Taiwanese chef is pick of the young crop at regional competition

Already a hot destination for foodies, Taiwan further bolstered its culinary reputation recently when Chuang Yu-Hsien, the executive chef at Master Ming's Danzai Noodles in Taipei, took home the top prize at a regional cook-off.

The cooking competition, sponsored by condiment giant Lee Kum Kee in partnership with the World Association of Chinese Cuisine, lured 48 young chefs to Hong Kong for a head-to-head, two-day Chinese cooking challenge.

The challengers - from Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan - were told they must cook in the Chinese style and were limited to preparing either prawn or steak dishes and using only the company's condiments.

With these restrictions, competition organisers hoped to steer chefs away from expressly regional cooking styles and level the playing field. Still, local touches were apparent on the plate, from the clean, unadorned presentations from Japan to the ever-present chillies and sub-continental flavours of the Malay Peninsula.

Competitors were judged by a panel of Chinese master chefs from across the region. "In the course of the competition we've seen a lot of 'new' sauces," says Singaporean judge chef Pung Lu Tin.

By the second day of the competition, the enormous kitchen classroom at the Vocational Training Council in Pok Fu Lam was thick with steam and fatigue was starting to show amid the clang of pots and pans. Chefs in their freshly pressed whites dripped sweat as they fussed over the final touches to their dishes or leaned against the walls awaiting judgment.

With only 90 minutes to complete their dishes, time management was the biggest challenge for many competitors.