THE winner of the 2010 title “I Love Manx Amateur Chef of the Year” is Sultana Hoque whose dish of monkfish, queenies and squash won the hearts of the judges including TV chef Gino D’Acampo at the weekend.
But it was the closest of decisions for the panel of four judges who said that Sultana’s dish had won by “the narrowest of margins” from Chris Callow who cooked Hungarian style pork rosti.
“It was a really difficult choice,” said Gino at the final on Saturday afternoon before a packed audience at the Isle of Man Food and Drink Festival at the Villa Marina.
“Chris is a very confident and accomplished cook and his pork dish was really good, but the decision of the judges - with which we all shared the same opinion - was that the dish prepared by Sultana had just that little bit of extra flavour.”
Gino’s appearance at this year’s second Food Festival was a true winner with the thousands who visited over the weekend. The Italian chef was in brilliant form for his day at the festival on Saturday, providing a superb show for the packed food theatre tent and then again later in the afternoon for the amateur chef final.
His latest book proved to be a sell-out as a huge queue gathered for him to sign personalised copies and the gamble of bringing a big name chef to the Isle of Man for the Food Festival was an undoubted success. Not surprisingly, the queue for book signings was made up of members of the fairer sex!
• Pam Crowe, who qualified for the final with her dish of Beef Bagoon (fillet steak wrapped in pancetta), was unable to compete in Saturday’s final because of a prior arrangement which clashed with the date.
See also . . .
• Gino sings the praises of new Douglas restaurant
• Sultana Hoque’s winning recipe for I Love Manx Amateur Chef of the Year
