- Groups from Hong Kong’s Chinese Culinary Institute won gold and silver at the event, held every four years, in Vancouver
- The competition encourages culinary exchange between countries and chefs through forums and workshops
One of the teams from the Chinese Culinary Institute (CCI) has won gold in the group category. Photo: HandoutTwo Hong Kong teams took gold and silver in the group categories at the 9th World Championship of Chinese Cuisine, held in Vancouver, Canada. The teams were from Hong Kong’s Chinese Culinary Institute (CCI).
Seventy teams, from cities including Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Beijing and Shanghai, took part in the three-day event.
There were group and individual awards for the best cold, hot and noodle dishes, as well as for best taste, presentation and creativity.
“We’re very happy with the result,” said Leung Ho-yin, a senior instructor for Chinese cuisine at CCI. “As instructors, our happiness is not just about winning gold but watching our students make great strides. We’ve seen them start from nothing to being able to execute winning dishes.”
CCI chief instructor Terry Lau Chi-kin said team members were excited to be in Vancouver and competing at such a high level, as the other teams were made up of professional chefs.
“Each of our two teams are made of two instructors who are professional chefs, one recent CCI graduate and one current student,” he explained.
Lau added: “We choose students who are ready to compete, and each of our teams has a female chef.” One of them was Claudia Siu Hiu-ching, 24, who was excited to be in Vancouver for the first time.
“I’ve competed a few times in Asia, but this is my first time to compete at such a large-scale event. We just focused on preparing our own dishes and we practised many times before we came here,” said Siu, a teaching assistant at CCI.
Speaking before the results of the competition, held between May 21 and 23, were announced, Lau said the two teams practised hard for almost two months and that the CCI gave the student competitors opportunities to try out their ideas.
“You may think we are at a disadvantage because we have students on our teams, but we have taken part in many local and regional competitions. We encourage our students to create new dishes in our canteen and our instructors give them feedback.”
All the teams taking part had to prepare six dishes in three hours: two appetisers – one to showcase artistic ability, the other authentic flavours – two main courses, one of which had to feature lobster, and two dim sum items.
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Lau said that when the Hong Kong teams arrived in Vancouver, they hit the ground running to find the ingredients on their shopping list in half a day.
“We were concerned the lap cheong [Chinese sausage] wouldn’t be good, but we didn’t have to worry,” he said with a laugh. “But we couldn’t find a yellow coloured zucchini; here, it’s mostly green. So we used them instead.”
Although Lau said the Hong Kong contingent were impressed with the quality of ingredients in Vancouver, they were hindered by only having half a day to find all their ingredients, most of which they found at a branch of T&T, a large Asian supermarket chain.
“It was a bit hard to find specific ingredients like sea urchin and we thought we could find it in a supermarket, but it turns out there is only one supplier that has it, but we didn’t have enough time to go there to get it,” he said.
In the end, they did manage to get sea urchin for their dish of steamed egg with scallop.
The two teams also prepared dishes of roast beef with barbecue sauce, and typhoon shelter lobster, and for dim sum lotus-root-shaped taro puffs, and goldfish-shaped shrimp paste dumplings, that won them accolades.
The World Championship of Chinese Cuisine started in 1992 and is billed as the “Olympics” of Chinese cuisine, as it is held every four years in a different city.
Rotterdam in the Netherlands held the 8th edition of the event in 2016 before it was sidelined by the Covid-19 pandemic until this year.
The World Championship of Chinese Cuisine encourages culinary exchange between countries and chefs through forums and workshops.
Hong Kong sauce company Lee Kum Kee has been the exclusive condiment sponsor of the event three times – including this year in Vancouver – and provides all the condiments and sauces that the teams use during the competition.
Dodie Hung, the executive vice-president of corporate affairs for Lee Kum Kee, said the brand promotes Chinese culinary culture around the world by fostering a global community that shares a passion for authentic Asian flavours, and by supporting and nurturing chefs.