Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- #Battledish @LockeStShops #hamont

Naroma - Chef (King) Mario & guests -
Battledish Hamilton

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak-  #Battledish @LockeStShops #hamont 

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to be one of the judges for the first, and hopefully not last, Battledish to be held in Hamilton. It’s an international contest with local chefs competing to eventually go head to head with others across North America for the best dish. The arena was Locke Street, eight restaurants entered the lists and the fair maids of Tastebuds Student Nutrition Collaborative were on hand to represent the beneficiary. (To get a great flavour of what was to go down see the entertaining WWE-style videos by SteelandtheCity.)

Having arrived at the charming, temporary Battledish operations centre at Ceylon Teabush, I organized my own tasting in the order courses of a meal might go. Soup by Chef Tor Krueger at the Cheese Shoppe on Locke, mains by Chefs Zelco Grahovac, Walter Roper and Manny Ferreira and Mike Tofano (respectively The Courtyard on Locke, West Town Bar & Grill, Earth to Table Bread Bar and Ole Gourmet) and moving to sweeter offerings from Chefs Mario Spina, Nicole Miller and Josie Rudderham,

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- #Battledish @LockeStShops #hamont

Fod for Thought with Alex Bielak - #Battledish @LockeStShops hamont 
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to be one of the judges for the first, and hopefully not last, Battledish to be held in Hamilton. It’s an international contest with local chefs competing to eventually go head to head with others across North America for the best dish. The arena was Locke Street, eight restaurants entered the lists and the fair maids of Tastebuds Student Nutrition Collaborative were on hand to represent the beneficiary. (To get a great flavour of what was to go down see the entertaining WWE-style videos by SteelandtheCity.)

Having arrived at the charming, temporary Battledish operations centre at Ceylon Teabush, I organized my own tasting in the order courses of a meal might go. Soup by Chef Tor Krueger at the Cheese Shoppe on Locke, mains by Chefs Zelco Grahovac, Walter Roper and Manny Ferreira and Mike Tofano (respectively The Courtyard on Locke, West Town Bar & Grill, Earth to Table Bread Bar and Ole Gourmet) and moving to sweeter offerings from Chefs Mario Spina, Nicole Miller and Josie Rudderham, and Erin McGuffin (NaROMA Pizza Bar, Cake & Loaf Bakery and Democracy Coffee).

Therein lay a problem for the judges and public. How - when dealing with such a gamut of eateries and courses - do you judge whose dish is “Most Delicious, Creative, Authentic or Best Modern,” or who offers the “Best Cocktail”? Fellow judge, Scott Alexander (of GourmetOntario.com). “absolutely enjoyed” the event, but identified another problem, for the judges at least: “Portion size was way too big,” he said.

Before I go on, let me say that in my mind, ultimately, there were no losers! Some bruising perhaps, but that comes down to the issue I note above, coupled with a degree of ambiguity about how the criteria were scored and by whom. More on that later.

There was a great deal of Twitter traffic around the event (hence my column title) and Hamilton Small Fries and The Hungry Gnome wrote up fine posts about it describing most of the dishes, so I won’t go into that detail here except to also point you to the link at the end of this piece to my own pictures. Although all the offerings were better than merely good, it was clear to me the winners would come from among three restaurants: I called 4 of the 5 category winners.

With a lack of specific criteria for judging, I scored based on taste, component balance, and plating of dishes, and I saw the leaders of the pack being: laser-focussed Earth to Table Chef Manny’s modern take on comfort food (a beer-battered brie on fried bread with spicy nuts, bacon jam and apple puree with maple), NaRoma’s schiacciata con l'uva (a grape pizza which I gobbled down so fast I had to photograph a passing plate), and Courtyard’s tasty and beautifully-plated quail and polenta dish served with a complex reduction of pear and demi-glace and artful micro greens. The West Town came close with a flavourful, but poorly presented (and I gather variably done) pork tenderloin in puff pastry (mine was spot on), accompanied by a flavoursome rye Caesar.

Top Honours were carried off by Earth to Table (Most Creative, Best Modern and Best Cocktail), and NaRoma (Most Authentic and Most Delicious) NaRoma’s Chef Mario also won the “King of Battledish” Crown, regrettably leaving Chef Zelko of the Courtyard, and other worthy competitors, out of the medals.

The top drink was ultimately a delicious Apple Rosemary Collins from Earth to Table. I was intrigued to learn it was made with a gin I was unfamiliar with. Dillon’s Unfiltered Gin with 22 botanicals is made in Beamsville and is a real find. (I’ve since visited the distillery and am planning a column on them and another interesting spirit purveyor.)

Chef Zelko was understandably deflated when I spoke to him indicating that he had hoped the judges’ votes would have counted for more. “I enjoyed it… but I was surprised I did not make it into any category.” I told him Scott and I had both rated him a class winner, but suspect this was little consolation, given his confidence at the outset. (He had predicted he was going to win when I was doing my rounds.)

At the other end of the spectrum Chef Mario (now King Mario!), who had warmly greeted all his guests the day of the battle and passionately explained his dish to them, was elated when I called. “It’s unbelievable, I was speechless. It was an amazing event... I tried all the other dishes, [it] was really competitive.”

Thinking about it from a broader perspective, he added “we saw so many new faces: it’s good for NaRoma, good for Locke Street and good for our City.” He’s waiting to get details on the road ahead in terms of the competition with other cities, but said, “King of Hamilton, I’ll take that for now!”

After the event, I made some suggestions and posed some questions to seemingly indefatigable event organizer, David Hanley. He responded “Totally agree that there is always room for improvement“, later adding “we had 140 people (they didn't all go to every stop) and 21 judges including some Ti-Cats, a last-minute addition.”

“Judge votes [were] weighted at 50%, all other ticketholders [were] 50% (so it did matter)! I am not sharing the number of votes with anyone but I can tell you it was ridiculously close in all categories but one (Bread Bar's Apple Rosemary Collins) eclipsed the competition.”

When I asked if he was going to run another event, sensibly he said “I can't say if there'll be a next time or not yet… I want to debrief with restaurants so to make sure they got value out of it.”

I know he will learn from this event based on feedback from the restaurants, judges and participants. I’d like to see more emphasis on publicizing the fundraising aspect of the event, tasting portions for judges, and having judges actually meet, discuss the dishes and be able to compare apples to apples.

So Dave, once you’ve reflected I hope you go for it. Hamilton will be the ultimate victor!

NOTE 1: For those up for more good eats, the next Hanley extravaganzas are Dishcrawl Hamilton (On the Mountain, November 26th with only 6 tickets remaining as I write) and #2 in the Popup Restaurants series (November 22nd).

NOTE 2: As a Battledish judge I was provided with free food and drink tickets by the organizers to enable me to conduct tastings. Neither Battledish, nor any of the establishments mentioned, reviewed the content of this article prior to publication. While enthusiasm for the event as a whole rose with successive beverages consumed, I do not believe this affected my judging capacity!