekeytoe crab panna cotta had went on the fritz ten minutes into the chilling, leaving a goopy mess when it came out at the end of the hour. He had to ask for a ruling on that one, and the producers allowed him to stick the dessert in the freezer before serving it to the judges, but he wasn’t happy with the result.
When Feenie was declared the winner, the restaurant erupted in cheers. I half-expected the crowd to rush out onto Broadway and stop traffic with the celebrations…
Alton Brown, host of Iron Chef America, said it best: "When Iron Chefs fall down, they get up mad." I predict a rematch.
If you want to listen to my recorded interview with Rob Feenie, check my website within the next few days, as I premiere my new podcast, ‘All You Can Eat’. You’ll hear my interview with Rob, as well as the feature I created in 1999 when I traveled to Tokyo with chef Michael Noble to watch him compete against Mr. Morimoto in the original Iron Chef series.
p.s. If you missed the show on Sunday night, you can catch it again on Food Network Canada, Wednesday, Feb. 23rd, 6PM Pacific Time.
