From the moment she first arrives at the Smap Bistro, you can feel the presence this girl has. As she playfully comes in chiming “bing-bong, bing bong!” emulating the Bistro doorbell, you remember at once that this is the girl who was once known as Japan’s Sweetheart back in her idol days, and you just smile with her sunny charisma! Love how she squeals with laughter when Nakai fans her in the face!
Rie’s food of choice for this visit is Cabbage, something that any capable cook can spin into a great variety of dishes, and soon enough, the chefs are on their way! For this challenge, the teams are KimuTaku and Goro against Tsuyoshi and Shingo, while Nakai as host interviews Rie and keeps her entertained as the meal is being prepared.
Just listening to Rie talk and you already get a sense of the kind of person she is. Her entire manner of speaking seems very precise and clipped, like someone talking quite properly at a fancy event (though she does manage to get some decidedly silly and girlish things snuck in!) and even her arm and hand gestures seem very expressive and theatrical! When Rie remarks, “something smells really good!” Nakai invites her down to the kitchen area where she can see how her food is being prepared and have a chat with the guys.
Watching Rie interacting with them, you realize how fragile and slight her frame is (and given her oft-discussed weight issues of the past, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise), but the sylph-like shape is quite becoming on her, making her look even more elegant and feminine, somehow. Soon the chatter is over and the dishes are ready!
First to serve Rie is the Takuya/Goro pair featuring a yummy looking Cabbage Pot-Au-Feu dish. Watching Rie eat, I’m once again blown away by how elegant and classy this girl is! The way she cuts her food, delicately arranges it on her fork and dabs a bit of the sauce on it…Man, what a refined lady she is. Look at the way she breaks up the pastry over the fish…Gads, some parts where they show her cutting her food looks done by a stand-in professional!
O note I had to mention is that back in these old days, whenever the guest said Takuya’s team’s food was “Oishii!” it would hilariously cut to Shingo making a pained/silly face, and this became a running gag that always cracked me up! This episode with Rie was one of the very first times he made such a face (back then even Tsuyoshi got into it!), but it wouldn’t be the last! Sadly, he’d continue this gag til it turned into a tedious, unfunny fiasco where he’d come out awkwardly dressed as the guest (to the stunned guest’s alarm) when the guest says Oishii. But I digress…
Next up is Tsuyoshi and Shingo’s turn serving up a dish of Cabbage Consommé Soup. The Hominess of their flavors comes through, and Shingo spends most of the time hiding behind Tsuyoshi and/or picking on him as she praises the meal! One thing I really thought was cute was at the end of her meal where she picks up the holly leaves that were part of the dish’s decoration, and decides to tie it around her hair like a fashionable wreath! Now that their guest has finished eating, it’s the guys’ turn to dig in, and as they do in every Bistro, they chow down like manners were a thing of the past, especially Nakai, LOL!
Then when everything is cleared away, it’s time for Rie to choose which meal she preferred more: The Kimura/Inagaki pair or the Kusanagai/Katori pair! In the end, hominess wins over classiness, and it’s Shingo and Tsuyoshi who win!
As per the rules, the guest is asked to give a kiss to the two chefs who made the winning dish, but Rie is so pretty and elegant that the boys feel funny about getting a kiss from her. Instead, Shingo says he’d be proud to have her kiss his wrist, to which she complies (and then remarking it’s “salty”, LOL). Tsuyoshi, however, says he’ll do it “American Style”, which to him meant waving his arms around like a fool. Luckily Rie gets him to stand still long enough to give him one of those side to side kisses, though everyone makes fun of him afterwards!
Ahhh, a great classic episode of SMAP Bistro!
