So Cal Iron Chef Report 
Special Episode		June 4, 1999

"Indonesia Expedition (Part 2 of 2)"

Greetings, Iron Chef fans.

This is part 2 of 2 special "Indonesia Expedition" show where Morimoto
and Michiba went to Indonesia and hosted a banquet for the King, Hamunk
Buono X.

First, for those who not familiar with the concept: Indonesia, similarly
to many other Asian nations, as well as Japan, England, Belgium,
Holland, Denmark to name a few, does have presiding royalty. That is not
in contradiction to its (allegedly) democratic republic status. For the
lack of data confirming this, I believe he is not a tribal chief of a
minority group. He IS the king presiding over all of Indonesia.

OK, having that out of the way, last week's show ended where Michiba
decided to go Palm flower hunting with the beautiful Palace chef and
send Morimoto away to Bali island for fresh fish.

A Day before the Royal Feast
----------------------------
Jasun village is located in central Java. This village is in charge of
delivering Palm flower, King's favorite food, to the Palace. But it took
Michiba 3 hours of driving through squall to get to the village, and 2
hours wait at the village before the rain stopped.
Once sky dried up, the men get busy (as Michiba watches). They have the
tradition of cutting down the tallest palm tree for the king. As the
tree comes down, Michiba is carefully studying it. Where in the tree is
the "flower"? As it turned out, the flower is still in the hard, horny
bud. As soon as he got them, Michiba tasted the flower. Then the men
brought the tip of the tree. It is edible, he says. This is the point of
the tree that is growing the fastest, so it is relatively soft and
crunchy. Something clicked in Michiba's mind when he got two of the
exotic ingredients.

Morimoto's situation started out even more difficult.
He was at a beach before dawn, to meet up with the expert fishermen to
go fishing. He was shocked to find out they are about to go out with a
small row boat. "Is it going to be safe?" He was worried. But
thankfully, there was a big boat off shore, which they boarded.
The fishing technique is a quite ancient one. The watchman locate the
school of fish, they throw the net, and the men jump into the water to
chase the fish into the net. Then they pull up the net. Morimoto was
excited at the start, but later was complaining why there is no motor to
pull up the net. And the result? Zero. Nada. Despite several tries, they
failed to catch any fish.
Embarrassed, Morimoto tells cameraman "We'll buy some fresh fish at the
market".
Fortunately, he found a few very fresh striped blue fins which he said
is good enough for sashimi, and other fish. Total of eight.

Back in Yogyakarta (pronounced Jyo-Jyu-Jakarta), two chefs from Hyatt
Regency joined the team. Michiba and Morimoto reviewed the materials,
and Michiba wrote up the menu in brush painting. For those of you who do
not know, this menu writing is Michiba's thing. While he was an active
Iron Japanese chef, for every battle he faced, first thing he did was to
write up the menu in Japanese style brush calligraphy. There are nine
dishes in the list (not all of them are reported, since they never
showed up on the screen). Nine is the lucky number for the people around
here. Michiba apparently thought about it.

So two Iron Chefs kept busy preparing for the next day's dinner, you
think, right? No!
Sjaldi (pronounced su-hal-dee), the Grand Chamberlain to the King, came
over and took the two chefs out on the street. He wants two to learn
"people's flavor" of Indonesia. So they went out to the food stand and
enjoy the local folksy cuisine. Most population in this area is Muslims,
which means they don't drink. But these two happy barbaric bastards
break the rule in brought in Japanese rice wines. Sjaldi, who had never
tasted sake before, enjoys this. He and Morimoto hit up very well. I
noticed Sjaldi was talking in English, so they must communicate in
common language (Morimoto must speak a little bit of English too,
wouldn't he?)
Then Morimoto came up with a wild idea. Just like he did with Michiba in
New York, he insists that they'll do some cooking here. He called up the
Hotel to bring out some material and took over the cart.
Michiba didn't want to do this, but he couldn't just watch Morimoto,
either. He started cooking mochi (rice cake). He normally does this on a
grill. But there is no grill out here, so he deep fried the mochi and
marinated with sweet peanut sauce called gado-gado. It was a gross
looking thing, but people seemed to like it. Now Michiba's really into
this.
Morimoto started to deep fry eels, to make Indonesian style eel bowl
(una-don). He used locally acquired sweet sauce called ABC sauce instead
of traditional eel sauce. Sjaldi gives it thumbs up. The two iron chefs
took over Indonesian street that night.

Upon returning to the hotel, these two kept working to prepare for the
following day's royal feast. The purpose of the dinner is not just to
satisfy the King, who allegedly is Asia's No. 1 gourmet, but to
revolutionize the concept of Japanese cooking on this foreign land.

The Royal Feast
---------------
Two chefs showed up to the Klaten Palace at the dusk. They were shown to
the Mains room, the main ballroom of the palace. This is where all the
royal family will watch them prepare the meal and taste them.
Finally, the king shows up. His tight expression is an indication of the
troubled state of the nation. Will two chefs be able to draw a smile
from this man?
The dinner started.

- Heart of Palm Steamed in Bamboo Casing with Tomato Sauce
  Excuse the clumsy translation; those two created something so radical,
  the name isn't invented yet.
  Michiba made a steamed custard (chawan-mushi) using the palm tree tip
  using the cylinder of bamboo tree. The king wondered what was in it.
  Michiba explained that it is the heart of palm tree, he understands.
  "Oh, so you just created a completely original dish!"
  BTW, I was wondering, as Michiba addresses the king, he was standing
  up, sort of looking down on him, who was seated. I didn't know if
  this is disrespectful, though King didn't seem to mind.

- Nine Flavor Nasi Cunin
  This is Michiba style re-creation of Indonesian traditional Nasi
  Tupan they were served last week at the welcome dinner.
  Ball shaped sushi of lotus leave, smoked salmon, etc., and Skewered
  octopus, conger eel and egg plant, Skewered foie gras, mutton and
  chicken and others, total of nine dishes were served on this large
  plate. Sushi rice is Indonesian long grain rice, steamed with saffron
  to give it yellow color, which is a local good luck color.
  Deep fried palm flower is served here, which King really liked, and
  shared it with queen.
  Up to here, everything was a-OK.

- Paper Pot Shabu-shabu
  Next, they tried the exotic technique of paper Pot. The broth is
  heated in the pot made of paper to cook thinly sliced piece of
  beef. They've never seen paper pot in Indonesia, so it would
  have been a nice surprise. But! The heat from the solid fuel was
  too weak to boil the broth, and they could not eat it.

  Michiba gave up on it, and decided to move on.

- Tempe Pizza
  Tempe is the Indonesian style fermented soy bean the two found
  in the market last week. It is a must ingredient for home cooking,
  and King apparently likes this.
  The two made a Japanese style pizza (okonomi-yaki) with it, and
  served it with Worcestershire sauce, Mayonnaise and shaved bonito
  (the standard condiments for okonomi-yaki).
  King was apparently awed by the combination of tempe and mayo.
  Not only it was new to him, he liked it very much.
  Michiba was glad to see smile is back on King's face.

- Stew of Whole Fried Sea Bass
  Now Michiba shows his knife technique preparing the whole fish
  to the king. The cut fish (still in the whole shape) is held
  in the bamboo basket and deep fried in the big pan.
  Never have seen such a technique, King approaches the kitchen
  and watch them do their thing up close.
  Michiba asks, "Your highness, do you cook?" "Yes, I do. And I am
  very curious of your technique".
  I never would have guessed, but queen later quoted as saying
  "His highness often spends time in the kitchen, preparing foods".
  The fried fish is now stewed in the soy sauce based broth.
  King asks, "Is this Japanese traditional sauce?"  Michiba answers
  "Yes, your highness." "Hmmm. This is very good".

- Cold Noodle
  Japanese rice noodle (So-men) is served with various fish from
  Bali.

- Ice Cream in Banana Sack
  The desert dish. In order to enhance its sweet flavor, ice cream is
  mixed with sweet Java banana in its peel.

In the end, the King offered "It was very good all the way to the last
dish. You two are the greatest of the chefs".
Later on, the king invited the two to the sitting suite to greet them,
when Michiba took out his brush and presented him with the hand writing
letter "Fresh". The freshness is the life of food. And fresh viewpoint
is life of politics. Or something like that. The king thanked them
again.

So that was the Iron Chef's Indonesian Feast episode.
Morimoto said "This kind of things happens only in this show (Iron
Chef). For that, I am grateful. For someone like me who is working
abroad, this is intriguing. I want to do it again, if I had a chance".
Michiba said "I was worried if their taste match our cooking. Well, I am
glad that it was a success".

-ICR