Food judging an Iron Chef-style challenge

Chef John Holloway

Sitting with the other two judges at Atria El Camino Gardens’ “Who’s Cuisine Will Reign Supreme” food challenge, I was nervous.  Not about how I would judge the food. No...I've eaten in enough places and written enough food articles and restaurant reviews to know what food tastes good and what food doesn't.

What I was nervous about was the mystery ingredients. What were they going to be.

“I always have a front sit when they do these events,” said Helen Trowbridge, who has been a resident at Atria El Camino Gardens for seven years. “One time the secret ingredient was oysters. They made such strange dishes.”

In the past, other secret ingredients have included salmon, hummus, spam and beets.

William Husa

This time the ingredients were lobster, lemongrass...and popcorn.  Yup, popcorn. What in the world could you make with lobster and popcorn?

It seemed, I had the easy part of the job (I think).  I just had to eat what they made.  The four local chefs had the hard part: creating the dish.

Like the popular Food Network show, the chefs had to come up with a meal using all the ingredients and present it a panel of celebrity judges which included myself William Husa and Dana Nunnery. We would judge their creations on presentation, creativity and taste. And they only had 60 minutes to do it.

I wasn't too worried though, because I knew Chef Ray Duey was on one of the teams. Duey is a world renowned Chef and fruit carver. He was part of the team that won The Food Network Challenge: The Rematch: Fantasy Fruit Sculpture.

But all of the chefs did a great job.

Duey and his partner Chef John Holloway prepared lobster risotto with feta cheese, butter poached lobster on a bed of lemongrass braised fennel and a roasted red pepper salad with spicy popcorn croutons.

Chef Susan Stangroom and Chef Katie Johnson went with a more Thai style dish that included Thai noodles in a lobster/lemongrass broth, lobster medallions with a white wine cream sauce, and a side of chocolate popcorn.

The dishes were delicious and the judging was hard.

Duey's dish won in presentation, but lacked a little in creativity (although I thought using the popcorn as salad croutons was a pretty interesting idea), whereas Stangroom's dish looked less appetizing, but used the ingredients in a more creative way. 

Both were equal in taste and Stangroom’s team won by just a couple of points.

There was just one problem -- as judges you only get to taste, not eat the whole plate as they needed to take photos.  Who knew?