A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

January is all about catching up on posts from the end of the year. With the holidays and the new year, time just flew! So back at the end of November, Leah, Dori and I headed over to the Harpoon Brewery for the Dundee VI Brawl at the Hall. People packed in to taste meat pies made by local celebrity chefs. Previous winners are as follows: 1) Sam Monsour 2) Chin Kuo (Saus) 3) Samuel Jackson (KO Pies) 4) Chin Kuo (Saus) 5) Current champs, Mike DiSabatino and James DiSabatino (Roxy’s).

In the spirit of competition, they had some pretty amusing chef bios. Here’s just one:

Ryan “The Pork Peddler” McGuire was born on the mean streets of Cape Cod. At an early age he realized that he did not have a jump shot, so his only chance for fame and dollar bills was to sling pork out of the back door of his mother’s kitchen. With bigger aspirations than pork on the Cape, he grabbed his brother Kevin “The Sloppy Sailor” McGuire on a journey to make the greatest pork meat pie known to man. With a slab of pork in one hand and a dark and stormy in the other, they have achieved greatness peddling the world’s best pork pies. They will be entering the meat pie octagon with a mariachi band in tow playing their theme music of “momma gonna knock you out” so everyone knows how serious they really are about knocking out the competition with their pork.

Everyone got a score card that the chefs marked off when you went up to get a pie. The event was really well run, you never really waited in line too long for a pie.

First up the Shepard’s Pie Meat Pie – Stewed lamb and beef, smoked corn gravy, habanero and jack cheesy mash, black garlic ketchup. When I think of lamb, I think gamey. This wasn’t at all and it had a little bit of a kick to it! Some serious comfort food!

Shrimp, Oyster and Crab Gumbo. All the pie crust were made by KO Pies, and this one was perfect. The filling was so flavorful!

“Lobster Rangoon” with butter poached lobster, allium cream cheese and sweet and sour sauce. I think that people were wowed by the ingredients of this pie. It was creamy but the mint and sweet and sour sauces really kicked the pie up a notch.

Al Pastor with pineapple, mushroom and chicharron. This was delicious, well balance flavors and I loved the sweetness.

North Shore Three Way – Roast seasoned beef, American cheese, brown bbq sauce, kewpie and crispy onions.The filling here was tender and the sauce was tasty (but a little too heavy if you must ask).

The Clam Alamb a Ding Dong – a baked stuffed clam pie  with chowder sauce. I didn’t really get a clam taste on this one, garlic overpowered this pie, but don’t get me wrong, we ate this one all up!

The Steakbomb Sub – Short rib, pastrami rub mornay, whipped salami, peppers and onions. The meat was peppery and flavorful and the sauce was thick and creamy – a really well done pie.

Crawfish Pie – Fritos, jack cheese, smoked monsanto corn, essential andouille oil. I love fritos on anything nd this was just perfect. There was a nice crunch and a little bit of a kick – another flavorful pie.

The Pork Hat Pie. I liked the pickle addition, it gave this pie a little but of a punch and the mashed potatoes inside were delicious.

The Chili Mac Smack – with short rib chili, tallegio mac n’ cheese and a wild mushroom salsa. This was one of my top choices – the mac n’ cheese was delicious and the mushrooms melded really well here.

The Ruben – with swiss cheese mornay, mustard, pastrami and kraut. You know Chef Nookie from Commonwealth was going to go big or go home, and he brought his A game with his pastrami pie. It was a like the perfect Jewish deli sandwich in a pie – the pastrami was well seasoned and while I generally don’t love kraut, this was a really nice addition to the pie – subtle.

Chicken and Quinoa Meatball Pie – with Chinese garlic sauce, spicy mayo and spicy peanuts. Kate Holowchik was the only female chef in the competition tonight, and she brought it with her chicken meatballs. While I generally shy away from chicken meatballs in general, these were really flavorful and the perfect texture. The pie would have been perfect on its own, even without the sauce.

Check out the fun photos from the night, courtesy of The Danger Booth! Congrats to all the participants – all the pies were delicious! The winner of the battle was Chin Kuo with his Lobstah Rangoon pie. Nice work Saus for bringing home the championship for the third time!

Participants included:

Samuel Jackson, Michael Serpa, Chris Douglass, Mike and James DiSabatino, Steve “Nookie” Postal, Ryan and Kevin McGuire, Kate Holowchik, Matt Drummond, Dan Amighi, Chin Kuo, Samuel Monsour, and Nicholas Dixon.

Tags: celebrity chef, events, fort point, pie