Hawranek (left) and Lu (right) with the Next Big Chef ‘Superstar’ winners, Devona (second left) and Cindy.
KUCHING: Devona Nellie Stanley and Cindy Lai Ik Von won UCSI University’s Next Big Chef ‘Superstar’ title when they beat five other groups at the cooking competition as part of The Borneo Post International Education Fair (BPIEF) 2014 activities here yesterday.
The duo from SMB St Theresa received their prizes from the university Assistant Professor of Hospitality Management Peter Hawranek who was also the chief judge.
In second place were Dayang Irna Shamini Abang Hipni and Siri Ahmad Yahya of SMK Teknik Matang while Nurhazifa Hasikin Ihsan and Syed Mohd Azizi Asri Abu Bakar, also from the same school, came in third.
Also present to give away the prizes were the university chief operating officer Dr Lu Huong Ying and judges Adabi executive Chef Abdul Rahim, Chef De Cusine of Beccari Restaurant Gedang Jetom and university lecturer Judy Sung.
According to UCSI senior manager for Student Enrolment Centre Samuel Pui, also participating were the winners of previous season of the Next Big Chef, which was also organised by the university.
For the competition yesterday, six groups took part namely one from SMB St Theresa, two groups from SMK Datuk Patinggi Abdul Ghapor and three groups from SMK Teknik.
Samuel said that the participants’ tasks were to prepare an Italian cuisine – authentic Italian pizza and also the side dish of salad.
The competitors were given an hour where all the ingredients for the dishes were prepared by the organisers (USCI).
The whole event was sponsored by Nestle and Maggie.