There were rolls of pastry and meat, and an octopus lay slain on a platter. The krai's second annual cooking contest, held at the White House July 16, drew chefs from 70 restaurants, hotels and canteens from 12 cities around the krai. And they demonstrated that food from Primorye goes beyond mere pelmeny and pancakes and potatoes. As restaurants are developing, she added, it is natural to have contests among cooks. And it gave food businesses a chance to recruit chefs from throughout the region.
Cooks let their imaginations run hog-wild.
There were a few non-sequiturs, though. Whole baked chickens, their beaks and coxcombs still attached to their shriveled heads, were arranged like ducks on a glassy fake pond. Svetlana Koba from Ussury Restaurant whipped up a cake shaped like a ship. But the White House's own cooks, sneaking out of the kitchen to snitch samples, were unimpressed. In the end, neither the ships nor the crab won.