{"id":203020,"date":"2015-06-01T06:06:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T20:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=203020"},"modified":"2015-06-01T06:06:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T20:06:19","slug":"fiesta-tops-chefs-competition-in-final-leg-of-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/fiesta-tops-chefs-competition-in-final-leg-of-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiesta tops Chefs\u2019 Competition in final leg of Taste"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fiesta Resort and Spa edged out six other hotels on Saipan in the 2015 Certified Angus Beef Chefs\u2019 Competition on Saturday in the final leg of the 2015 Taste of Marianas International Food Festival and Beer Garden at the American Memorial Park.<\/p>\n

Organized by Triple J and coordinated by Triple J Five Star Wholesale Foods general manager Jay Santos, Fiesta took the first place plum with 335 points. It bested Mariana Resort and Spa, which scored 328 points and Hyatt Regency Saipan, which had 322 points.
\n

\"Chefs<\/a>
Chefs from the different hotels have their picture taken after the Chef\u2019s Competition. (Jayson Camacho)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n
\"Hyatt<\/a>
Hyatt Regency Saipan chefs win third place during the Chef\u2019s Competition at the 17th Annual Taste of Marianas. In photo are Triple J Five Star Wholesale Foods employees, Hyatt Regency Saipan chefs, HANMI president Gloria Cavanaugh, third from right, Kanoa Resort general manager Wendi Herring, second from right, and Atkins Kroll Saipan\u2019s Curtis Dancoe, far right. (Jayson Camacho)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mariana<\/a>
Mariana Resort and Spa chefs join Triple J Five Star Wholesale Foods employees, Guam Food Guy Ken Stewart, far right, Curtis Dancoe, second from right, Kanoa Resort general manager Wendi Herring, forth from right, and HANMI president Gloria Cavanaugh, fifth from right, after winning second place during the Chef\u2019s Competition at the 17th Annual Taste of Marianas. (Jayson Camacho)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Fiesta<\/a>
Fiesta Resort and Spa Saipan chefs join HANMI president Gloria Cavanaugh, second from right, Triple J Five Star Wholesale Foods employees, Kanoa Resort general manager Wendi Herring, second from right, and Curtis Dancoe of Atkins Kroll, far right, in a group photo after winning the Chef\u2019s Competition during the 17th Annual Taste of Marianas. (Jayson Camacho)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAll hotels crafted dishes using Certified Angus Beef and albondigas (soup mixed with beef and other ingredients.)<\/p>\n

Hyatt won last year\u2019s contest, which had the theme \u201cMexican Beef Tacos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ken Stewart, who is known as the Guam Food Guy and one of the competition\u2019s judges, said he enjoyed this year\u2019s entries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt topped last year\u2019s competition where we only had a few. This year there are seven and each hotel\u2019s cooks and chefs did a great job in showing their entries. It was an island-style beef soup. The soup was amazing, the displays, the creations, and the presentation. Every hotel did a great job,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n

The Fiesta chefs said it took them a whole day to prepare their entry. Their dish was called the \u201cMarianas Albondigas,\u201d with tamales beef albondigas in noni salsa sauce.<\/p>\n

Stewart noted that using noni as an ingredient is interesting. Other people at the event were also surprised that noni was used as an ingredient, which is commonly used by islanders for medicinal purposes.<\/p>\n

Member hotels of the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands look forward to this competition every year and it was a delight to see the junior chefs come out and be as creative as they are with the display and how they prepare the food.<\/p>\n

Thousands streamed into the American Memorial Park grounds for the final leg of this year\u2019s Taste of the Marianas, creating a huge crowd. It was an even bigger turnout than the festival\u2019s first day.<\/p>\n

The evening\u2019s entertainment included Hopwood Full 4th, Marianas Ukelele, Saipan Music and Dance School, Hopwood Simiyan Nina\u2019la, JJ Concepcion, TRU Marianas, and Alana la.<\/p>\n

The Taste of Marianas is also a great opportunity for visitors to experience island culture while attracting media attention to the islands from MVA\u2019s source markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiesta Resort and Spa edged out six other hotels on Saipan in the 2015 Certified…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":203021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4985,3716,233,4986],"class_list":["post-203020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chefs-competition","tag-gloria-cavanaugh","tag-hyatt-regency-saipan","tag-wendi-herring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}