Rating:  Summary: Iron Chef is not an ordinary cooking show, nor cook book Review: I love the Iron Chef show, but I was disappointed with the book. To me, the book was mostly filler. The book is 294 pages, and about 50 of them are interesting. The best parts of the book are the parts written by the chefs themselves. It was interesting to read the sections written by the people who worked for the show as well. Other than that, the book was mostly pictures and lists. There are only ten recipies. Although Dr. Hattouri puts together dinners in different genres, the recipies for these dishes are not included. I would have liked this book more if there were more recipies, and perhaps some commentary from challengers. Overall, the book was pretty boring with not a lot of content, but it was a fast read.
Rating:  Summary: A must for any Iron Chef fan! Review: I love the show "Iron Chef" and was really looking forward to the book. When it finally arrived, I read to the book from cover to cover in about an hour. After I finished the last page, I was left with mixed feelings. While I really appreciate the time and effort that went into the book, I wish the book was a bit more in-depth. There were several interesting tidbits of information that I did not know, but the book left me wanting more. I would recommend this book to any fan of "Iron Chef", but I would warn everyone to not get their hopes to high.
Rating:  Summary: Iron Chef Reference book Review: I love the show, therefore the book is very useful to me. The reason that it is not 5 stars is that I feel that it is missing some information that should be there. There is a brief history of Stadium kitchen, a timeline of the Iron Chefs, a listing of the battles (but the winner is not identified, so the shows will still be a surprise, Bio's of some of the challengers and a few recipes of their favorite menu items. If you emjoy the show, you will love this book. The pictures are bright as is the case with forign pictures. Very nice. Worth every penney.....
Rating:  Summary: My guilty pleasure Review: I started watching the Iron Chef show as a lark. I thought it was fun and funny. Very cheesy and very funny. The whispered notes of disbelief, the cries of : "very sophisticated", "very well controled", "this is so good" really got me to giggle about the silliness. This book prolongs and deepens all the silliness. It is written as a serious review of all the shows in the series, with features on certain challengers deemed worthy by the author and of course all the Iron Chefs. It kind of walks the fine line between treating the show as reality and as a farce. Regardless of how you feel about the show, the book is superficially fascinating. I would never have thought that I would be the owner of a book on a TV show, a Japanese TV show featuring Chefs as gladiators and a comically dressed emcee who looks like he was dress by a crazed Andrew Lloyd Webber. I love the show, I never miss a new episode, I even sit through some of the old ones I have already seen. I like this book. I wouldn't feature it prominently on my bookshelf. I would, however, stealthily break it out whenever anyone speaks fondly of the show. Then I can share my guilty pleasure.
Rating:  Summary: The Wonder of Iron Chef Review: I think we all need to rember that this was actually the frist of a five volume set of books about the Iron Chef. This is one of those items to own if you are a true fan. Fuji TV always said that it was almost impossible to record the receipes from the show, due to there complexity and speed and that is something to rember about the books. To be honest I didn't buy this book as a cookbook but as a piece of fan memoribilia, just like my iron chef apron. Though if you are looking for a cookbook you can not beat Chen Kenichi new cookbook, My Philosophy, My Family, My Cooking. Hopefully it will get transltated for the US fans. I was so excited when I found it in the Asian Bookstore. This is a great book, for your Iron Chef collection.
Rating:  Summary: Hilarious, serious, and fun, just like the show Review: I usually don't write reviews, but I saw the one on this book and couldn't resist. I got the book yesterday and have already spent more than 2 hours reading it and looking at it--and lauging out loud! Of course, I didn't read it as fast as possible just to get done like the other reviewer. I prefer to enjoy it! It's not a novel, it's a browsing book where you can open it to any page and find something interesting and then flip to another page and fine something even better. There are a lot of hilarious viewpoints and facts and information. The book feels very Japanese, just like the show, which is why it's so good, of course. Great for fans!
Rating:  Summary: Something was missing - can't figure out what, though. Review: I was recently on vacaction, and one day my wife and I went and spent an afternoon in Borders looking around. She found me because she had found the Iron Chef book. That was nice, I thought I'd take a look before I thought about seriously buying it. Turns out I read the entire book in about an hour and a half. I'm a fairly fast reader, plus there were some bits I skipped over, like the recipe pages. I looked at them all, and read about them, but I'm no cook, so the actual ingredients didn't interest me. The best one I saw in the book was Kobe's Chocolate Banana heart shaped dessert. Looked great! Anyway, my favourite part was the interviews with the Iron Chefs. Now, I'm a recent convert (in fact, I don't see many of the episodes, I don't even have the Food network), but I am aware of the show's past from reading the ironchef.com site, as well as a friend of mine who is on this list. I wasn't aware that Ishinabe didn't have that great a liking for the show's concept both before and after his time on the show. (At least I think it was Ishinabe who said that). Anyway, the book was a nice read, but it didn't strike me as something I particularly needed to own. Didn't have a whole lot of readability to it. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book, but I was expecting something more - I just can't put my finger on what it is exactly. Again, my favourite part was the Iron Chef interviews - and the pics were nice, too. Just can't put my finger on what I didn't like about it.
Rating:  Summary: Pretty Interesting Review: I wish it had more recipes, but in general it was very informative and thorough.
Rating:  Summary: "Allez Cuisine!!" Review: I'm an IC fan, but not a cook, but I still got the book. Gee, that was a pleasant little rhyme! Anyways, this book provides crucial information on the Iron Chefs, both old and new. It also provides crew interviews, menus, recipes, a timeline, battle records, battle info, Chairman Takeshi Kaga's 10 favourite dishes, a restaurant guide, a glossary, AND MUCH, MUCH, MORE!!!!!!!!! My only complaint are all the name spelling errors & inconsistensies. For heaven's sake, it's Masahiko Kobe, not Katsuhiko Kobe!!!!!!! This book is a must-have for any fellow Iron Chef fan!!!!
Rating:  Summary: *NOT* what an Iron chef fan expected Review: I've been an Iron Chef fan for a long time, even before it began showing on Food TV network, where it showed on a local San Francisco Bay Area tv channel. My first reaction, "What the hell was this", slowly turned to appreciation and wonderment. After moving, I began watching it again on Food TV network, where the dubbing threw me off at first, but I learned to like it. I was looking forward to this book, and spent a long afternoon reading it in the bookstore. I'm glad I didn't pre-order it and have it mailed to me, because I would have been sorely disappointed. I wanted so much more from this book, and it didn't deliver. I wanted more much more details on the testsujin, not some Food TV glossy biography style writeups that appear in this book. I wanted more in how the show was produced, the logistics of the taping, just more background stuff, and it wasn't there. I wanted more details on the background of all the ICs. In the end, for me, this was just some fluffy book written to capitalize on Food TV's latest commodity; another product of a corporate TV network, meant to cross-promote its programming. I wanted a book written with some heart, not some corporate fluff piece. I'm sorely disappointed, but I'm giving it an extra star for its recipes (but all measurements were in metric units...sigh).
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