Gulfood 2007

Gulfood 2007 took place in Dubai from 18th – 22nd Feb at the Dubai World Trade Centre Convention Halls. The highlight of this five-day event was Salon Culinaire, a culinary competition featuring chefs of all levels from hotels throughout Dubai, judged by a panel of ‘internationally acclaimed’ chefs.

This exhibition is also an avenue for suppliers and others in the F&B and Hospitality industry to promote their products and services at the Food & Equipment halls. Gulfood is open only to trade visitors, and persons below 21 years are also not allowed to visit the exhibition. I managed to get visitor passes for myself as well as Jeremy & Hui Chin by applying online.

I made my way to the World Trade Centre on 19th Feb, wandered through the Food Halls cramped with stalls from all over the world, including Singapore and Malaysia. I met our friend Andrew there and we walked about looking at Salon Culinaire contestants’ creations. Apart from hot cooking, Salon Culinaire also consists of other segments such as Cold Display (5-course menu), Ice Carving, Pastry, Butchery, etc.

Finally, a wedding cake that beats ours!

We had just moved from Ewan Residence to our new apartment at Gardens a few days before, and Ben had a busy week with Valentine’s Day and other special VIP menus, plus staff appraisals to conduct, so having to take part in the competition and still work throughout really stressed him out. But he seemed cool enough as he prepared his dish within the one-hour time limit.

Japanese-influenced Trilogy of Dover Sole - shallow fried dover sole and wakame roll, slow poached dover sole with miso, and baked sole fillets with yuzu fondant. It’s a wonder how he managed to make all this in under an hour. Contestants have to present 4 portions (plates) of their creations – one for show, one for tasting, and the other two are just thrown away.

Sadly, the judges were old-fashioned, their taste buds and eyes only accustomed to traditional, boring and purely European food, clearly seen by how they awarded these "prize-winning" dishes:

This dish won a Bronze medal

This one got a Silver, and the fish was not properly cooked

The next day, I met Jeremy & Hui Chin at the airport and brought them over to Gulfood. The Security Guard stopped us as we entered the exhibition hall, and we panicked, thinking it was our bogus passes. But it turned out the idiotic guard stopped us ‘cos we looked like kids, and he kept insisting I wasn’t 21.

I showed him my passport and he didn’t believe that I was 30, and then I kept saying that my husband was taking part in Salon Culinaire and he was wasting our time, but he also wouldn’t believe that a ‘kid’ like me was married. Finally, I just brushed him off and we went in. Jeremy had a good time tasting all the food samples at the Food Hall – roast beef, icecream, nachos, meatballs, fried chicken, waffles, frappes, pralines, sushi… They were pretty excited to check out Salon Culinaire as Jeremy wanted to catch the chefs in action, thinking it would be like watching Iron Chef, live.
Ben’s Reconstructed Australian Beef with Vanilla Marrow Crust, Leek ‘Cannelloni’ and Strawberry Balsamic Sauce.

One of the judges told Ben that beef with vanilla and strawberry balsamic sauce is “just NOT right”. Ben asked him what the judging was based on. He said, "creativity, something new, something we haven’t seen before", then proceeded to tell him how good this other dish was. This dish, pictured here, like something you get at Jack’s Place or even Han’s:

The judge said, a dish like this will definitely get a medal. And it did. A Silver! Ben then said, “So this is creative and something you’ve never seen before? Do you judge based on what’s creative or what you like?”

The judged wasn’t too happy and couldn’t retort. Then Ben asked him, “So you’ve been a chef for how many years now? Must be a very, very long time”. The judge seemed ticked off so Ben rubbed it in some more by sarcastically saying, Oh, one day I want to be like you.

These are the dishes that received medals:

I noticed that sometimes there were 4 judges judging a plate, and sometimes just 3. The fourth judge, Chef Otto Weibel, was too busy attending to award presentation ceremonies and others that he was not present to judge all the plates. So I wonder how they summed up the scores whenever Chef Otto was missing. Did they judge on his behalf? Makes you wonder......