Culinary hunt reaches capital

Photo: Quamrul Abedin

RUPCHANDA, the flagship brand of Bangladesh Edible Oil Limited and Star Lifestyle, the premium lifestyle supplement of The Daily Star, have been travelling -- the last few months -- all over the country (Sylhet, Khulna, Barisal, Rajshahi and Chittagong) in search of a super chef.
Rupchanda-Star Lifestyle Super Chef 2014 is a cooking competition jointly organised by the two aforementioned organisations to discover the best cook of the country. The search has spanned six divisions of Bangladesh, with four aspiring chefs who are the best of their lot being selected from each division.
The final audition round -- the one in Dhaka – has been held on 21 June at Shooting Complex. Around 1500 people registered online for the Dhaka auditions. Despite the rainy afternoon, hundreds of enthusiastic participants visited Shooting Complex in their quest to be crowned a super chef.
Unlike the auditions in other cities, Dhaka differed dramatically on the level of variety of cuisines presented: from continental to oriental and from traditional to Western fusion, the judges appreciated the diversity of the cuisines.
The main judges for the audition round in Dhaka have been Shahida Yeasmin, Afroza Banu, Kanishka Chakroborty, Selina Parvin and Reema Islam.
The capital city has seen a huge response to the competition, with a staggering 800 participants attending the culinary event. The competition will be held over two days; on the first day, the judges will taste the participants' food and give out 100 “yes” cards. On the second day, the selected 100 will take part in a skill test question-answer round, after which 4 finalists will be chosen to compete in the grande finale.  
The selected four participants from each regional audition will receive an award of Tk.25,000 each. The champion of the Grand Finale will receive a cash prize of Tk.5 lakh while the first and second runners-up will win Tk.3 lakh and Tk.2 lakh respectively.   
With the end of the audition round in Dhaka, the curtain on the regional rounds of the competition has come down.
The competition has just started!