Iron Chef Part 1

Yesterday, I went the to the world famous Iron Chef's restaurant. "Morimoto." I had been a faithful fan of the original TV show Iron Chef from Japan- English dubs and all. The premise of the show was a Iron Chef and a Challenger Chef.  The Challenger chef picked 1 out of 3 Iron Chef to compete with.  The "chairman" would give the chefs a secret ingredient. The ingredient was unveiled at the beginning of the show with much fanfare. 


The two chefs would compete to create a masterpiece with the secret ingredient within 1 hour.  I became a fan of  Masaharu Morimoto almost instantly. I loved to watch Morimoto cook with grace. He seems to have a good sense of humor and be a little rebellious. I thought he was the best looking Iron Chef.


The judges on the show were stiff society foodie types.  When they would review the dishes their words were poetic or sharp cutting words.  Once in a while they had a celebrity  judge who didn't know what to say other then it was good, or I didn't like it.

In early September I heard that Chef Morimoto opened a restaurant in Napa. I called my friend Karna who loved the original Iron Chef tv show as much as I did. We made reservations. There was a 6 week waiting list. It was worth the wait.

First of all the restaurant was beautiful in its design. Simple, elegant, earthy, fung shui-ish. It seemed as though the decorators built their theme around the sketch of the dragon. The tables where made out of beautiful wood. The restaurant was open and spacious.  Twisted wood adorned the walls in the restaurant. If you use a little imagination you could see how the wood on the walls could resemble a dragon. It was beautiful and peaceful.