Oswestry takeaway wins curry competition

Rukon Abdullah from Oswestry Tandoori was awarded the prestigious title of Shropshire Council’s Curry Chef of the Year 2011 after a closely fought ‘cook-off’ on Monday 4 April 2011.

The other three finalists who nominated their chefs to step up to the plate were: Dorrington Old Hall Persian Restaurant, Mahim Indian Takeaway in Bayston Hill and Café Saffron Indian Restaurant in Shrewsbury.

The chefs produced a curry, side dish and rice accompaniment for a panel of judges at Radbrook Catering College in Shrewsbury yesterday (4 April 2011), where they had one hour to cook and display their chosen menu.

All Indian, Bangladeshi, Balti and similar restaurants and takeaways in the Shropshire Council area were invited to enter the competition organised by the council’s food safety team.  The entries were assessed by the team, making reference to the most recent food hygiene inspection.  The successful applicants were visited to ensure that good food safety practices are being met and to taste the chef’s chosen dishes.

At the final cook-off the competing curries were tasted and assessed by the judges before the trophy was awarded.

Councillor Cecilia Motley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for environmental health, said: “I would like to congratulate Rukon and Oswestry Tandoori on winning this competition.  The standard of entries was extremely high and our judges had an extremely difficult task in choosing the winner.  All four finalists should be very proud of their efforts.

“We hope that this competition has shown the high standard of restaurants and takeaways that we have in Shropshire, and that providing good food in hygienic surroundings can be very good for business.”

Rukon said: “I am speechless. I’m really happy to have won – it means a lot.

“We would like to thank Shropshire Council for giving us the opportunity to compete and the judges for selecting us as the winner.”

The competition judges were: Councillor Ann Hartley, Shropshire Council Deputy Leader; Bruce McMichael, Editor of Taste Shropshire magazine; James Day of the Gourmet Life dining club; and Sean McNulty, Senior Chef Lecturer at Radbrook College.

The winning menu consisted of onion bhajee, chicken jalfrajee and pilau rice.  The competition was filmed by Channel S (on Sky platform – channel 814).

The first Shropshire Council Curry Chef of the Year competition was held last year (2010) when the winner was Abdul Husen of Café Saffron.