|
TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Mainland business
importing contenders
for poke contestAt least two competitors at next month's 12th annual Sam Choy Poke Festival will be imported from the mainland.
Aloha Shoyu Co. Ltd., Hawaiian Airlines and two mainland eateries popular with Hawaii ex-pats, islander-wannabes and aloha-print-wearing poseurs have teamed up for two preliminary contests.
St. Louis High School grad Sam Kong Kee is a repeat winner of the Poke Festival hosted by Hukilau restaurant in San Francisco, taking the title last weekend for his spicy tuna recipe with a Chinese flair. The black bean sauce and oddah in-gree-da-ments wen tase good enough, that the judges awarded him a trip to the seafood soiree Sept. 12-14 at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel.
The judging team was choke wit' Hawaii ex-pats. Judges were Warren Seta, former UH baseball Rainbow and chef-owner of Malibu Chan's restaurant in Las Vegas; Roy's Restaurant San Francisco Executive Chef John Sikhattana, formerly of Roy's Hawaii Kai; and Kelly Degala, executive chef at upscale Singaporean restaurant Straits Cafe, formerly executive chef at Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. Rob Lam, chef at Butterfly, a trendy Asian fusion restaurant in San Francisco, was also a judge. His Hawaii ties are rather loose -- attributable to his "crazy Hawaiian" school mates at University of San Francisco, said Hukilau co-owner Eric Tao, originally from Hilo. Tao is also president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii of Northern California.
"We had 16 contestants this year," he said. Participants included a mix of ex-pats and non-kamaaina from the City by the Bay.
Hukilau got permits to close the street for this year's festival and block party which drew 1,200 people, compared with 800 last year.
Attendees were entertained by Hawaiian bands, hula, San Francisco TV personality Lloyd Lacuesta -- originally from Kauai -- and Hawaii TV icon Emme Tomimbang.
The winner of the Las Vegas poke contest was William Becker, executive chef at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. His local connection is that one of his chefs is from the islands and is a previous Big Island poke festival winner, said John Tsukada, marketing manager for Aloha Shoyu.
Becker won Malibu Chan's Poke Tournament and Taste of Aloha Festival Aug. 3 with his poke club sandwich with taro chips and an avocado milkshake. "It was delicious," Tsukada said. He, pastry chef Stanton Ho, a Las Vegas food writer and Choy himself judged the contest.
This is the second year San Francisco has sent a contestant, the first for Las Vegas, and "next year we hope to have Oregon or Seattle on board," Tsukada said. No negotiations are underway so the doors, not to mention mouths, are wide open.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
