Chowing down with Chowzter

5/21/14

Chowing Down with Chowzter

Havana's chicken in orange sauce.

It was an honor to be invited to participate in Chowzter’s second annual “Tastiest Fast Feast Awards” ceremony in London recently. As representative of several key cities in Mexico as well as Havana, Cuba, I arrived in the foggy town with rather heavy gustatory weight on my shoulders. Mexico did indeed take home a trophy, for the Tastiest Dish in Latin America: Mole Poblano @ La Casita Poblana, Puebla, nominated by fellow chief Chowzter Rebecca Smith Hurd. Havana’s Pollo Aljibe, my nomination, lost out, but it’s always nice to be recognized, as Joan Crawford would say.

The event-packed weekend took place at the same time as S. Pellegrino’s “50 Best Restaurants” awards, as an antidote to the pomp of said extravaganza. At the Chowzter event, sixty dishes from around the world were nominated, and sixteen were awarded at the final gala event held at L’Anima Café, a tony new Italian venue.

Tasting steak, thinking about a nice salad

The weekend featured a “steak tasting”, where we were stuffed with some of the best red meat in the world and asked to rate it. The event was ultimately futile – how can you take beef out of its cultural context and compare? - but deliciously gluttonous. The exercise was lead by Marc Schatzker, author of ‘Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef’. The award went to the Asador Extabari in Bilbao, Spain, whose chuleton we were unfortunately not privy to sample.

Chowzter is a virtual entity which manifests itself as a website and app. The idea is to identify, laud and make accessible great food around the world. The format highlights specific dishes, and gives you the where, why, and how of them. Chowzter hates democracy—it’s not Yelp or Tripadvisor. Instead, regional advisors (we’re called “chief chowzters”) subjectively choose according to our anything-but-humble opinions. The awards themselves are doled out by “a central team”, a mysterious entity, or better known as the "He who must be obeyed." I was the proud recipient of a trophy for “outstanding contribution to the Chowzter team” last fall.

From Chowzter’s own publicity machine:
Picking global winners from 4,000 nominees across 150 cities is very challenging because no one person is able to try all of the candidates in a given year. Chowzter therefore adopts a methodology used by other global food awards whereby local experts nominate items and a central team tries the items on a rotating basis. In addition user input is collected from our App. There are no forced criteria but tastiness, ingredients, local relevance and history are all considered.

In the end, the purpose is to guide travelers and locals to the best of the best, and to promote local culinary culture. While “street food” and traditional cooking is emphasized, all contexts are considered. The only concept that is anathema to Chowzter is pretension.

The author with amazing Javier Wong, winner

The winners for 2014 were as follows:

The tastiest dish in the world: Ceviche at Chez Wong, Lima, Peru
This honor went to the amazing, well deserving and now legendary Javier Wong, who runs a restaurant from his home featuring only one main ingredient: flounder. The fish, prepared by the chef in plain sight of all the diners is manipulated into a plethora of fusion Peruvian-Chinese dishes, which are served accompanied by absolutely nothing but water or beer.

Mexican food (!) at London's Brick Lane.

Best Seafood Dish: Alaskan king crab @ Dynasty, Vancouver
Best Pizza: Square Slice @ Di Fara, Brooklyn
Best Vegetarian Dish: Falafel @ L'As du Falaffel, Paris
Best Noodles: Pad thai @ Pad Thai Thip Samai, Bangkok
Best Sandwich: Caribbean roast sandwich @ Paseo, Seattle
Best Rice Dish: Hainanese chicken rice @ Tian Tian, Singapore
Best Bird: Roast goose @ Yat Lok, Hong Kong
Best Bakery Dish: Fried jam croissant @ Albion, London

Regional Awards:
Tastiest Dish in Europe: Pide ustu doner @ Karadeniz Pide Doner Salonu, Istanbul, Turkey
Tastiest Dish in North America: Banh Mi @ Franks 'n' Dawgs, Chicago
Tastiest Dish in Latin America: Mole Poblano @ La Casita Poblana, Puebla, Mexico
Tastiest Dish in Asia: Stuffed Lechón @ Pepita's Kitchen, Manila, Phillipines
The Best Steakhouse on Earth: Asador Extabari , Bilbao, Spain
Foodiest City on Earth: Bangkok

Outstanding Contribution: Maria Luisa Ríos, an extraordinary woman who faces adversity every day while continuing to promote the gastronomy of her native country, Venezuela. See her blog: www.milsabores.net

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Chowing Down with Chowzter

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