September 27th and 28th, 2012
Times Square, New York City
Celebrating 5,000 Years of Chinese Cuisine, Culture & Press Freedom

Thursday Sep.27th (preliminaries)
11:00am-6:30pm Preliminary Rounds
7:00pm-8:00pm “Fire Up the Wok” Challenge
8:00pm-10:00pm The Emperor’s Banquet

Friday Sep. 28th (finals)
11:00am-6:00pm Final Rounds
8:00pm-8:30pm Awards Ceremony

When someone speaks of gourmet dining, perhaps the first thing that will come to mind is an Italian dish like Carne Pizzaiola, perhaps French like Boeuf Bourguignon, or maybe even Japanese Sea Bream Sashimi. But no one thinks of Chop Suey, Orange Beef, or egg rolls. There is a very good reason for this: none of those dishes are authentic, traditional Chinese cooking.

China boasts 5,000 years of jaw dropping, mouth watering recipes, and yet in the West, when people think of Chinese food, they tend to think of inexpensive, low quality dishes loaded with MSG.

NTD Television’s Fifth Annual International Chinese Culinary Competition is out to change perception that by bringing together the top Chinese chefs from around the world and have them demonstrate the unparalleled cooking techniques, knife skills, and imagination inherent in traditional Chinese cuisine.

This kind of world-class cooking also deserves a world-class stage. That is why NTD hosts this yearly competition in the heart of New York’s Times Square. They have presented Chinese cuisine to the worldstage, so that when someone mentions “gourmet cooking,” people can think of Chinese right along with Italian, French, or Japanese cuisines.

Over the course of two days,the competition will showcase the five major styles of Chinese cuisine: Sichuan(Szechuan), Shandong, Cantonese, Huaiyang, and Northeastern. Prizes will be awarded to each of the 5 cuisine winners including a $10,000 gold award, $3,000 silver award, and a $1,000 bronze award.

Five top chefs (Julieta Ballesteros, Clark Frasier, Maneet Chauhan, Malcolm Mitchell and Antoine Camin)are invited to participate in this challenge. They will be asked to cook the same Chinese dish. A simple description of the dish, along with ingredients and Chinese cooking facilities will be provided.Each Chef will be assigned a specially designed kitchen and one examiner for the cooking process. The event will be broadcasted globally, live from Times Square.

We are delighted to have Susie Fogelson, (judge on Food Network Star) David Burke(award winning chef and restauranteur) and Yun-Qiang Qu (head judge of NTD’s International Chinese Culinary Competition) as the honorary judges for this special event.

Program Overview:

For five years, NTD Television has been bringing together Chinese master chefs from around the world to test their skill against each other. This year, we are sending Chinese cuisine to new heights of artistry by inviting top Western chefs to create a Chinese culinary masterpiece.

The “Fire up the wok” challenge provides chefs everything they need to expand their flavor palettes with thousand-­‐year-­‐old recipes, performed in front of live crowds in the heart of Times Square. Times Square will be transformed into the ancient Chinese Tang dynasty capital Chang’an, and the chef’s cooking stations will be in the same Tang Dynasty style.

This challenge is a special program of NTD’s Fifth International Chinese Culinary Competition, and will take place onsite in Times Square on the first day of the competition, as part of NTD’s Annual Benefit Gala – The Emperor’s Banquet. This year, the Gala will benefit the James Beard Foundation NTD Chinese Culinary Scholarship for the Underprivileged.

The Emperor’s Banquet, the newest tradition in Manhattan’s cultural landscape, is part of NTD’s annual Benefit Gala and the culmination of NTD’s International Chinese Culinary Competition in Times Square. Past winners, master chefs from around the world, will prepare an eight-course Emperor’s Banquet including desserts prepared by top celebrity chefs in New York. Chefs will showcase the very best of Szechuan, Shandong, Cantonese, Huaiyang and Northeastern Chinese cuisines for the guests and patrons.

The Gala, which takes place in Times Square, will also host a VIP Reception, a Han couture fashion show and live music. This year, proceeds from the gala will go to NTD’s Culture Fund in promoting five thousand years of Chinese culinary culture, and also benefit the “James Beard Foundation NTD Chinese Culinary Scholarship for the Underprivileged”. The “Fire Up the Wok Challenge,” a unique part of The Emperor’s Banquet, takes place during the reception and invites top Western chefs to create Chinese culinary masterpiece.

“One taste and you know that it’s the real thing… I think this was the best food at a banquet I’ve ever had of any kind,” said Vogue magazine critic and Food Network’s Iron Chef America judge Jeffrey Steingarten.

For more info: https://register.ntdtv.org/events/index.html