Memorable matches

Among Chen's more memorable matches was one with challenger Dominique Corby of the Tour d'Argent, where, after the main battle (with foie gras as the theme ingredient) was fought to a tie, the overtime battle (with asparagus as the theme) also resulted in a tie—the only time that such an outcome occurred in the series. Rather than have Chen and Corby fight a second overtime battle, Chairman Kaga, the show's host decreed that both contestants were the winners, effectively calling the battle a draw.

As with other Iron Chefs, Chen "feuded" with a warring faction that acknowledged the worthiness of his culinary caliber who were determined to take him down. In his case, he battled with the chefs of Heichinrou restaurant in Yokohama, defeating two of their members before finally losing to their head chef in an overtime battle.

• Takashi Saito (not to be confused with the baseball player), top apprentice of Chen Kenmin and coach of Chen Kenichi. Chen beat his tutor in a prawn battle. Saito re-created Kenmin's original prawns in chili sauce, while Kenichi created his father's modern version of the dish (canapé style with ketchup).
• Junichi Itoh had one of the most interesting cooking styles in the world. He began practicing French cooking at age 18 and left for France at the age of 28 to further his culinary skills. However, Itoh left for Italy three years later and joined Enoteca Pincchiori, the same place where Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe was trained. At age 32, Itoh began training at a top Japanese restaurant to learn Japanese culinary traditions further extending his arsenal of culinary expertise. By the time that Itoh was 35, he opened his restaurant L'Herlequin Bis in Tokyo. His French-Italian-Japanese fusion cooking style caught the attention of Takeshi Kaga which led him to invite Itoh to be asked to appear on the Iron Chef television show as a challenger. Itoh accepted the offer and went to Kitchen Stadium with Japanese culinary critic and journalist Asako Kishi, who was known for her role as a guest judge on the show as frequent member on the Iron Chef tasting panel. To everyone's surprise, he chose Chen Kenichi as the opponent, saying that he was interested in Chinese cuisine, but had never been trained at it. Kaga chose a difficult theme ingredient, plain yoghurt. Itoh was smiling while Chen was under great pressure. However, according to Kishi's comments at the end, all of Itoh's dishes used the yoghurt as a supporting ingredient instead of the main focus of the dish. This resulted in all four judges voting for Chen. This was quite a surprise to Chen, who pointed to himself in disbelief.
• Katsuyo Kobayashi was the show's second female challenger and a popular TV chef in her own right, hosting Kyo no ryori (Today's cooking) on NHK. She allowed Chairman Kaga to choose the Iron Chef for her and he gleefully chose Chen, who had previously lost to Kitchen Stadium's first female challenger, Kyoko Kagata. At one point during the battle, in which potatoes were the theme ingredient, Kobayashi paid a brief visit to Chen's station to observe his cooking, which he wasn't very pleased about. Chen ultimately lost to Kobayashi, with the judges commenting that his potatoes tended to be undercooked or underplayed.