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Home > Blogs > Taste: Dayton food and restaurants > Archives > 2009 > June > 22 > Entry
3 Dayton-area restaurant chefs move on to finals
Three local restaurant chefs — Jay’s Restaurant’s Justin White, l’Auberge’s Romy Jung and The Caroline’s Damian Bumgarner — survived the first elimination round of the Miami Valley Restaurant Association’s “Chef Quest Challenge” on Saturday, June 20.
The three chefs advance to a final cook-off, the judging for which begins at 2 p.m. next Saturday, June 27, at the Soraya Farms community on Ohio 48 between Social Row Road and Lytle Five Points Road in Clearcreek Twp. in Warren County. Just as they did in the initial elimination round, the finalists will have to quickly devise and cook a dish from a “blind basket” of ingredients, and a single “Chef Quest Challenge Winner” will be declared. The event is part of the Home Builders Association of Dayton’s “Questival,” which this year replaced the annual Homearama event, and the chef competition is put on by the Miami Valley Restaurant Association.
I served on the five-member panel of judges Saturday with representatives of the home-builders association, the Oakwood Register and Vectren. We judged “blind” — we did not know which dish came from which restaurant.
All of the judges were amazed and impressed at the wide variety of interpretations each of the seven chefs came up with from the surprise basket, which included chicken breast, onions, mushrooms, lemons, limes, mango, ginger, spinach, sweet potatoes, leeks and cajun spice. YOU try concocting a fine-dining dish out of those ingredients, under intense deadline pressure. Every chef did an excellent job under very difficult conditions — especially since they were working in strange kitchens, preparing the meals in separate homes that were on display as part of the Questival.
Other participants courageous enough to enter the contest and sacrifice a nerve-wracking Saturday afternoon included C’est Tout Chef Dominique Fortin, Cafe Boulevard Chef Rae Rosbough, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse Chef Jeff Vega, and Rue Dumaine Chef Anne Kearney.
The winning dishes — selected in no particular order — were:
— Justin White, Jay’s: Honey-Spiced Glazed Chicken Breast served with Sauteed Portobello Mushrooms and Leeks and Spinach Salad with a White Wine-Mango Vinaigrette.
— Damian Bumgarner, The Caroline (Troy): Rosemary Grilled Chicken Breast on Portobello Mushrooms with Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Leek Butter, accompanied by a Spinach Salad with Leeks and Mango Dressing.
— Romy Jung, l’Auberge: Cajun-Spiced Chicken Roulade Deglazed with Lime and Honey, served with Chicken Jus, Fried Leeks and Mango Chutney, with Puree of Sweet Potatoes.
I’m scheduled to return for the final round of judging this Saturday, when the chefs will confront an entirely different mystery basket of ingredients and will be forced to come up with another dish — very, very quickly.
This should be fun. Come out to Soraya Farms at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 27, and enjoy the “questivities.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Local restaurant news
Comments
By Marie Antionette
June 22, 2009 11:29 AM | Link to this
What?! No “caack”…my friend “Fronk” suggested I say “Let them eat caack….!!!”, and then have the houses sit empty.By Joe
June 22, 2009 7:48 AM | Link to this
Smart for the Home Builders not to build a bunch if $1M+ homes just for people to walk through and then sit empty.