Battle Scallops

Last night Mandi and I went to a semi-final match in the "Escoffier Cup", the battle for the best chef in Bermuda. It was a great night full of good food and wine. Each of 4 chefs had 25 min for cooking and 5 min for plating the following dishes. They made 3, one for each of the judges. They also had pre made smaller portions for the 30-odd people in attendance. (I was worried these would be dried out / cold / and or overcooked but they were all delicious)

First up:
Chef Cladys Magagna, Bacci Resturant.
Scallop and baby fennel stuffed ravioli with bell pepper fondue

This dish was a great start. It was also the most suspenseful because i did not think he was going to finish. I make fresh pasta often and I really didn't think he had the time but he pulled it out in the end. Each Rav had one whole scallop and one piece of carmalized fennel inside. while this dish tasted great, it wasn't very technical or hard to do in the alloted time. also we only got one Rav with a bit of the sauce - the smallest of the 4 dishes.

Chef Rajander Singh Bhandari, Cafe Coco
Trio of Scallops - Seared w/ swiss chard, Poached w/ Chili-beet polenta,
Tempura w/ asparagus, Chocolate sauce

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm best dish of the night, most efficient chef, used his time well, did a ton of stuff (as you can see by the dish description above. the best part was we got this whole dish to sample. I was scraping the chipotle-beet polenta off the plate begging for more. Thankfully this dish won the competition.

Chef Vishnu Natarajan, Seahorse Grill
Curried apple and cauliflower pure, Sauteed chanterelles, Vanilla port reduction
with Quail egg and caviar

This dish was also very good, especially the apple cauliflower curry and the smoked salmon he had smoked himself earlier in the day. Unfortunately Chef Vishnu ran out of time and was severely penalized. Still I do not think it was better then the previous dish even if he hadn't been penalized.

Chef Thomas Mackinnon, Uppercrust
Miso glazed scallops and colorful vegetables.

This dish tasted really good but was overly simple. If he had gone first it would have been better, but after the last 2 dishes it wasn't very good.

At this point in the night the wine was starting to taste really good. A man next to us wasn't drinking so we were filling up his glass when they came around and topping ours off. (overheard from his direction "I don't like garlic" why did you come here??)

anyways, I snuck a few action shots with my phone to give people the idea of the atmosphere at the event. these pictures are awful as always so don't complain. These shots are all of Vishnu

Here he is prepping the scallops. The stove area is behind him.
Whats that dude scared of on the right?? The're only mollusks...

This shot is of the ceiling mirror so you can see into the pots on the stove. we were
mesmorized by the vibrant red, white, green, and yellow right next to each other....
Or was it the wine?

Here is the plateing. Our friend isn't scared anymore.

It was a great night! stay tuned because I might get tickets to battle beef in a few weeks, and if not, there is always the finals in March at the bermuda food fest.