Cool Summer Dishes Turn Out 'Amazing'

The rice noodle dish with shrimp and shredded vegetables including bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers and wood ears—a mushroom-like ingredient used in Asian cooking—which won first place Sunday at a cooking competition lived up to the name of the event, .

Amazing Taste was the first such event collaborated on with Ding Ding TV, the first Internet TV station in Silicon Valley, owned by , and Distinguished Taste magazine, a Chinese-language food magazine.

A sprinkling of local dignitaries came out to watch and hand out prizes. Among them were Cupertino Council members Orrin Mahoney and Kris Wang, Cupertino Union School District Board of Education member Ben Liao, and Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves

Esteves said he was happy to be at such an event that brought different cultures together through everyone's love for food.

The competition was limited to preparation of cold dishes and use of pre-cooked or raw ingredients due to safety limitations at where the event was held.

While eight of the 11 cold dishes in the competition represented styles of regional Chinese cuisine, three showed Western influences, namely the five-color salad by Team 2, the apple and celery salad made by Team 7 and the mixed fruit salad made by Team 11.

The five-color salad with slices of cherry tomatoes and Mandarin oranges in it looked like McDonald's Asian salad.

The mixed fruit salad contained quinoa seeds, a type of grains native to South America.

The apple and celery salad was French-inspired, though the contestant who made it, Carol Yu, is from Taiwan.

Yu who was alone on Team 7 while all the other teams were groups walked away with second place, collecting her award from Cupertino Councilwoman Kris Wang.

Cupertino Councilman , who arrived right after rehearsing for his part in the Chinese play ","—which is on stage Aug. 6 and 7 at San Jose Repretory Theatre—was asked to bestow the first-place award to Team 8, which consisted of the preschool Bayseed Child Care's staff and parents.

Sharon Lou, spokesperson of Team 8 and owner of Bayseed, said most of the credit should go to team member Jin Sun because the award-winning rice noodle dish was initially her creation.

According to Lou, Sun's rice noodle dish had been the most popular item at Bayseed's potlucks, and Sun had given her recipe to those interested in copying it, but no one else was able to make it taste as good as Sun's.

"We knew we must have her on our team when we decided to enter this competition," said Lou.

Team 8 was a group of five. The other three members were Tin Li, Yin Wang, and Xiang Jiu Gu.