By David Rogers. February 23, 2011. BLOWING ROCK -- Talk about fresh food...When Chef Nicole Palazzo of Sorrento's was asked by Fire on the Rock host Jimmy Crippen what she thought upon arriving at Crippens Restaurant to learn that the secret ingredient for the six-course meal was a "whole" Guinea from France, she admitted, "I wished it was something else."

It has been typical of Mr. Crippen to throw some real surprises at the competing chefs in the 2011 competition.  His "rustic, slow-growing Heritage Guinea from France" was not for the squeamish, because they were the whole hens -- beaks, eyes, legs, claws, guts and feathers.  So before they could even start cooking, Wednesday night's culinary artistes had to prepare the birds for their eventual fates over the fire. In fairness to Palazzo, she said she loved the Guinea product, but was not looking forward to the task of "dressing" it.

According to Crippen, on this night there was a fair amount of deal-making going on between the chef teams.  Sorrento's, for example, wanted the wings, so they traded 30 legs to the Canyons team in exchange for 30 of their prized wings. "It was interesting," observed Crippen afterwards, "the chefs used different parts of the bird, particularly the wings and the legs, but nobody actually carved the breast for an offering, which is usually among the most prized parts of poultry proteins."

This was another night of wide disparities in opinion -- and scoring -- from course-to-course.  In an informal Blowing Rock News survey throughout the evening, some of the most loved and highest scoring dishes were also the most panned. Opinion was simply that polarized.

Competing in this "6th battle" of the preliminaries' first round in the 2011 Fire on the Rock "competition dining" event were the aforementioned Palazzo of Sorrento's Bistro (Banner Elk), and Chef Cobren Morales of Blowing Rock's Canyons.  Both restaurant owners, Ms. Acceturo of Sorrento's and Mr. Bart Conway of Canyons were on hand to witness their charges' wage the culinary "warfare."

The first course "starter" was a Sorrento's offering of "Crispy Cayenne Dusted Pintade Wing," including mixed greens with house-made blue cheese dressing and sweet onion jam.  It garnered the 2nd most points on the evening from the 100-strong diners-turned-judges, with 2,176.

The second "starter" dish was prepared by Canyons, a "Pintade Sausage Hash," with sweet potato gnocchi, brown butter, reduced balsamic, and smoked paprika oil.  When Blowing Rock News arrived mid-way through the event, most of the diners with whom we talked (on both ends of the dining room) were raving about this dish, so when the results were announced at evening's end we were a bit surprised to learn that its 1,975 points placed the dish 5th out of the six courses.

Sorrento's entree presentation was an "Open-Faced, Pan-Roasted, Pulled Pintada Slider," with cripy pancetta, arugula, and black garlic aioli.  Its reviews were universally favorable from what we could tell, and its 2,144 points were good enough for the 3rd highest point total of the evening.

With its "Roasted Marinated Pintada Leg," including roasted garlic polenta, ragout of fennel, wild mushroom & fig, candied bacon and bacon powder, the Canyons team picked up 2,011 points and high praise from the discerning crowd of diners.

And then came the polarized opinions.  To shake things up a bit, Crippen moved Canyons out of the alternating sequence (which of course nobody knew about) and had the Blowing Rock team prepare the first dessert, a "Coconut Marinated Pintade Wontons," stuffed with bok choy, fried yellow curry ice cream, and tamarind-sweet soy glaze.  During our survey for comments, one table of ladies described the dish as "orgasmic, it was so good," while another mixed table of couples were less than enthusiastic.  So there were both some "I told you so's" as well as some "Oh, my Gods!" when the tally of 1,837 points was announced, making it the #6 dish on the evening.

Amusingly, the diners who panned the first dessert were ecstatic about the second one -- and vice versa.  This final course was Sorrento's "Powdered Sugar Zepoli with Pintade Infused Chocolate," with sweet ricotta cream and candied pintada skin.  In spite of the polarized opinions, it turned up the evening's highest score, with 2,236 points.

When all was said and done, Sorrento's was crowned champion of the "Battle Pintade Fermiere," and advances to a quarterfinals matchup against the March 16th winner, either Gamekeeper's or an as yet to be determined winner decided on March 8 between Paulucci's and Josh's on Union Square.

A special tip of the hat for Wednesday night's performances goes to Ashley Farms and Joyce Foods, who donated the Guinea products.

Comments: