Annual SYC Seafood Cookoff

We were invited by friends to join them at the Sandringham Yacht Club's Annual Seafood Cookoff and we'll make sure it's in our diary for next year. 

The food was exceptional but Sue will explain this to you.

The head chef handed over his kitchen to his chefs 

who presented five individual dishes to be judged by us.

 Each diner scores each course in the degustation menu from one to five. The table tallies their score which is then handed in. then the room score is compiled and the chef who cooked the winning dish is named King Prawn 2015 and is presented with a bottle of champagne and many bragging rights.  In the past the head chef has cooked and has won at least once. This year he mentored the others and didn't cook himself. But no one knew this.

Tempura oyster appetizers with two sauces. Oh so yum.

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This is too hard to see what it is, but underneath all that dill was a pasta rotolo as per the menu above. The beurre blanc was superb and the whole dish very good.

Grilled scallops. The orange and saffron pearls were made the same way I have made balsamic ones. So that's something new for me to try. It was quite nice but the puree didn't taste much of fennel and the scallops were just a little overcooked I thought. Picky, picky I know. As you can see, Leon forgot to take a pic until I had eaten part of a scallop. Couldn't photograph his as it was gone!

This was my favourite. The combination of flavours with the pop from the pomegranate was sensational I thought. I was the only one on the table who voted this number one, but it was the eventual winner. (Go me)

This is the one most people at our table liked best. It has been a signature dish of the head chef and it was thought he might have cooked it. Very nice, but a bit same same for me. Fussy pants!

A flop, I thought. Out of place after the previous delicate offerings. but a number of the blokes were pleased to see something substantial. The brioche was great, but I only ate a bit. I pulled the crab out and ate that though! It had lots of very hot (temperature) sauce in it and a number of us had it squirt out on ourselves and others when we took a bite. Very off putting. Made by a young guy, I suspect. Always hungry and they think others are too!

Yum dessert. Really delicious although they took the cowards way out with the panna cotta. Too much gelatin. It was only little, but IT SHOULD BE WOBBLY! Oops, sorry, didn't mean to raise my voice.(much) The honeycomb was extra, extra good and I plan to try making some soonish.

This is the clever man who won with his betel leaf dish. Yum, yum, yum, yum.
We had a wonderful night out with friends and the food was an added bonus! Hope they ask us next year!