Iron Chef: Pineapple Edition

Last Saturday, it was time yet again for the annual Iron Chef competition hosted by the Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Student Association, in which three groups fought to make the tastiest and prettiest pineapple-themed dishes and bring a little tropical sweetness to an otherwise spicy cook-off.

“I’m not dissin’ with the words that I’m spittin’. Valiant efforts in the kitchen, teams completed their mission. Sweet and sour or pineapple juice I’m sippin’,” Joshua C. Zhang ’14 rapped while starting off the contest. In addition to the rhyming skills of Zhang and fellow MC Eric Lu ’14, the audience was able to enjoy free food from the Hong Kong throughout the show—letting many audience members taste Kong noodles soberly for the first time.

A variety of dishes were presented, from the pineapple skewers of General Tao’s Army to the chicken and shrimp with pineapple sauce made by the Harvard Vietnamese Association. The ladies of the Chinese Students Association board presented a chocolate-covered pineapple desert to end the night on a sweet note. “This feels legit,” said spectator Lutai Ju ’14. “People made the food look impressive, and it was good.”

Dean Sue Brown, HUPD Officer Jose Chang and Director of Freshman Programming Katherine W. Steele served as the shows judges. While Steele and Brown had their palates enchanted, Officer Chang let everyone know that Simon Cowell was in the building, interrogating contestants about their ingredients and procedure: “What type of beef is this? How did you prepare that?”

The winner of the night’s festivities and the grand prize, a $30 gift card to Finale’s, was HVA with their traditional Vietnamese dishes. “We should spend our $30 on cleaning maids to clean up the huge mess we left,” said Michael F. Trang ’14 said as he headed back to the Thayer kitchen with his teammates.