{"id":394618,"date":"2023-06-26T06:04:27","date_gmt":"2023-06-25T20:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=394618"},"modified":"2023-06-26T06:04:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T20:04:27","slug":"palacios-triumphs-in-inaugural-chefs-cookoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/palacios-triumphs-in-inaugural-chefs-cookoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacios triumphs in inaugural Chefs\u2019 Cookoff"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Damian Palacios plates his entry in the Chefs\u2019 Cookoff contest at the 24th Annual Taste of the Marianas International Food Festival & Beer Garden in Garapan Fishing Base last Saturday. (KIMBERLY B. ESMORES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Northern Marianas Technical Institute, in collaboration with the Hotel Association for the NMI, closed out the 24th Annual Taste of the Marianas International Food Festival & Beer Garden with the inaugural Chefs\u2019 Cookoff, which named Damian Palacios its first champion.<\/p>\n

Palacios, who graduated from NMTech\u2019s culinary arts program in 2018, made his competition debut last Saturday at the Taste of the Marianas during the inaugural NMTech\/HANMI Chefs\u2019 Cookoff.<\/p>\n

Despite being new to the world of cooking competitions, Palacios stepped up to the plate and whipped up a traditional Chamorro Bisteak with a twist during last Saturday\u2019s cookoff.<\/p>\n

Despite going head to head with NMTech chefs who have made names for themselves working at some of the CNMI\u2019s most prestigious hotels and restaurants, Palacios came out on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my first competition. It was really hard, I\u2019m not going to lie. I was really panicking for a second. But it was really fun overall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios, who works under chef Ben Babauta at the Tyler\u2019s Gelatto and Bistro Boyz, says he looks forward to defending his title if he is given the opportunity next year.<\/p>\n

While others paired their Chamorro Bisteak with some kind of rice, Palacios decided to feature this savory island staple dish on top of some garlic bread, hence the twist. Although it seemed unconventional for others, Palacios\u2019 decision gave him the advantage as the creativity made his dish the most memorable for the panel of judges.<\/p>\n

Jay Santos, general manager of Triple J Payless SuperFresh & Truckload Store and HANMI board member, who was one of the judges in this year\u2019s competition, said he never thought of pairing Chamorro Bisteak with bread and turn the dish into a sandwich. He added that that was just one example of the skills honed by the chefs that come from NMTech.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m extremely pleased this year, especially with the development of this rich pool of locals, that are honing their skills to be become chefs in our local hotels and restaurants. It\u2019s been fabulous and we couldn\u2019t be prouder of NMTech and what they\u2019ve done for these individuals because the food was so good tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from Palacios, the other competitors were Jonathan Borja who took second place, third place winner Christian Manzanares, Donovan Castro, Antonette Cabrera, and Del Lieto.<\/p>\n

NMTech alumni chef Ben Babauta stated that the inaugural event was a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight\u2019s event was the first of its kind. It\u2019s\u2019 the first time NMTech has partnered with HANMI to produce this chefs\u2019 competition here at Taste of the Marianas. All the participants are either past or present NMTech students. We decided to put together this event in collaboration with HANMI to showcase these chefs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Babauta added that NMTech is happy with the event and is excited to come back to host another.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a lot of creative dishes and we were so happy to see them take what they learned in school, in their internships, and bring it here to the competition. They really showcased what skills they really developed. Overall, we are really happy with the turnout of this event. We are so grateful to Triple J for donating the Certified Angus beef and we\u2019re grateful to HANMI for providing the cash prizes and really putting this event together. We also thank all our chefs who participated in this inaugural competition,\u201d Babauta said.<\/p>\n

NMTech will be launching its Baking and Pastry course come fall and Babauta encourages interested individuals to sign up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is also our culinary outreach. What we want to showcase is what NMTech can do and what our students can do so we are advertising our upcoming Baking and Pastry and culinary arts courses that will be coming in the fall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The final night of the 24th annual Taste of the Marianas had a number of special guests and awardees.<\/p>\n

As a surprise, the Marianas Visitors Authority managed to get popular YouTube personality Fureum Kim, better known as \u201cFume\u201d on YouTube, to participate in this year\u2019s festivities as a judge in the chef cookoff. Babauta shared that it was an interesting twist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very interesting to have our first competition be judged by a well-known YouTube personality from South Korea just because the dish featured tonight was a traditional Chamorro Bisteak. It\u2019s very interesting to get an outside perspective and she really can be a fair judge with a clean palate, knowing she\u2019s never had this dish before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In addition, thw MVA also featured visitors who came out to Saipan for the Oceania Athletics Championships during a brief awarding ceremony.<\/p>\n

MVA managing director Chris Concepcion said this year\u2019s event was a great turnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to be back here at MVA and it\u2019s very exciting to celebrate the 24th annual Taste of the Marianas. It\u2019s been a great turnout, a very successful four nights. We\u2019re extremely happy with the turnout. I\u2019m very happy to be back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cParking and crowd control was a challenge but overall we did our best to ensure that Taste is always an extremely safe, family-friendly festival. The community has come out in full force to support the vendors here. The lines have been really long for the vendors, which is good news for the economy, so we\u2019re happy with that. Other than that, we didn\u2019t have any major challenges,\u201d Concepcion added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Northern Marianas Technical Institute, in collaboration with the Hotel Association for the NMI, closed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":394622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394618","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}