Iron Wok Jan 2
Posted: December 20, 2007 Filed under: Iron Wok Jan Leave a comment »I was happy to see some slight variation in the formula in the first chapter of this volume. Jan takes a trip up to the mountains to cook something you can only cook outdoors, apparently. He takes the other male apprentice with him, which seemed strange to me. Not just because it almost seems out of character for Jan to be even vaguely friendly, but because I just can’t see why anyone would feel safe going anywhere with Jan.
The second story has a random challenger (paid off by a food critic Jan just… broke in the last volume) come to Gobancho and cook with xo sauce, an ingredient which supposedly makes meals automatically more delicious. Or something. Someone is spit on at the end of the story, which seems fine by me, I think that’s what this manga needed.
The rest of the volume (and the next four after it, I finished volume four and it looks like this runs at least one more volume) is a cooking competition, Iron Chef style, which is supposed to decide the best young Chinese-style chef in Japan. There are chapters that introduce the challengers and their skills, then there is focus on a couple of Jan’s rounds. At one point, he wins by making a mushroom soup which makes the judges hallucinate or become addicted or something. There is a double-page spread, showing all the judges passed out on the floor with their heads in pots, and on the next page, when someone demands an explanation, Jan simply says they’ve had a taste of his soup. And that ends the chapter. That’s just what kind of badass Jan is.
The cooking is still extremely action-packed and addicting. I went through volumes 2-4, all the ones I had, in about two hours. This series is extremely addicting.
