Battle of the Brians: Chefs Challenge #6

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WNC Chefs Challenge 2010, Week 6

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Wine & Food Festival

This week’s Chefs Challenge stood as one of the most eagerly anticipated of the entire first round, with two downtown Asheville favorites, Tupelo Honey Café and Cucina 24, drew a sellout crowd at The Flying Frog Café. (Actually, before we go any further, this wasn’t just a sellout crowd; the Frog’s owner, Vijay Shastri, told me they had to turn away more than 100 reservations for this competition.) The teams, respectively captained by Brian Sonoskus and Brian Canipelli, had the task of incorporating carrots into each of the their three dishes. As always, they didn’t know the secret ingredient until they arrived at the kitchen around noon, and they weren’t allowed to bring any recipes with them or contact colleagues for help. And the dining guests were not told who prepared each dish until the scoring was complete at the end of the night.

Unlike past competitions where the chefs had to work around some of the secret ingredient’s attributes, carrot’s strength is that it can be made to complement bigger flavors: sweet, savory, spicy, earthy, meaty, etc. You name it, and these two exceptional chef’s served it.

The competition was close, with Cucina 24 garnering 8 percent more points. Their lead came from a serving of smoked duck breast over carrot gnocci with a carrot-orange gastrique. This dish had some amazingly subtle, sweet flavors throughout it, and scored the highest of all dishes for the evening. But my favorite was Canipelli’s twist on carrot cake—the one dish everyone could see coming from the moment emcee Bob Bowles announced the secret ingredient. His recipe for the summertime staple included ginger and was topped with a scoop of cardamom ice cream—resulting in some interesting herbal notes.

Tupelo Honey’s team came close with some very strong recipes of their own. Most notable was a goat cheese- and carrot-stuffed pierogi served encrusted halibut and a shiitake broth. It featured a lot of flavors on just one plate, but seemed that with each pass of the fork diners got distinctly a different combination of tastes. As one diner near me said, it was like having a party in his mouth; sure it’s an overused phrase, but this dish truly lived up to the sentiment. The restaurant’s next best dish—in my opinion—was the spring green salad with pork tenderloin. What really set this one apart was the dollop of jalapeño-carrot sauce on the side. It was the opening dish of the night, but that little bit of spicy sweetness set the tone for the evening.

Team Tupelo Honey Café served:
* Spring green and fennel salad with pork tenderloin, marinated carrots and a jalapeño-carrot glaze
* Goat cheese and carrot pierogies, carrot and nut "pesto"-encrusted halibut, shiitake broth
* Chocolate mousse with carrot cream cheese mousse

Team Cucina 24 served:
Seared scallop over carrot risotto with pea shoots.
Smoked duck breast, carrot gnocchi, carrot-orange gastrique
Ginger-carrot cake with ginger brittle and cream-cheese cardamom ice cream

This competition marked the end of the first round, so check out the leaderboard to see who has moved on to Round 2.