Intense flurry of high, white chef hats and striking yellow aprons filled the make shift kitchen in Pisa as contestants were prepping themselves for the 4^th Penang Chef Challenge. A bi-annual competition, this year boasted 18 professional teams and 30 junior teams; not something that is hard to imagine with the sheer volume of people crowded around the area!

Spanning 3 days, the first day was the heats with the best of the teams moving on to the quarter finals. After the quarter finals on the 2^nd day, the remaining contestants try to out-cook each other in the final battle!

The Penang Chef Challenge takes a bit of inspiration from the much loved cooking competition, The Iron Chef. Contestants are provided with all the basic ingredients, and 1 mystery ingredient to be revealed right before the start of their 90 minutes! Within that time frame they have to prepare one type of appetizer, soup, main course and dessert in quantities of 4. Out of the 4 courses, at least 2 must incorporate the mystery ingredient.

The first round of the heats saw a very unusual and rather challenging mystery ingredient; the Durian! A strong, custardy fruit that is a favourite among many Malaysians, I puzzled over how they were going to add the overpowering ingredient into anything other than the dessert.

Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who had that thought as quite a few chefs in the kitchen gave a visible cringe. Nevertheless, the show must go on and as soon as they gave the signal, a horde of chefs rushed towards the ingredient table to grab what they need to make their dishes.

It was a highly stressful situation, as most chefs had the word “PANIC” written all over their faces! But it was definitely entertaining to watch them attempt to be as creative as possible while maintaining a high standard of taste.

The judges who were prowling the area certainly didn’t soothe the nerves of the contestants! Equipped with years of experience and knowledge in the food industry, this group of internationally acclaimed chefs, food critiques and authors certainly knew their way around food. With a critical eye and an equally critical tongue, they kept an eye for technique, creativity and most importantly, the taste and flavours of the end product!

The competition has only gotten more popular and prestigious with every installation! People from as far as Korea, Hong Kong and Germany are flying in to join the competition, which speaks for the caliber that it holds. After this installation, we are definitely looking forward to what the next Chef Challenge in 2012 has to offer!