Chef Roy Yamaguchi Chef Roy Yamaguchi has joined the ranks of the iron chefs.
selected to join
cooking’s elite
He will be 'Iron Chef Asia'
in an August special airing on UPNBy Betty Shimabukuro
bshimabukuro@starbulletin.comYamaguchi last night began taping "Iron Chef USA: Showdown in Las Vegas," two television specials to be aired on the UPN network Aug. 31, the UPN public relations department confirmed yesterday.
The shows are an American version of the intensely popular Japanese cooking show that features gladiator-style battles between prominent chefs representing different cuisines. The iron chefs are the champions of the fictitious Chairman Kaga, the Liberace-style host of the show. They take on challengers -- battling to create dishes with a mystery ingredient -- in Kaga's Kitchen Stadium.
The UPN version will feature "Star Trek" commander William Shatner in Kaga's role, with the MGM Grand Garden Arena as the cooking field.
Yamaguchi will play the part of the iron chef of Asian cooking. The other chefs in the lineup, a UPN spokeswoman said, are Jean Francois Meteigner of La Cachette in Santa Monica, Calif., representing French cuisine; Allesandro Stratta of Renoir in Las Vegas' Mirage Hotel, Italian; and Todd English, American. English owns a number of Mediterranean restaurants in cities including Las Vegas.
In the gourmet world, these are all-stars, award-winning chefs who are also quite telegenic. Yamaguchi is a James Beard Foundation award winner for Best Chef of the Pacific Northwest-Hawaii and owns a chain of 24 restaurants in Hawaii, across the mainland, in Guam and Japan -- with one opening in October in Summerlin, near the Vegas Strip. He was on the set yesterday and unavailable for comment.
Two one-hour "Iron Chef USA" specials are being taped through today in front of an audience, with play-by-play commentary, in the "Iron Chef" tradition. A panel of celebrity judges will evaluate the chefs' dishes and determine, in the words of Chairman Kaga, "whose cuisine will reign supreme."