Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto makes a rare appearance in Toronto to show everyone why he is a Master Chef. He is interviewed by host Michelle Jobin.
Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto makes a rare appearance in Toronto to show everyone why he is the Master of Food. He breaks down a whole 130 lb Tuna in about 20 minutes all while explaining how to do it and why we eat Sushi all wrong and cracking jokes at the same time.
He has come to Toronto to start promoting his upcoming restaurant opening in Toronto and used his demo to publicize it many times in a hilarious fashion. Everyone there all know now that it will open in April 2016. I am not sure what the name of the restaurant will be exactly but there was a Taste of it at The Taste of Toronto where he was doing this demo and had a booth showcasing a couple of his dishes. The booth was called Morimoto Toronto so I don't know if that's what the restaurant will be called when it opens.
Morimoto's demo was one of the highlights of the Taste of Toronto's weekend events. It's not everyday that you see an Iron Chef in Toronto showing you how to prep a whole Tuna. If you are a queasy type of person that wasn't the demo for you but I guess all of the people in attendance were pretty serious food people and everyone was enthralled in the process.
After he broke it all down into different parts he cut a few slices for sushi and showed the proper way to add wasabi and how to dip the sushi on the fish side into the soy sauce and never mixing the wasabi or ginger into the soy sauce. As Morimoto stated the Sushi chef adds different amounts of wasabi depending on the fattiness of the fish and if done properly there is no need to add extra wasabi. The only time you would add wasabi is if you are getting sashimi.
At the Taste of Toronto I tried both of Morimoto's dishes. One was a Uni Udon Carbonara, this was the first time I have ever had Uni and it was pretty interesting. This dish was kind of like a slightly fishy tasting Carbonara because of the Uni.
The other dish I tried was the Toro Tuna roll which was tiny but it tasted amazing. It was a pretty expensive bite but when you consider that the whole Tuna that Morimoto broke down is worth $3200 you can understand the expense of fresh Tuna dishes.
I got a chance to get up close and personal with him when he was at the Morimoto booth signing some postcards and was very gracious and took photos with a few people. For me he pushed his face right up to my cell phone camera for a fun photo. It was hard to get a good focus on him as he was moving so fast but it was a fun moment.
I hope I get a chance to go to his new restaurant when it opens but in the meantime at least I had a chance to sample a couple of his dishes at the Taste of Toronto and see how funny he is in real life.
He comes across as quiet and serious on the Iron Chef show but while in Toronto he seemed to let loose and have lot's of fun with the people at the Taste. He was only in town for the one day so I hope he comes back to play again soon.
