Dehradun (The Hawk): Everest Better Kitchen Culinary Challenge (Everest BKCC), a competitive event for final-year students of Hospitality colleges, was held at the School of Hotel Management & Tourism, Dev Bhoomi Uttarakhand University today. More than 25 teams from 10 institutes of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh participated in the culinary challenge.
The winners of the Everest BKCC Challenge were also announced during the occasion, wherein the Best Team from Dehradun was presented to Everest Kanda Lasun Masala (Students from Amrapali Institute of Hotel Management, Haldwani), 1st Runner-up and 2nd runner-ups were Everest Chole Masala (Students from Dewan Institute of Hotel Management & Technology, Meerut) and Everest Super Garam Masala (Students from Servo Hospitality School, Dehradun), respectively.
The theme of the challenge was ‘Flavours of India’, and the intent of the same was to make Indian food popular across the globe. To create awareness and promote the use of millets in daily menus. Millets were given as a secret ingredient for participants to use in one of the three-course menus for the competition.
The jury members of the Everest BKCC Season 4 comprised of Celebrity Chef & Consultant Chef Rahul Wali, and Executive Chef Hyatt Regency Dehradun Sahil Arora. During the occasion, the jury appreciated the use of ingredients, innovation, and presentation by the participating students. They urged the students to take part in such culinary challenges and update their skills.
During her address, the Publisher of Better Kitchen, Ekta Bhargava, shared that the objective of this event is to prepare students for the challenges of their future and to popularize Indian regional food using local ingredients in the form of global cuisine. She said, "This challenge provides students a platform to showcase their creative skills and properly utilize the ingredients. The national winner of this competition will get a scholarship of USD 5750/- under the USA J1 Chef Exchange Visitor Program while the first and second runner-ups will get a scholarship worth USD 1000/- and USD750/- respectively along with a year intern placement in the USA by Everest BKCC’s International Placement & Study Abroad Partner Wisdom Career & Education."
Everest BKCC Season 4 is scheduled to be held in 15 cities across India, namely Bhopal, Kolkata, Kottayam, Chennai, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, NCR –Noida, Pune, Mumbai, Vadodara, Jaipur, Goa, and Nagpur. Winners from all cities will be invited to the Grand Finale in Mumbai that is scheduled to be held next year in February.
The program is supported by Incredible India - Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Worldchefs, Indian Culinary Forum, Western Chefs’ Association (WICA), Chefs Association of Five Rivers, Chef Association of Garhwal (CAG), Gujarat Culinary Association (GCA), Culinary Forum of Goa, and Hospitality Purchasing Managers’ Forum (HPMF).