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A Chow Challenge

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A Chow Challenge
E86 Scene 12.png
A cook-off is held at Castle Dedede between old friends Chef Kawasaki and Chef Nagoya.
Details
First aired Japan June 14, 2003
NA May 28, 2005
Episode # 86
Episode # (US) 86
Copy Ability (Abilities) featured Cook
Monster(s) featured Ebifryer
Character(s) featured Kirby, Tiff, Chef Kawasaki, King Dedede, Chef Nagoya
Episode order
A Sunsational Puzzle Waste Management
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A Chow Challenge is the 86th episode of the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! series. In this episode, Chef Kawasaki is visited by his former fellow student and friend at cooking school Chef Nagoya who wishes to ascertain Kawasaki's cooking skill. Tiff gives Kawasaki some pointers to make his food tolerable for a change, but all the Cappies prefer Nagoya's cooking. When Nagoya learns that Kawasaki received help, he berates his friend, and King Dedede then invites the two chefs to compete in a cooking challenge to see who gets to own Kawasaki's restaurant. Although Tiff secretly helps Kawasaki during the cook-off as well, the food ends up getting sabotaged by Escargoon to ensure a loss for Kawasaki, but Chef Nagoya catches Escargoon doing this and forfeits by sabotaging his own dish in an encore round. He then compliments Chef Kawasaki for having at least one loyal lover of his food before the shrimp Nagoya prepared turns into the monster Ebifryer and attacks. Despite this threat, Kirby quickly deals with the monster using the Cook Copy Ability, and Chef Nagoya then leaves Dream Land after bidding Kawasaki farewell.

Characters[edit]

The following characters appear in this episode:

Cast of "A Chow Challenge"  
Character Selected quote Notes
Primary characters
"Poooy-yooy!"
"I don't want Nagoya to find out that I still can't cook!"
"Go easy on those noodles, Kirby!"
"If that guy studied with Kawasaki, then he's gotta be a graduate of the institute of indigestion!"
"You really have made progress as a chef, Kawasaki! This is quite tasty!"
Secondary characters
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue) Appears in a flashback.
"Who's that guy? He looks like trouble! I better check him out!"
(no dialogue)
"He took cookin' lessons with Kawasaki!"
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
"I never predicted I could enjoy something you made!"
"I wonder if he might be a health inspector."
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
"We're doing our best, but Night Mare Enterprises deals in monsters, not in groceries. It may take a little time, Triple-D!"
"If he's a tourist, his trip's off to a bad start!"
"Does he have a twin brother?"
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
(no dialogue)
"What's the big deal? It's not like there's anybody else here to eat 'em!"
"Stir fry? Kawasaki's done!"
(no dialogue)

Locations[edit]

Plot synopsis[edit]

Chef Kawasaki and Chef Nagoya reunite in a very flamboyant manner.

The episode begins as an eccentric man wanders into Cappy Town looking for Chef Kawasaki. Chief Bookem points him to Kawasaki's restaurant, where Kirby is busy slurping down leftover noodles. Once the man enters the restaurant, he sees Chef Kawasaki, and the two of them embrace in a dramatic fashion in front of Kirby, Tiff, and Tuff. Chef Kawasaki then introduces his old friend to the Cappies as Chef Nagoya, who was one of his fellow students back in cooking school and helped him through the hard times there. After a brief moment of confusion, the Cappies decide they were initially harsh on him and welcome Nagoya more warmly, while Escargoon informs King Dedede about Nagoya's arrival. While Nagoya is out of earshot, Chef Kawasaki tries to get everyone to agree to pretend to like his cooking so Nagoya does not catch on to the fact that Kawasaki still cannot cook well. Nagoya then complicates matters when he insists on inviting everyone in to the restaurant and paying for lunch from Kawasaki, insisting that he will be having some as well to see how Kawasaki has improved.

As the Cappies brace themselves for Kawasaki's lunch, Tiff endeavors to help Chef Kawasaki in the kitchen with his cooking. This help ends up paying off, as the ramen Kawasaki serves ends up being genuinely agreeable to all those present. In return for the meal, Chef Nagoya offers to cook Kawasaki something of his own. Nagoya makes a ramen of his own to compare and contrast with Kawasaki's style, and all those present end up loving it. When King Dedede hears that Nagoya made such good food for the Cappies, he runs off to get the chef's attention despite already having eaten "his body weight" in chips. Back in town, the townsfolk gossip about how much better Nagoya is than Kawasaki, and Nagoya ends up overhearing their gossip. Furious, he storms back into Kawasaki's restaurant and berates his friend for deceiving him. The two get into a brief scuffle which Tiff and Tuff break up, but at that moment, King Dedede and Escargoon show up. King Dedede imposes a cooking contest on Kawasaki and Nagoya, offering the right to the restaurant to the winner, and Kawasaki starts to despair knowing he cannot possibly win.

Chef Nagoya presents his encore dish to King Dedede.

King Dedede sets up the tournament and announces it on Channel DDD, while waiting on special gourmet ingredients from Night Mare Enterprises. Chef Nagoya then comes in to see the delivery of fresh seafood through the Monster Delivery System. Once everyone is gathered in the studio, the cook-off begins as the chefs Kawasaki and Nagoya are allowed to start with a specialty of their own choosing. As Chef Kawasaki begins to cook, Tiff gives him advice while hiding under his table. Once both are done, the dishes are brought up to the judges to taste. Before they do so however, the lights briefly go out, and Kawasaki's curry is sabotaged by adding a hot spice to it. This ends up causing the judges to spew flames when they eat it. Once the judges recover, the second round begins, where the chefs are challenged to invent a new dish on the spot. Much like before, the dishes are tampered with by Escargoon when the lights momentarily go out, and Kawasaki's dish once again ends up causing the contestants to burn up from the spiciness. For the final round, Chef Kawasaki goes for a stir fry and this time endeavors to not use any spices at all. As the lights go out for a third time, Chef Nagoya sees what Escargoon is doing to the dishes. Regardless, the tasting commences, and the same thing happens as the last two times, though even more exaggerated than before.

Cook Kirby reflects Ebifryer's fire breath back at it.

Chef Nagoya is declared the winner of the contest, and Chef Kawasaki is about to be banished from Cappy Town forever, but Nagoya steps in and tells Kawasaki that he has one more dish to prepare as an encore: his "Shrimp Nagoya". After frying up the shrimp, he serves King Dedede, but after a single bite from it, King Dedede is sent into a spiraling flame-belching turmoil that not even a pool of water can quench. Chef Nagoya then reveals that he used the same hot sauce that Escargoon used to tamper with Chef Kawasaki's dishes and shows film of Escargoon tampering with the dishes. Chef Nagoya then tells Chef Kawasaki that it's okay that he does not cook like him, since Kirby seems to prefer Kawasaki's cooking to his own. King Dedede then decides to declare the contest a draw so that Chef Nagoya can cook for King Dedede personally. At that moment, however, the shrimp Nagoya prepared transforms into the giant monster Ebifryer and attacks. As everyone else gets away, Tiff tosses Kirby a ladle for him to inhale, giving him the Cook Copy Ability. Using his frying pan, Kirby deflects Ebifryer's fire breath and inadvertently causes it to scorch King Dedede and Escargoon. Kirby then deflects the monster's fire breath onto itself causing it to burst into flames and then explode, defeating it very quickly. The episode ends as Chef Nagoya leaves Dream Land while Chef Kawasaki and the kids wave him good-bye.

Differences between versions[edit]

Japanese-exclusive scene where Doctor Yabui uses a defibrillator to revive Professor Curio after the second round.
  • In the Japanese version, Chef Kawasaki and Nagoya's reunion scene is longer.
  • In the Japanese version, the Cappies spend longer commenting Nagoya's udon dish with an additional panning shot.
  • In the Japanese version, an arrangement of the Orange Ocean theme plays during the cook-off.
  • In the Japanese version, there is an extra scene during the third round where Doctor Yabui has to revive Professor Curio with a defibrillator after the spiciness from the previous round. Mabel and King Dedede are also hooked to iv drips.
  • In the Japanese version, the banner that unfurls over Chef Nagoya when he is declared the winner reads "WINNER". In the 4Kids version, it is blank.

Dialogue differences[edit]

  • In the Japanese version, after Nagoya and Kawasaki embrace so emphatically, Kirby says "Homo?"
  • In the Japanese version, the assembled Cappies talk about how Chef Nagoya adds "dagya" to the end of his sentences, and compares it to speech mannerisms from other characters.
    • Later on, they decide to adopt his habit of saying "mya" when they welcome him to the village.
  • In the Japanese version, Kirby has several extra lines where he imitates Chef Nagoya's strange style of speaking. In the 4Kids version, he just says "poyo".
  • In the Japanese version, when Chef Kawasaki and Nagoya are quarreling over Kawasaki's dishonesty, Nagoya uses many metaphors to describe the difference between the two chefs. In particular, he mentions that Chef Kawasaki has neither golden shachi nor hundred-meter-wide roads, both features of the real-life city of Nagoya (but not of the real-life city of Kawasaki).
  • In the Japanese version, Kirby shouts "Reflect Pan!" when reflecting Ebifryer's attacks.
  • In the Japanese version, when King Dedede and Doctor Escargon are trapped by the defeated Ebifryer's claws, Escargon remarks that this has happened to him before. This is a reference to the end of The Meal Moocher, where Escargon was trapped under the giant claw of the defeated Garnie.
  • In the Japanese version, Fumu accidentally picks up Chef Nagoya's speech pattern after saying good-bye to him.

Trivia[edit]

  • This episode is very similar in plot and format to the earlier episode A Recipe for Disaster.
    • Even more so than in A Recipe for Disaster, the cooking show in this episode references Iron Chef very strongly, this time being explicitly a cookery contest. As with Chef Shiitake's show, the cook-off features a set that looks similar to Kitchen Stadium, and places Dedede and the four Cappies on set in the role of the Chairman and the four judges. The first part of the episode's Japanese name, 弟子対決 (Apprentice Showdown), by coincidence or by intention, recalls how each episode of Iron Chef in the original Japanese would often be referred to as 〇〇対決 (with the name of the ingredient filling in the blanks), often shown on screen in English as "〇〇 CONFRONT".
  • This episode marks the first time that Chef Kawasaki's curry dish has actually been referred to as a curry in the 4Kids dub.
  • This is not the first episode where Escargoon is caught tampering with food to make it ultra spicy. He does the same thing to Buttercup's crab dinner in The Meal Moocher.

Gallery[edit]

Names in other languages[edit]

Language Name Meaning
Japanese 弟子対決! コックナゴヤ
Deshi Taiketsu! Kokku Nagoya
Apprentice Showdown! Chef Nagoya