2007 Iron Chef Cook Off

This is our first Iron Chef Cook Off. We might make this an annual gathering. (Of course, it won't be so close to my Birthday again.)

The 2007 Iron Chef Cook Off was an outdoor event located at Lake Elizabeth. The early birds: William, Nica, Zoe, Erica and Me got there first but we faced the challege of finding a good spot with a BBQ grill. Luckly, Roger was able to swing by my place to get the portable BBQ gril.

Here are the rules of this competition:

1) Each family (2 or more people) should bring at least 2 dishes.
2) Each dish entering the challenge should apply with $3 for the Winning pot
3) Anyone not bring a dish but want to try the food and be a judge needs to pay $10 entry fee into the pot. (The Non-cooking judge fee will be rasied to $20 next year.)
4) In addition for the Iron chef gift from sponsor. The Iron chef will Win the pot (approx $30-50).

Our Points System to determine the winner:

If the dish is cook on site (5 points)
Presentation (5 points)
Smell (5 points)
Texture (5 points)
Taste (10 points)
Total points possible is 30 points.

The Iron Chef Cook Off Highlights:

When Roger arrives with the grill, the cook off began. William kicked it off with frying his "Fish cake in soft Tofu." The heat of the cook off got hot when Roger pulled out his double stove setup, and his 25 pieces of glad tubaware with 10 different ingredients. While Roger was showing his cooking skills when stir frying the "salted fish", which smelled the whole park, Pauline starts her "Golden mushroom rolls." Now, Roger begins to sweat as he saw Samson bring out his secret weapon, "Summer Fiesta Shrimp." Over the other table, GY and Vivi cooks and grill their shrimps and fishcakes. At the grill, we saw Erica, Branda and Ryu making their "unknown" dishes.

There are 2 Zoe at this party and both got a chance to play with the Hip-Hop artist, Wennie Wu with her cap and big sweater. Van and Janet patiently waits for other since they pre-make their dishes. As the competition gets closer, Melo and GL showed up with their "Very great presentation" dishes.

The Average Point for each dish:

William - Fish cake in soft Tofu - 21
Nica - Red bean muchi - 19
Samson - Summer Fiesta Coconut Shrimp - 23
Erica - Pineapple salsa over Grill pork - 24
Roger - Salted Fish and Chicken Fried rice - 24
Pauline - Golden Mushroom Beef Roll - 25
Roger/Canice - Red Bean soup dessert
Gary Yue - Black bean fried clams - 19
Vivian - Grilled Shrimps, fish cakes veggi wraps with mini shrimp salsa - 22
Janet - Cream of Mushroom over string beans - 15
Van - Logan Law Han Gua drink - 16
Gary Leung - Spring Rolls and Spagetti - 15
Melo - Mini "heart" sandwich - 17
Branda - Ahi Tuna - 23
Ryu - Fried Triangle Rice Ball - 18

The Final Results are:
Devil Chef goes to Janet and Gary Leung

3rd Place-$6 each: Branda and Samson (We heard people chanting on us, but I might get kill)
2nd Place-$7.50 each: Roger and Erica

The 2007 Iron Chef: Pauline with $25 and our Iron Chef Apron

There are other great memories. I was looking at the point cards and it was quite interesting. Ryu and GL were very nice to give 30 points to every thing. The lowest point given/received was GY's dishes at 9 points. Those whom didn't cooked at Lake Elizabeth had a big disavantage, -5 points. I think Nica's muchi will make the top 3 otherwise.

I was pretty scare the whole day with GL, GY and WL. Now I need to be careful with Melo as well. hhhmm...It's just a never ending cycle.

Chinese scrambler was a little tougher this time with the new rules. Next time we should add some of our "own" creative words and with more slants allowed.

The biggest highlight of the day is the Yumi sushi "death" challenge where "one" wasabi sushi was to be picked and be eaten amoung the 4 people, of course I was one of them. It was Samson, Erica, Melo and Pauline who have took the sushi challenge.
Melo and I was okay. Erica was the one who took the Wasabi bite. Thinking that Pauline was safe, Roger decide to take the bullet for Pauline. Little did he know that GY and WL "hand-made" 2 wasabi sushi and that Pauline's one was the biggest wasabi piece. With one bite, Roger burst into tears, sweats and cleared his allegries.

Special Thanks:
Erica for gathering my friends for dinner at Yumi
Roger and Pauline for the great competition and great sushi memory at Yumi
Nica and Zoe for their Semi-protection
William and GY's dirty finger sushi
GY with his water gun and his courage to shoot at me while I sat next to Vivi
Melo and GL for the water bomb. I was surprise Melo played along...well maybe not
Branda and Ryu for great Japanese food before the japanese dinner
Janet and Van for the Logan drink. Janet should make the top 3 next year.
Canice and Zoe for joining us and hanging out with us
Collins and Rodney for taking the "best picture" at Yumi

It was a great cook off, let's do it again next year. Pictures are located at http://samkchan.shutterfly.com/

June Cherry Picking

Roger, Pauline, Issac, Erica and I decided to take a short trip to brentwood for some cherry picking.

We started with a morning brunch in Castro Valley, where we got a little lost with the GPS and Erica-the human GPS. And of course, the guys didn't want to stop to figure out the directions.

Shortly after brunch, we headed out to Brentwood. We saw a few of people selling cherries on the roads and cherries were on sale for $1.29 per lbs. We weren't sure if we can make this trip worth the money.

Here were a few high lights:

Issac were trying to jump over a fence to pick a peach. What's funny was the Peach trees were only fenced on one side. Later we found Erica walking around the fence while the others are jumping, reaching over the fence and we're trying to out smart the fence.

Erica and Pauline went to get drainer while the 3 Amigos were left to pick cherries. It took a lot of yelling and confusion before the 2 gals reunite the 3 Amigos.

The Climb on the 3 legs stairs was challenging. It was never properly balanced. Good things we are all properly insured. We almost had a few insurance claims incidents. Care to guess who might be the lucky one? (If you are not properly insured, then you'll need to call me. :P )

Roger and I decided it took too long to picked the cherries one at a time. So we decided to pick the branches, as a result, the cherries were hanging on the branches, like grapes. Now while Erica and Pauline picked and selected cherries from the cherries, Issac invented a way of "spinning" the branch in the bucket and the cherries just popped off.



Lastly, we can't just leave without eating our "shares" of cherries. While we are eating, we decided to see who can spit the seeds the farthest. Check the video for yourself.

And the last question is: "Who really wanted to eat the Ice Cream?"

Lastly...pictures are uploaded to samkchan.shutterfly.com