GOODS: “RauDZ” Takes A Blueprint For Supporting Local To The GMP Competition

RauDZ Regional Table is located at 1560 Water Street, Kelowna, BC | 250-868-8805 | www.raudz.com

The GOODS from RauDZ Regional Table

Kelowna, BC | Praised by head judge James Chatto for his staunch localism, Chef Rod Butters of RauDZ Regional Table took his ‘blueprint for supporting local’ to the Vancouver edition of Gold Medal Plates 2011. The GMP is the ultimate celebration of Canadian excellence in cuisine, wine, sport and entertainment. The Vancouver competition is one of nine that will be staged across Canada raising funds for the Canadian Olympic Foundation.

The much-talked about ‘local’ plate showcased Chevon (goat) raised espressly for the competition by Takoff Farm in the Joe Rich area of Kelowna, with Chef Butters creating a curried shoulder, apricot chutney sausage, masala loin with quinoa and chevre and chai reduction. The entire plate (except salt) was from the Okanagan with many of the items grown specifically for this competition. Read more

GOODS: Local Four Seasons Chef Ned Bell Gets Ready For Friday’s “Gold Medal Plates”

YEW Restaurant is located in the Four Seasons Vancouver at 791 West Georgia St | 604.692.4939 | YewRestaurant.com

The GOODS from YEW restaurant + bar

Vancouver, BC | The culinary team at YEW restaurant + bar and Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver are very excited to compete in Gold Medal Plates this Friday evening, November 4. Led by Executive Chef Ned Bell, a previous event competitor, this represents Four Seasons’ first time in the culinary challenge. Truly a battle of Vancouver’s very best, Bell will be competing against ten very accomplished chefs from British Columbia. YEW restaurant + bar and Four Seasons Vancouver are paired up with BC wine phenomenon, Black Hills Estate Winery. Bell and his team, which includes executive sous chef Craig Dryhurst and sommelier Emily Walker, have been working hard to wow guests, judges and Olympians.  ”We have upped our game,” says Bell.  ”We can’t wait to showcase YEW’s new seafood concept and the talent and innovation on our team with a sophisticated twist on ‘surf and turf.’” Of course the specifics must remain confidential until Friday evening. Good luck team! Read more

Gobbling Food Porn At Canada’s Biggest Culinary Competition…

by Andrew Morrison | This past weekend, the final three legs of the Gold Medal Plates series of national cooking competitions took place in Kelowna. Together, they are known as the Canadian Culinary Championships. Each of the eight competing chefs had won their right to be there on account of their victories against peers in their respective cities from Vancouver to St. John’s late in 2010. They were…

Rob Clark from “C” Restaurant in Vancouver
Duncan Ly from Hotel Arts in Calgary
Andrew Fung from Blackhawk Golf Club in Edmonton
Dan Walker from Weczeria in Saskatoon
Frank Dodd from Hillebrand Winery in Toronto
Michael Moffatt from Beckta in Ottawa
Martin Juneau from Newtown in Montreal
Jeremy Charles from Raymond’s St. John’s

I flew up early on Wednesday to join my colleagues on the judging panel at Sparkling Hills Resort, a stunner of a spa retreat resplendent with millions of Swarovski crystals embedded in everything from chair backs, waterfalls, doors, light fixtures, fireplaces and just about every other facet of the resort that wasn’t edible, drinkable or made of fabric (though I did hear mention of a curtain or two). Because it’s beyond Winfield, over the hills and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it was a fabulously bizarre and wonderfully exceptional experience anchored by some surprisingly top drawer food (courtesy of their chef, Ross Derrick), a full service spa (including a three minute, -110 degree treatment that I said no thanks to), incredible views, and tempur-pedic beds in our rooms next to infinity tubs (that I said yes please to). It was such a remarkable place that it was rather sad to have to call it quits after just 24 hours, but duty called. We headed back down to Kelowna on Thursday afternoon, and from here I’ll let my photos and my friend James Chatto tell the tale… Read more

Follow From A Judge’s Perspective Inside The 2011 Canadian Culinary Championships

I recently arrived at the wow-worthy Sparkling Hill Resort and you better believe that I’m still unpacking my head from this pretty amazing bath. It is the first of four nights away as I and several colleagues get down to the business of judging the Canadian Culinary Championships.

It’s going to be a lot of fun, but I have the extra task of refereeing the competitions, so the work is actually a little more demanding than most would assume. Consequently, rather than writing hourly posts on Scout to update you on how things are coming along (eg. how local boy Rob Clark of “C” Restaurant and his competitors are doing), I’ll be micro-blogging on Twitter (follow us) instead and posting updates and photos to our brand spanking new Facebook page (for those who tweet, let’s use the hashtag #CCC2011).

For some flavour of the event, watch the video above from last year.

Rob Clark of C Restaurant Wins Vancouver’s Gold Medal Plates

by Andrew Morrison | The Vancouver Gold Medal Plates went down at the Sheraton Wall Center last night. The chefs vying for gold and the opportunity to compete at February’s Canadian Culinary Championships were as follows: Neil Taylor (Cibo Trattoria), Quang Dang (Diva at the Met), Darren Brown (Coast), Nico Schuermans (Chambar), Cam Smith and Dana Ewart (Joy Road), Nicholas Nutting (The Pointe at the Wickaninnish Inn), Roger Sleiman (Quails’ Gate Winery), Stuart Klassen (Delta Grand) and Robert Clark (C Restaurant). The wineries in pairing action were all local: LaStella, Black Hills, Sandhill, Aces, Tantalus, Painted Rock, 8th Generation, Quails’ Gate, Laughing Stock, and Foxtrot.

It was the fastest GMP I’d ever judged. At our table (joined by last year’s winner, Rob Feenie, and sequestered away from the 700+ crowd), we plowed through the 10 dishes in just under two hours. We saw very little in the way of drama, but there was some negligence. One dish arrived stone cold, another was fumbled in delivery, and one of the wine pairings arrived corked (swiftly replaced). Temperature aside, there certainly weren’t any duds in the lot; the level of cooking being absolutely top drawer.

We structured the order with the gentlest flavours and lighter whites starting us off and the bolder reds (both meats and wines) shutting us down. Scoring was done for presentation (20 points), texture (20 points), taste (30 points), wine compatibility (10 points), originality (10 points), and wow factor (10 points), adding up to a possible 100 points. The lowest score that I gave was 62, while my highest was 83. The judges scores for each chef/dish are added up at the end in a private room, and the math determines who wins.

Read more

BC Chef Competitors Vying For Canada’s Top Toque Title Named

On Friday, October 29th at Vancouver’s Wall Center, 10 of BC’s best chefs will compete at the Gold Medal Plates competition for the opportunity to represent our province at the Canadian Culinary Championships, held in Kelowna on February 18th and 19th. Each year, Sid Cross and I are asked for our input on who should be invited to compete, and I’m thrilled by the final list, which sees great representation from Vancouver, the Okanagan, and Vancouver Island. They are…

Darren Brown | Coast
Robert Clarke | C Restaurant
Quang Dang | Diva at the Met
Stuart Klassen | Delta Grand, Kelowna
Dale MacKay | Lumière
Nicholas Nutting | The Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino
Nico Schuermans | Chambar
Roger Sleiman | Quails’ Gate Winery, Kelowna
Cam Smith & Sana Ewart | Joy Road, Penticton
Neil Taylor | Cibo Trattoria

If you want to see how it all went down last year, click here. For all the ticket, time and date details of the coming comp, click here. Also, take a look at the video we shot last year to show what it’s like behind the scenes of the national championships…

Dispatches From The Greatest Cooking Competition In Canada

I’m very sorry that it has taken me so long to throw this video together. I had several gigs of footage and photos and no time to splice and dice this week, plus I didn’t want to have it up before my story about the Canadian Culinary Championships was published in the paper (yesterday). Alas, it is done now (albeit in a hurry), a referee/judge’s eye view of the proceedings from the very start to the very end. I hope you enjoy it and the many dozens of photos below. My friend and colleague James Chatto (head judge) has written a thorough synopsis, one which my skills could never match, so I’ve included it in its entirety after the pictures. Read more

Who Will Be The Next Canadian Culinary Champion? (UPDATED)

Chef Rob Feenie gets started at this morning's Black Box competition, part of the Canadian Culinary Championships

UPDATE: Mathieu Cloutier of Montreal’s “Kitchen Gallery” won

I’ve been buried judging and refereeing the Canadian Culinary Championships for the last two days so I apologise for the lack of posts/updates. The seven competing chefs finished the wine pairing competition last night at Republic (the mystery wine being the Black Hills “Alibi”), and the Black Box competition has just finished here at The Sheraton Wall Center.

Who’s competing? Each winning chef from the seven Gold Medal Plates competitions held this Fall across the country:

Vancouver | Rob Feenie
Ottawa | Matthew Carmichael
Montreal | Mathieu Cloutier
Edmonton | Nathin Bye
Canmore | Jan Hrabec
St. Johns | Ivan Kyutukchiev
Toronto | David Lee

My friend Sid Cross and I were tasked with choosing today’s 6 mystery ingredients, and we came up with a vicious assortment: fresh fennel, dragon fruit, whole jumbo quail, arctic char, arborio rice, and bottle of R&B Brewing Co.’s “Hoppelganger” India Pale Ale. The chefs had only 10 minutes to dream up two dishes that would incorporate all of the ingredients, and then just 50 minutes to prepare them. It was intense, to say the least, and the results across the board were remarkably impressive. What’s more, only one chef was injured (a minor nick to an Edmontonian index finger). A good day.

I’ll have more on the morrow, but in the meantime I have to head back down to the kitchens to ensure the rules are being followed to the letter. I’ll be tweeting updates on my cell throughout the evening, so if you’re not yet following Scout on Twitter, please do. You’ll be among the first to learn who the new national culinary champion is later tonight.

PS. Rest assured, Video and hundreds of photos won’t be too far behind. If you have no clue what any of this is about and would like to see more, I’ve included a video that I shot from last year’s CCC, held in Banff, Alberta. Check it out after the jump… Read more

Rob Feenie’s Great Big Comeback At The 2009 Gold Medal Plates

L to R: Dale Mackay of Lumiere (silver); Rob Feenie of Cactus Club (gold): Pino Posteraro of Cioppino's (bronze)

“Comeback” might be a bit of a loaded word, but it fits to an arguable degree. After Rob Feenie left his eponymous Feenie’s restaurant and flagship Lumiere two years ago and landed as the Food Concept Architect for the Cactus Club chain, it could have easily been assumed that he had bought a one way ticket to the wilderness of the restaurant world. But last night, at the prestigious Vancouver Gold Medal Plates cooking competition, he bested nine of BC’s greatest chefs and reminded this town of his incredibly refined talent by taking gold. And he totally deserved it. Read more

All-Star Line Up Of BC Chefs To Compete At Gold Medal Plates…

The province’s biggest cooking competition, the Vancouver Gold Medal Plates, will take place this October 23rd at the The Westin Bayshore Hotel. On that night 10 of the region’s most celebrated chefs will compete for the coveted opportunity to represent BC at November’s Canadian Culinary Championships (also in Vancouver).

See who they are after the leap… Read more

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