Zest Quest Asia | Cyrus Todiwala

Colleges have less than two months to submit their entries for Zest Quest Asia, the competition designed to recognise student teams that can best demonstrate their knowledge and skill in Asian cuisine. The final date for submissions is 6^th November 2015. Cyrus Todiwala OBE, Chef Patron of Café Spice Namaste, The Park Café, Mr Todiwala’s Kitchen and Assado launched Zest Quest Asia in 2013 in collaboration with Master Chefs of Great Britain.

The competition aims to stimulate an interest in Asian cuisine and by extension, Asian culinary arts, as a valuable career among budding chefs more accustomed to European and other world cuisines. It also aims to help stem the talent drain in authentic Asian cookery by up-skilling home-grown chefs, thereby helping to secure the future of the UK’s £3 billion Asian food sector. Only students who hold permanent residency in the UK are eligible to enter the competition. With Zest Quest Asia now on its third year, the organisers have arranged a first prize of a trip to yet another Asian destination, where

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the winning team and their tutor will immerse themselves in new culinary adventures. Previous winners from Westminster Kingsway College and Farnborough College enjoyed ten-day gastronomic voyages in India and Sri Lanka, respectively. Cyrus Todiwala said, “I urge colleges up and down the UK to get their entries in now. So much research of late has shown that Asian food is more in demand than ever before and chefs who can demonstrate their ability to cook Asian food well, using flair and imagination, are at the cutting edge of global cuisine. “One collateral benefit of Zest Quest Asia is that the knowledge participating students accumulate as part of what is a very rigorous process will help them to develop a fine sense of what Asian cuisine is all about, setting them up for the future. My dream is that one day even the youngest schoolchildren will understand the origins and techniques behind the Asian food many of them eat today. Zest Quest Asia is only the beginning.”

>>>For entry forms and more information click here

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