The Taste of the Marianas CNMI’s Culinary Champs

Perhaps, no other event in the CNMI has captured the excitement of the tourism celebration as much as the recently held Chef’s Competition.

The thrill of competing among their peers, showing culinary expertise and creativity in using limited local resources at least provided some color to the ’99 Visit the Marianas Campaign. And so, it was time to take out their secretly held recipes as they competed in various categories: soup, salad, main entree and dessert.

Plumeria Hotel took the most number of prizes when Executive Chef Yoshio Umekawa won first place for his Hot Soup of Seafoods combination with light pastry crust “Islander Style” and also captured third place for his Cold crab soup with Avocado & Cocktail of Seafood. His main entree, Roasted Pig with Mortadera, turmeric rice & Combination of Assorted Fruits Gratin “Marianas Style,” bagged the first place and Wakamore of Fresh Tuna & Avocado Mexican Style got the third prize.

Plumeria did not submit any entry in the dessert category because it was too much already for Umekawa to prepare for the competition which he said required elaborate preparation.

“It was also tiring but I enjoyed it,” he said. Armed with his 13 years experience as a chef in various hotels in Tokyo and Manila, it was no surprise that he bagged the major awards.

As early as 16 years old, Umekawa said he has made a decision that will become a chef one day after watching a cooking show in Tokyo. He worked in Shangrila Hotel Manila for two and half years, Prince Hotel in Tokyo and Savoy Hotel in London.

His Roasted Pig with mortadera & turmeric rice caught everyone’s attention as lechon is a favorite dish on this island. The roasted pig took three hours to cook add another hour to remove the bones. In preparing the rice, combine butter, chicken bouillon, salt, pepper, raisin, turmeric powder and saffron. Eat it with a dash of apple sauce.

And what is Umekawa’s secret? Nothing really, he said as he shyly smiled. “We all use the same ingredients available but it is how we make use of our creativity in combining everything that makes the difference,” he said.

Nikko’s winning team Chef de Cuisine Dharmen Makawana and Diosdado Jomoc gave the hotel two awards in the competition — first place Spicy Tinian Beef Salad with island Greens and Duet of Reef fish in banana leaves with lemon grass shrimp satay, breadfruit dumpling with coconut cream sauce & chili sambal.

Most of the ingredients used were from the hotel’s compound grown by a Japanese gardener, namely, okra, taro, kangkong. Not to mention the breadfruit which was taken from the tree beside the hotel.

Before the competition, Makawana and Jomoc discussed the concept and the menu for the competition emphasizing simplicity in preparing the food. And what made their presentation different? For better presentation, they used gelatin to glaze the food and protect it from flies.

Hafadai Beach Hotel’s Masatushi Morimoto and Yuji Ogata won first place for his unique dessert recipe of Banana & Coconut Chocolate Cake with Coconut Mousse Tapioca and Coconut Milk Sauce.

Also, Hafadai’s team Masatushi Morimoto, assistant chef, and Naoki Takahashi, supervisor chef, won second place for the Lobster Cream Soup Island Style (Coconut Crab). “There’s nothing special really because this is just a basic consommé soup,” said Morimoto.

Since banana is very common on this island, Morimoto decided he must present it in a different way especially also due to the fact that the locals are fond of sweets. Hafadai also won second place for Morimoto’s Lobster Cream Soup and Coconut Crab.

Pacific Gardenia Hotel’s Marlon Bernido won third place for his mango pie dessert. Working as pastry chef for Gardenia for 11 years now, Bernido’s mango pie is simply heavenly. Anybody can make a mango pie but his secret recipe on how to use the local mangoes would make anybody forget about dieting and grab a piece.

Before coming to Gardenia, Bernido worked in a small bakeshop for several years in Manila and also spent three years in Mandarin Hotel. He hopes the competition would be held every year so that the chefs can show their talent and creativity.

Other winners: Dai Ichi Hotel Chef Takeo Sakashita, second place for his Homand Salad Hibiscus Dressing and Second place for Chef Haruki Saito for mango suffle with choux shell tropical sauce; Hyatt Regency’s Arlenn Marbou second place also for Marianas Trench Seafood in Coconut Sauce with Mashed Yam.