Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion noted that the larger crowd of the 2nd Annual Marianas Beer and Barbecue Fest 2018 was comprised mostly of international guests. <\/p>\n
One of the younger festivals in the Marianas, as noted by Concepcion over the weekend, the Marianas Beer and Barbecue Fest 2018 has attracted more tourists and locals alike to participate in the festival at the Garapan Fishing Base compared to last year\u2019s, which was held at the same venue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very happy with the turnout. We have a larger crowd than last year, which is good,\u201d he said, noting that MVA preparations for the festival was about six to eight months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of overseas guests enjoying the event as well, so it\u2019s good, while a lot of our locals came out and supported this event, so I am very happy with that,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n
Two of the main highlights of the festival were the barbecue cook-off hosted by Chun Ji Restaurant and the Beer Olympics, which was hosted by Roil Soil.<\/p>\n
The barbecue cook-off attracted only three teams of different backgrounds, however, the team to win it all was mostly inspired by local roots.<\/p>\n
Ken Kalen and Eric Palacios, who comprises team D2C, won the first place prize for the barbecue cook-off by the way they know best: A family secret recipe.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince it\u2019s a beer fest, we tried to make our barbecue like a chaser\u2014instead of a meal, we incorporated [elements that go well with beer],\u201d Kalen said. He noted that they tackled the competition according to the situation, which was a complimentary partner to beer, instead of barbecue as a meal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ingredients we used, you can find in your pantry. It\u2019s no secret actually, it\u2019s a local ingredient\u2014everybody uses it,\u201d he continued, without disclosing the secrets to his recipe.<\/p>\n
D2C went up against chefs from Hyatt Regency Saipan and a team that goes by the name of LT.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sauce of Hyatt\u2019s short ribs was pretty good,\u201d said Kalen, adding that the Hyatt team did not shy away from utilizing herbs and spices.<\/p>\n
Team D2C won $50 worth of festival tokens and a two-night stay for four at Mango Resort complete with two pool passes.<\/p>\n
Barbecue cook-off judges include 2018 Miss Marianas Celine Cabrera, Triple J\u2019s Perry Inos, and Imperial Pacific Intl. (CNMI) LLC\u2019s Tao Xing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion noted that the larger crowd of the 2nd…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2434,22921,22922,20502],"class_list":["post-286198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-bbq","tag-ken-kalen","tag-marianas-beer","tag-roil-soil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286198","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}