As I sit here I am pleasantly full......of food prepared and served to ME by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto!!!!! J and I just enjoyed 3 courses of his delicious food and it was definitely an experience we aren't likely to soon forget.
Before I get into today, let me just tell everyone how we got to experience what we did today. My friend Jennifer at work and I were talking early last week about how excited we were that Chef Morimoto was coming to base this weekend. We heard the AFN radio station was giving away 4 pairs of tickets to meet the Chef and taste his cuisine and of course, we were both excited. We were like "dude, we should SO totally try to win those tickets" and the determination began. On Friday morning we were frantically dialing the desk phone while the other person was either on their cell phone w/someone who had a radio (thank you, J) or was out in the car listening to the radio and then screaming "DIAL DIAL DIAL" when it was time to try and win the tickets. It was definitely team work and it paid off since we BOTH won pairs of tickets. :)
The big day arrived and it started by going to an autograph session at the BX. We had gone yesterday and picked up a wicked awesome chef's knife at Seiyu (hey, we wanted it to be Japanese) and also a cool plate (see pics below) for him to sign for us. I wanted something that we could turn into a cool piece of art for our kitchen, so stay tuned for pics of that project from J. He already has grand plans for his router and I can't wait to see what he does! We are thinking of doing a shadow box for the plate to keep it out of the air & whatnot, but not sure if we can get ahold of what we're looking for here but more on that later. Anyway, Chef was gracious and friendly during the signing, shaking both of our hands and smiling hugely when we told him we couldn't wait to have the honor of eating his food tonight!
So then we went home and waited what seemed like 10 hours between the signing and getting ready for our demo and food experience tonight. Once the time finally came, we made our way to the Officer's Club and found a good seat for the first round of demo and then our exciting portion of the show at 6:30. Chef started the demo off with today's "secret ingredient" which was tuna...a whole tuna, mind you. We sat in awe as he completely de-boned and filleted the 150 pound tuna in 18 minutes flat. Yes, I timed him lol. It was very impressive and I don't think he was even going full speed. Not Iron Chef speed, anyway. But I guess they probably don't make them de-bone and fillet the whole tuna on the show huh? I digress. Then we watched him prepare 4 dishes with the tuna...a salad looking one, a few spicy tuna rolls, an amazing Hawaiian tuna sashimi thing (it was the only one I tasted and it was spicy, garlic-y, smooth heaven) and his signature tuna pizza. It was awesome watching the way that the Chef and his soux-chef (sp?) worked together...very seamless and efficient. Not to mention that his soux-chef was extremely fast; in the time it took Chef to make 2 rolls and talk to the audience, explain each step, etc, his assistant had probably 8 or 9 finished. It was fun to watch! So, props to the assistant dude, whoever you are! Again, digression. Before he made sushi he said he was going to teach us how to make sushi AND eat it. "You think you know, but you don't know." He said there are rules for eating sushi and the most important one is that he, being the chef, controls the amount of wasabi. Thusly, you should
never put wasabi in your soy sauce for dipping. Never. He said this over and over...once he even said "Don't put the fucking wasabi in the soy sauce!" and of course, the audience clapped and cheered as only Americans can when someone curses. With his accent, I don't know if the kids even understood him, but us adults have been well trained. Needless to say, that solidified him as completely awesome in my book. The other rules were: place the fish side down in the soy sauce and eat the piece all in one bite because of the wasabi under the fish. If you bite it in half, one piece gets all the wasabi and the other may get none. It was cool because he went through all the rules while he was making lots of pieces of nigiri, so it was kinda like just kickin' it with him in his kitchen while he cooked.
So then we are starting to get nervous because it's about 6:15 and the Chef has invited some audience members down to taste what he's prepared and the behind-the-scenes dudes are starting to bring our special tables out and setting up our area. I was really proud of myself because my sister's advice was still ringing in my ears..."try not puke!" Thankfully I never once felt nauseated but of course I was second-guessing every small stomach flip..."do I feel pukey? Am I hot?" Sheeeeesh you would think they had asked me to prepare the flippin meal, I am such a basket case sometimes. Anyway, again, sorry for the digression. So we are finally getting to our special seats and then the chef starts to tell us what we'll be having tonight (which was awesome since NONE of us had a clue what was going to happen). He explained he'd be making three of his signature dishes for us...I was like wooo hoooooo I get THREE freakin plates of food?! How lucky are we, seriously?! So he starts slicing the tuna for the 1st course, which is a carpaccio of tuna and whitefish seared with hot oil. That was possibly the coolest part...he got the pieces all perfectly lined up on the plate and topped with finely shredded daikon radish and ginger (YUM...who knew?) and then he slammed it with searing hot (hence the name) sesame oil to sear it right on the plate. We are quickly served this first amazing course and let me just say...I truly felt like an Iron Chef judge! No joke. The flavors just BURST in your mouth and the way that the citrus really played against the oil, it was magical. Not to mention the tuna just melted, then you got the contrast of the crunchy bits of daikon and ginger. Perfection!! It was so cool to know even slightly what it felt like to be a judge on that show, I must say. It was So.Stinkin.Cool!!! And J was very bold and said loudly "oishii" which means delicious and the Chef said "I know." We all laughed at this of course and he would come to say this exact thing several times throughout the courses...cause duh, he's the shit. I guess when you are a master chef, you can say "I know" when people fawn over your food.
While they were clearing course 1 the chef started preparing course 2 by dumping large baskets of raw shrimp into a giant pot to tempura them. He said he was going to prepare shrimp with two mayo-based sauces, called aiolis. The flash-fried shrimps were then rolled around in two different concoctions that would both make you slap your mother. I mean, for reals. The red sauce was my favorite...the flavor really hard to put into words outside of "Duuuuuude that is like totally awesome!" I didn't quite have the "foodie" moment that I had during the first course, but I know it was delish. The white-ish, green-ish sauced shrimp was pretty spicy but still really good. I tried to savor each bite and he was very generous with both portions...it felt like a bunch of shrimp but I still didn't want to eat the last one. Sigh. I feel like I'll wake up in the middle of the night reaching for another shrimp. ;) Needless to say, this shrimp course was my favorite!
The last course was the famous tuna pizza...really different. This one surprised me, as I was a tad skeptical because he was putting things like CILANTRO that I despise and also capers which I find to be kinda funky, but OMG it was divine!!! This was J's favorite dish and I have to say it was really wonderful. I swear I didn't even taste the cilantro so it truly was just a garnish, which I was thrilled about. It was truly delicious and it was the perfect "marriage" of food once it all came together. It was a great way to end the night and I really was so thankful to have had the chance to experience this!
J here: After dinner I had a question. During the autograph signing I asked him to sign a knife. He looked at it a bit and turned it and signed the metal handle. I told him I didn't mind if he signed the blade and he just waved it off and said no. I stayed a little after to take some more pictures and noticed a woman who brought dark wooden handled knives and he wouldn't sign them. I thought I heard him say "it is my spirit." I obviously was very intrigued and was not disappointed by the answer our host offered. I asked the Japanese marketing person to ask for me and he did. I stood by and listened intently as they talked and he pantomimed a blacksmith striking a blade. So marketing guy says that the making of a Japanese knife is the same as the making of a sword. It is a tool and with each strike of the hammer the sword maker is placing a piece of his soul into the blade. So he cannot put something that is a piece of himself (his name) onto something that already contains the knife makers spirit. He also said that the weapon has a purpose and to put your name on the blade aligns you in some way with the purpose of the item. He was saying it's the same reason you would never sign an automatic weapon. If his name is on it he is a part of what it does. His spirit is now in it. So he would sign the handle because it is not the blade, it only conveys the blade. I thought this was very interesting. He has been in the states for 27 years cooking and still has not lost sight of his culture. I would think it would be easy with all his celebrity to lose sight of anything spiritual in the face of so much commercialism, but his name means something to him. I would like him to know it means something to us as well. Thanks for the meal...or in Japanese, Gochiso sama deshita!
Enjoy the pics, love you all, except for you, you know who you are...... ;-)
 |
| Our signed knife! How cool is this?! |
 |
| Signing our plate! :) |
 |
| I love how it came out!! |
 |
| Preparing the tuna |
 |
| Little did we know, he was preparing all the cuts that he would later serve to US :) |
 |
| Getting the oil ready to sear the tuna |
 |
| Some of the finished sushi! Beautiful :) |
 |
| Cool shot of him slicing |
 |
| Yep, he's preparing our 1st course here!!! |
 |
| Cool shot, hun! Me waiting for my taste adventure to begin :) |
 |
| You can see all 8 plates lined up there! |
 |
| Course 1, Carpaccio. Perfection!! |
 |
| Course 2, shrimps with aoli |
 |
| Action shot of Chef preparing the tuna pizza. He turned so many simple ingredients into delicousocity. Yeah, I made that word up! |
 |
| Tuna pizza!! |
 |
| It's us and Chef Morimoto!! So freakin awesome!! |
 |
| Yes, folks, that is him cleaning the thingy used for frying the shrimp. How humble is that? |
PS. Don't put the fucking wasabi in the soy sauce!!!
