The Chef Cartel with Happy or Hungry

On Monday night I went out to The Chef Cartel with Lindsey from Happy or Hungry! Actually, I was the guest of Lindsey, who I am always bugging to take me with her to cool events she gets invited to :). And this event was pretty cool! So thanks for taking me, Lindsey!!

I stole this from Lindsey's instagram because I didn't have a picture of us from Monday

So what is The Chef Cartel, you may ask? Well it is a showdown of local chefs, Iron Chef style! Each event pits two chefs against each other to make two dishes that incorporate two different secret ingredients, and then they get judged on taste, presentation, and creativity. The winner of Monday night's challenge was going to go on to the the semi-finals. Monday night's chefs were Elia Herrera of Los Colibris and Takumi Saito of Hapa Izakaya.

For guests of the event, there were local vendors with wine and food samples (I love a good sample!), and full-sized food and drinks to be purchased! I had a couple beers and some croquettes and a brisket sandwich and it was all amazing! I have no pictures because I failed Blogging 101, but I am sure Lindsey will have some when she blogs about the event. Lindsey and I unfortunately got there unfashionably early, but lucky we make good company and within no time the competition began!

The mystery ingredients for Monday night were edoe (a sort of root vegetable) and lake whitefish (a sort of fish :P).

We found ourselves positioned near Chef Elia's prep station, so naturally we rooted for her!

I snuck over to Chef Takumi's side for a minute

It was REALLY cool watching them do their chef thing! I am no chef...my chopping is quite laborious and uneven. These people were wizards in my eyes! They had one hour to prepare and it went super fast. Chef Elia made a ceviche to start and her main dish was seared fish. It was all served family style and looked really yummy. I told Lindsey next time we need to apply to be celebrity judges at this thing.

I am not sure what Chef Takumi made in the end, but I do know one of his dishes was a risotto and risottos are delicious so I thought for sure he would win just based on the awesomeness of risottos in general.....but Chef Elia won!!! Woooo go our side of the room!!

All in all, it was a great evening! Lindsey and I had no idea what to expect, but it was a really cool experience and a fun event. Plus we all got loot bags with two types of spray olive oil, a knife, a spiralizer, an issue of Canadian Living, and a loaf of olive bread. And yes, I ate the whole loaf the next day. Best goody bag ever.