Pe­ter Ray Blood

Last week­end was re­mark­able and it had noth­ing to do with Re­al Madrid de­feat­ing Atleti­co Madrid to win the UE­FA Cham­pi­ons League Cup on Sat­ur­day, or the as­ton­ish­ing last-ball win by Mum­bai In­di­ans over Ra­jasthan Roy­als in the In­di­an Pre­mier League on Sun­day; not even the medal run by our men and women on Sun­day at the IAFF World Re­lay Cham­pi­onship in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas.

I was en­thralled on Sat­ur­day night at Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, Wood­brook, by the live en­ter­tain­ment pro­vid­ed by the Li­ons Club of Port-of-Spain Cen­tral, at its an­nu­al Caribbean Gourmet Flavours, es­pe­cial­ly that of Kay­na–Yu­yaric Group of Ecuador.

Oth­er artistes on the billing in­clud­ed the T&T Chi­nese Steel En­sem­ble, Wasafoli, Trop­i­cal Rhythm Boys and The Car­tars, but the trio of Kay­na re­al­ly caught my ears and cap­tured my heart. Led by Pablo Mal­don­a­do Morales, the group's reper­toire in­clud­ed ro­man­tic reg­gae, Bol­ly­wood hits, ca­lyp­so and in­dige­nous An­dean mu­sic. Kay­na made every­one sit up and take no­tice when it played Bun­ji Gar­lin's Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy.

De­scribed as "the on­ly Ecuado­ri­an group to play African mu­sic," Kay­na's piece de re­sis­tance was its in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Flavour's Nwa Ba­by,made pop­u­lar lo­cal­ly this Car­ni­val by Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon as Chuku Chuku.

Al­so some­what of a nov­el­ty was the T&T Chi­nese Steel En­sem­ble, which com­prised young peo­ple in the main. This en­sem­ble al­so won much ap­plause with its reper­toire of pop­u­lar items.

Judged by Deb­o­rah John, Ir­ma Han­nays, Karen Granger and yours tru­ly, the ac­tu­al cook­ing com­pe­ti­tion fea­tured chefs from the Li­ons Club, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, Bel­mont Boys' Sec­ondary, St Mary's Col­lege, St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege, South Africa High Com­mis­sion and guests cooks, in­clud­ing T&T Guardian Fea­tures Ed­i­tor Fran­ka Philip. The lat­ter served up a tangy Tamarind Pork which proved pop­u­lar with the many din­ers. Al­so evok­ing a col­lec­tive nod­ding of heads was the Fa­ti­ma Col­lege team, led by Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip and Kei­th Simp­son, and Paul Brath­waite's mush­room stroganoff con­coc­tion named "Hash tag what de Ras-put-in."

At the end of a de­light­ful evening of good food and en­ter­tain­ment, the award for Best Pre­sen­ta­tion went to the South Africa High Com­mis­sion team, its high com­mis­sion­er Mau­reen Modis­elle ac­cept­ing the prize her­self.

Jus­tice Holdip (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege) copped the award for Most Orig­i­nal Ti­tle, his pork dish named "Farmer Nap­py say is big peo­ple pig­gy: Sec­tion 34 cut in­to 201 pieces." This dish was al­so vot­ed Best Meat, tied with Pen­ny had a lit­tle lamb, served by Nigel Mitchell of Team QRC.

The oth­er high­light of my week­end gone was the open­ing of Howzat, Wood­brook's newest lim­ing spot, lo­cat­ed on Tra­garete Road, just af­ter Have­lock Street. For­mer­ly known as La Casa de Ibiza, the es­tab­lish­ment is now un­der new man­age­ment, the mem­bers of the pop­u­lar Cray­on Crew, one of the coun­try's most vis­i­ble par­ty/show out­fits. Mem­bers of the man­age­ment team in­clude Nicholas and Nigel Howard, Canuth John­son and Kevin Critchlow.

Chat­ting about the new ven­ture this week, Howard (Nicholas) said: "You can call it ma­tu­ri­ty. We, the mem­bers of Cray­on Crew, have moved on from par­ty­ing to se­ri­ous busi­ness. At Howzat we are pro­vid­ing af­ford­able lim­ing in the west. Sim­i­lar spots in the East and Cen­tral have very low prices so our aim is to equal or bet­ter them.

"We are open every day and part of the Howzat am­bi­ence is to pro­vide cus­tomers with not just low, af­ford­able food and drink, but con­tin­u­ous sport­ing cov­er­age. We al­so in­tend or­gan­is­ing our own sport­ing events."

As if to sup­port the claim of low prices, a Carib beer at Howzat goes for $9. The venue al­so of­fers an open air back­yard space, as well as a foy­er. Seen on Howzat's open­ing day were re­tired army Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ed­mund Dil­lon, T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance MD/CEO In­grid Lash­ley and for­mer par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary Kath­leen Mo­hammed.

Re­sults

Li­ons Club of Port-of-Spain Cen­tral Caribbean Gourmet Flavours:

Best Dessert: Ken Pierre–Cheese cake

Best Veg­e­tar­i­an: Joy Dil­lon–Sacha and Shar­ma; A me­l­on­gene ra­tio­nal melange

Best Seafood: Kei­th Simp­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege)–Seafood casse­role

Best Poul­try: Re­nee Simp­son (St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege)–Anand's Prison Po­lo

Best Meat (tie): Mal­colm Holdip (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege)–Farmer Nap­py say is big peo­ple pig­gy: Sec­tion 34 cut in­to 201 pieces

Nigel Mitchell (QRC)–Pen­ny had a lit­tle lamb

Most Orig­i­nal Ti­tle: Farmer Nap­py say is big peo­ple pig­gy: Sec­tion 34 cut in­to 201 pieces–Mal­colm Holdip (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege)

Best Pre­sen­ta­tion: South Africa High Com­mis­sion.