Kerry Tyack looks nicely relaxed while he eats a Friday night dinner and a drink at Angus Rd Eatery, Mystery Creek. If you didn’t know that he was the head judge of Monteith’s Wild Food Challenge, you’d never guess. He thoroughly examines his food before he takes it. He is able to eat rabbit and hare and pork cheek bacon, carrot puree and baby leeks and carefully savors the main ingredients one at a and then placing them all on his fork, eating them alongside the beer match, Monteith’s Barrel Aged Porter. Tyack claims that the beer is served at the right temperature of 8 degrees Celsius and not cold enough that you can’t taste the flavor. This one is believed to be decent: There are some sweet elements in the dish, and the bitterness of the beer cut through the sweetness. Since its beginning, Tyack has managed the Monteith’s Wild Food Challenge. This contest pairs 17-year-old beers with food. This year , it attracted an impressive 123 entries from across the nation. The competition is now down to 12 finalists which includes Hamilton’s Angus Rd Eatery and Victoria Street Bistro. Although relaxed Tyack might appear this evening however, he’s fully aware of the requirements of his job. Tyack’s co judge for the finals is Alan Brown, a chef who teaches professional cookery at Auckland University of Technology. The first-round judging was done in secret by a group of experts using a set of standards and score sheets. each dish began with 100%, and judges were required to explain why they cut points. Finals are an open-ended process however, the chefs know Tyack and Brown are on the way, and they know that there’s no down-to-the wire cook-off. Today, the pair have examined lunch at Plateau Restaurant in Taupo, then driven towards Angus Rd, on the fringes of Hamilton. The hare as well as the rabbit are both on the menu at a very early time. The sous-vide wild meat fillet will be followed by Victoria Street Bistro’s celeriac cream and sea chicory and Monteith’s Double Hopped IPA. Tyack may not consume all of what is available, but he will have an idea of the quality of all the Hamilton Finalists. He’ll have completed seven tasks prior to his return home to Auckland. Tyack has set a benchmark his evaluations so far. The menu tonight is likely to meet that benchmark or surpass it or decrease. Two dishes are up to the highest standard, and are better than any other. The competition is all about the beer and food match. After that, Tyack and Brown are trying to determine if all the ingredients in the menu are fulfilled by the technical proficiency of the cooking and serving temperature of the food and beer in addition to the presentation, nature of the dish and also the innovation of the creation of it. Its eatability is another important element. Also, he asks the basics like , are the ingredients in good condition well balanced and fresh are they out of balance. Sometimes there are too many components there is nothing is on the plate to pull them together. At Angus Rd, the carrot puree is a good example, WebTreasureHunter.com as is the celeriac cream is available at VSB. Tyack is a former Waikato lad – born in Te Awamutu, has lived in Morrinsville and Thames who was taught cooking as a child. He has years of experience in food evaluation. A food writer, critic and hospitality expert, and for a long time involved in the Monteith’s Challenge, he’s also head judge for other competitions at restaurants such as the Cuisine NZ Good Food Awards, Silver Fern Farms Premier Selection Awards and the Cafe of the Year. He had 171 meals during the year, mostly in the line-of-duty. These ranged from luxury restaurants to smaller cafes that specialise in baking at home. When he was a student at the university He worked in bars and cafes. The first time he judged was for the Cervena Plates competition in the early 1990s. It took him time to get comfortable with his taste buds. One of the most important qualifications for being a judge of food is clearly to enjoy food and be competent at cooking yourself. When Tyack isn’t judging, he loves the simplicity of his own kitchen, sometimes trying to recreate an item from a restaurant or flavor that catches his eye. Brown and Tyack are both present during tonight’s judging. They are awed by the use of rabbit and hare at Angus Rd, they praise the quality of the food along with the well-chosen vegetables, the colour and appeal. They love the bitterness of Double Hopped IPA that Victoria Street Bistro serves. Many chefs attempt to mitigate the bitterness by counteracting it. The VSB hasn’t tried this. VSB. It’s smart and well-judged and also the chef’s imaginative, delicious version of surf and turf. Failures at both will be discussed in a cone-of-silence. How does Hamilton’s Hamilton dish compare to judges’ guidelines so far? Tyack smiles and says, “I’m going to not tell you.”
