De­vi­ka Ram­lochan

The Li­ons Club of Port-of-Spain Cen­tral, held its an­nu­al fund-rais­ing gourmet event-Dine Around the World with Port-of-Spain Cen­tral Li­ons-at the Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, in Port-of-Spain on Au­gust 27. The culi­nary com­pe­ti­tion was fierce, and guests were treat­ed to a wide ar­ray of in­ter­na­tion­al dish­es. Judges Kath­leen Git­tens, Althea Rocke and T&T Guardian Fea­tures Ed­i­tor Pe­ter Ray Blood were faced with the dif­fi­cult task of judg­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, as the teams pre­sent­ed ex­ot­ic, unique and tasty dish­es and recipes rep­re­sent­ing spices from sev­er­al cul­tures around the world.

In the end though, St Mary's Col­lege (CIC) emerged win­ner of the Best School, Best Sea Food Dish was award­ed to Joseph Bar­ry with No Rest & Re­lax­ing (No R&R), Best Tast­ing Meat went to Mark Bish­op with More Than Five Per Cent Pork, and the Best Veg­gies ti­tle went to De­r­ick Legall with Fun­kee Chun­kee Veg­gies. In third place for Best Over­all Win­ner, Cos­ta Ri­can Am­bas­sador Ri­car­do Thomp­son Thomp­son with his Am­bas­sador's Pork and Beans tied with Joseph Bar­ry's No R&R. Bar­ry's St Mary's Col­lege side­kick, Rod­er­ick Ward, placed sec­ond with Rod's Pep­per Ribs, while the Over­all first place win­ner was Mark Bish­op. Guests so­cialised, sam­pled dish­es, en­joyed the avail­abil­i­ty of the bar and danced the evening away.

The en­ter­tain­ment kicked off with an auc­tion of an artis­tic piece from the col­lec­tion of Mau­reen Ot­ti­er, de­sign­er and artist. This was fol­lowed by a sen­su­al Ara­bic dance per­for­mance by Raean­na Ramd­hanie, af­ter which Harpist David Singh showed off his tal­ent. Pro­ceeds from the event will go to­ward ma­jor na­tion­al projects. The Li­ons Club of Port-of-Spain Cen­tral, for­mal­ly called the Trinidad North Li­ons Club, came in­to ex­is­tence in May 1962.