By David Rogers. February 8, 2011. BLOWING ROCK -- It was billed as one of the potentially closest matchups of the Fire on Rock preliminaries,  "competition dining" at its very best.  Well, it was all that -- and a lot more! Photos by David Rogers

Sometime yesterday, Jimmy Crippen had two new propane water heaters installed in his restaurant -- and that has to be where this story begins.  As anybody who has ever installed something new can attest, sometimes it takes awhile "to get the bugs out" and everything working smoothly.  In this case, those "bugs" made life exciting on Tuesday for Crippen, the Fire on the Rock mastermind.

With the competition set to begin and some 90 guests showing up around 6 pm, guest executive chefs Jason Jarrell (Rowland's at Westglow Resort & Spa) and Guy Thomas (Meadowbrook Inn) and their teams had long been in the kitchen preparing for the six-course meal when, at 5 pm, the gas to the stoves and grills suddenly stopped.  Crippen called Blue Ridge Energies (BRE), his gas supplier, and explained the situation:  Bunches of people about to arrive for a well-publicized competition dining event, and something's wrong with the propane supply.  BRE rushed someone to the restaurant and within minutes determined that a regulator valve had frozen in the cold weather, causing the gas to shut off.

By the time the problem was fixed and gas back flowing, guests had started arriving and an understandably nervous Crippen began seating them with a blind good faith that, with the problem fixed, there might be only a slight delay to the start of the event.

So the secret ingredient that was only revealed to the chefs when they showed up with their staffs to Crippens' kitchen on Tuesday -- was "curry."  All six courses somehow had to incorporate curry.

The first course of the evening was prepared by the Meadowbrook team: "Pan Seared Grouper with Yellow Curry Cream," baby arugula with red curry-grapefruit vinaigrette, currid apple and pineapple salsa. As a starter, the diners-turned-judges seemed to like it and the dish garnered a respectable 1,869 points we would learn at the end when the judges' ballots had been collected and tabulated.

The second course was prepared by the Rowland's team, a dish called, "Pan Seared Sea Scallop with Red Curry," coconut and cucumber.  On this night, Jarrell's preparation won the crowd as it turned out to be the highest-scoring course of the evening, with 2,026 points.

After the early propane scare, it looked like the culinary gods were smiling on Crippen after the first two courses.  They had come off without a hitch and he was only running behind about 10 minutes.  

But in the middle of the second course and as the teams were preparing the third and fourth courses, the critical entrees, the propane problem resurfaced: No gas, no fire, no grill, no stove.  Not wanting to put inferior food on the tables and fearing that the propane was needed before the third course preparation could be completed, Crippen was prepared to halt the competition, explain to his guests the situation, and humbly ask for their patience while they "took a break" until the problem was rectified.

But it turned out that the culinary gods really were smiling on Crippen this night.  Not to worry, Jarrell of Rowland's told Crippen:  Our third course is already cooked and hot in the oven, waiting to be served.  So with something along the lines of a "yippee!", Crippen ordered the service of Rowland's "Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Curried Carrot Puree," curry cornbread, and apple-mango chutney. Later it would be learned that the diners had conferred 1,908 points on the dish that quite literally proved to the difference between a great event success and an awkward, near disaster. 

Meanwhile, BRE had arrived, fixed the problem, and the Meadowbrook team had their fourth course on the tables with hardly a hiccup.  It was "Wood Grilled Green Curry Rubbed New York Strip," with fried shrimp and jumbo lump crab in green curry demi, fried goat cheese potato cake, and sauteed asparagus. One diner quipped appreciatively, "It's Turf and Surf and Surf." When the points were tallied at the end, the masterpiece had earned 1,957 points, but with four rounds complete and two to go, Rowland's held a slim, 108 point advantage.

When the competition first began two weeks ago, with the "exhibition" between Gamekeeper and Inn on Biltmore Estate, Crippen told Blowing Rock News that having a single dish go unappreciated by the fickle judges can make the difference between going on to the next round of the "tournament," or going home.  "The one constant in this competition," said Crippen, "is that one dish can make you or break you."  And so it was that the dessert proved to be Rowland's undoing.  Thomas and Meadowbrook took down 1,905 points with "Curried Coconut-Ginger Ice Cream, with port wine-dried cherry compote and candied pistachios, while Jarrell's team only managed 1,528 points for their "Green Curry Cheesecake," with yellow curry marmalade, pistachio and ginger.

Final score: Guy Thomas and Meadowbrook Inn, 5,731; Jason Jarrell and Rowland's, 5,462.  So now, Rowland's (a semi-finalist in 2010), must wait until next year and the Meadowbrook team moves on to face the winner of the March 15 Round 2 match-up between Vidalia and the Green Park Inn.

There are a lot of "attaboys" to go around for this evening of competition dining. First, to Crippen for keeping his cool under a lot of pressure.  Exactly what do you say to almost 100 diners each laying out $39 and setting aside their mid-week evening when this kind of drama occurs?  You hope that everyone understands that adverse circumstances can occur, but sometimes people feel like it shouldn't happen to them.

The second round of applause has to go to Blue Ridge Energies, a subsidiary of Blue Ridge Electric, which responded to each of the calls so promptly and professionally that the propane issue was really only noticeable behind the scenes.

And of course the third round of kudos goes to the chefs and their teams for their adaptibility under pressure.

Wednesday night, things heat up again when Banner Elk's Hearthstone Tavern comes to town to challenge Table 220, coming up the mountain from Hickory.

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