Culinary students seek championship

With an arsenal of beautiful, mouthwatering dishes such as lobster chawan mushi with black garlic and truffle, and melon-tomato salad with avocado, yogurt, sesame and yuzu, Kapiolani Community College’s culinary competition team is pulling out all the stops at the American Culinary Federation’s national collegiate championship in Orlando, Fla.

On Sunday, Team Hawai‘i — student chefs Jeremy David, Richard G. Lee, Kimberly Lim, Qihao “Sam” Tan, Sean Uyehara and Christian Rae Wong, and KCC chef-instructor Jason Peel — arrived at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort for the “Cook. Craft. Create.” American Culinary Federation National Convention and Show.

The contest began Tuesday and continues today. Winners will be announced Thursday. Accompanying the team are KCC chef-instructors Alan Tsuchiyama and David Brown.

On Tuesday the team prepped a cold-food buffet platter utilizing rabbit, peas, corn, red lentils and habanero chilies.

On Wednesday’s agenda: plating the cold platter and preparing a four-course meal, including a seafood starter, salad, main course and dessert.

This marks KCC’s first appearance at the nationals since 2013. The team won a statewide contest in December to advance to the ACF Western Regional Student Team Competition, held in February in Joliet, Ill. A victory there qualified it for a seat in Orlando. The school took the championship in 2009.

See next week’s Crave for results.