April 2 in the Herald Journal:
When Cache Valley chefs flaunt their culinary stuff, everyone wins. There certainly weren't any losers at Spice on Ice, the food competition at the George S. Eccles Ice Center on March 25. Some of the best professional chefs of Cache Valley pitted their talents during the annual cook-off and fundraiser for the ice arena.
It all started with the appetizers. Spicy fresh tuna and roasted red pepper sushi were served with chipotle sauce and knock-off-your-socks wasabi under a lighted ice sculpture at the table of chef John Simpson of Culinary Concepts. Pounders chef Kip Loy showed off his food prowess with a silky smooth Lomi Lomi salmon salsa with fresh Ogo seaweed with a crispy noodle-wrapped prawn smothered with guava ginger sauce and a single house-smoked spare rib with a sweet passion fruit glaze. There were a lot of happy sticky faces in the room.
Although the meal was actually served next to the ice rink, rather than on it (I had visions of ice skating waiters and wore my thickest socks), the food had plenty of spice. We passed around platters of pink pungently-smoked salmon with sweet coconut vanilla rice, complex and pleasantly spicy coconut curry chicken and dry-aged sirloin with earthy twice-baked blue cheese potatoes. The hardest part of the evening was taking only my share.
Infamous local talent like Frank Ford of Smokin' Blues Barbeque, Dustin McKay of the Elements, Greg Chambers from Firehouse Pizzeria, Ash Oberoi, from Indian Oven, Ted Mathesius from Hamiltons, Sham Singh of Tandoori Oven, and Jeff Woolley of USU Catering wowed the audience with their mouthwatering presentations. The chefs more or less donated the food and their efforts for the fundraiser, and for a chance to win coveted awards … People's Choice, Judge's Choice and Overall Chef of the Year.
Ultimately only one chef could win – well, actually two in the case of the People's Choice award. The votes for first place were miraculously tied between those who loved the peppery steak medallions topped with cherry sauce and blue cheese served by McKay of Elements, and those who preferred the piles of thick spiral pasta smothered in lemon cream sauce with tender citrus-infused white shrimp from Chambers at Firehouse Pizzeria.
If you didn't make it to the event, you may have a chance to taste one of the People's Choice award winners. In 2009 Chambers included the winning entree from the competition on the Firehouse Pizzeria menu. He is currently considering including the 2010 winner on his menu.
The Judge's Choice award went to Woolley and USU Catering's seared Kobe beef tenderloin cooked to a perfect medium rare. Broccoli greens and spicy tomato fennel sauce gave the ensemble a pleasantly bitter ying to the yang of the flavorful meat, sweet nutty butternut squash dumplings and Porcini mushroom ragu. The Judge's Choice award was based on points earned for presentation, texture, and flavor.
The Overall Chef of the Year award went to McKay of Elements. My thick piece of peppery steak was that melt-in-your-mouth variety of meat. I cut it with the side of my fork, and followed each bite with a creamy dollop of buttermilk whipped Yukon Gold potatoes. The peppery bite of the steak was cut by a sweet cherry-port reduction sauce and the sweet mustiness of blue cheese. It was perfectly balanced, good quality food, and basically heaven on a plate. In the words of my table mate, Dan White of Logan, you don't often get a steak that good. This award was based on an equally-weighted average of the Judge's Choice and the People's Choice scores.
I wondered at the absence of some of the other good restaurants and caterers in the valley. The awards are prominent enough to benefit them with publicity, and most chefs love a good food battle. But the event didn't suffer from their absence.
In the end we were left with very full stomachs, and with the good feeling around the table that only really great food can create. Although I knew that the well-organized event was held to raise money for a great local amenity, the only non-profit ice arena in the West, I could only think how lucky I had been to take part (and from some platters more than my part) of some of the best professional food in Cache Valley. I won't miss next year's event.
