After 2 successful semi finals of the Chilis‘ 1st Indian cookoff at their Bangalore outlets at Phoenix Market City and Orion mall, action shifted to the biggest and newest Chilis in India which was on the 100 feet road Indiranagar. After tough competition, 9 finalists were selected from over 60 participants based on the way their Chilis tasted, were presented and of course upon its texture!
As the day of reckoning, October 19th 2014 dawned upon us, all the 9 finalists and their support systems like their families were on dot at 7am at Slurp studio in Indiranagar where they had their cooking stations and had to prepare their Chilis not just for judging by celebrity judges but also by general public. Entire morning was spent by finalists perfecting their dishes with the help of Slurp studio chefs and of course celebrity judge and culinary champion Abhijeet Gomare from Chilis India.
The action then shifted to the spanking new Chilis on 100feet road Indiranagar where lot of general public and participants’ friends and families had gathered to taste the Chilis and accordingly rate them and vote for their favorite one among them. All roads on Sunday afternoon lead there as it was very well promoted both on traditional and social media like FM Radio and Facebook respectively.
Personally I liked Krishna’s Pork Pow-Wow as she had used Goan sausages in her Chili which was giving it an amazing taste and texture was perfect too. The Chili had the right amount of bite in it!
I also like Sharath Ramaswamy’s beef chili as she had perfected it according to the suggestions she had got in Semifinal round. Her ever cheerful nature and interaction with audience also got her lot of votes!
Vini’s beef chili was really good and I felt it had the right amount of spice as she was scared to put the same in her semifinal cookoff. This complimented perfectly and couple of other food bloggers felt the same too. I personally liked Vini’s beef chili the best.
Sujatha Swaminathan held her own against the heavy weights creating non-veg Chilis by creating her own vegetarian Chili which was very well accepted not just by vegetarians but also by non-vegetarians. She was ably supported by her daughter too who is an aspiring chef!
There was public voting where many regular customers of Chilis and participants’ friends and families voted for the best chili among the 9 who participated. Even popular Bangalore based food bloggers like Neha Mathur, Nivedith Gajapathy, Aravind Balakrishnan and Sunitha Bora voted for their favorite Chilis!
Prominent Chefs from Bangalore and life style blogger Sanchita Wahi judged the finals of the Chilis cookoff in India and based their judgment on taste, texture, presentation and knowledge. The judges had a tough time in deciding the winners as all were really good and it was tough to select the best 3 of the 9 but a decision had to be taken!
The second runner up Sharath Ramaswamy walked away with a professional hard anodized Non stick 5 piece set from Kitchen Aid, vouchers worth Rs.3000 from Jean-Claude Biguine Salon & Spa and travel vouchers from Contiki Holidays. She had really mesmerized both the audience and the judges with her cooking!
Reaching very close to glory was the first runner up Oliver D’Souza who walked away with a cordless hand blender from Kitchen Aid, vouchers worth Rs.4000 from Jean-Claude Biguine Salon & Spa and travel vouchers from Contiki Holidays. He had enthralled the judges by his passion for cooking and great texture!
But of course the day belonged to the biggest winner of them all – Aalok Das who was perfect in all departments – cooking, knowledge and crowd appeal. Aalok won Kitchen Aid appliance worth Rs.48,000, vouchers worth Rs.6000 from Jean-Claude Biguine Salon & Spa and travel vouchers from Contiki Holidays. He also got a chance to get his recipe posted on WhiskAffair and SiliconAndSpice blogs. Kudos Aalok!