Winners of NTD Television 2012 Culinary Competition

Stoves blazed, woks sizzled, and mouth-watering dishes flew from the kitchens to the judges’ table.

After two days of fierce competition under the bright lights of New York’s Times Square, the winners of NTD Television’s Fifth International Chinese Culinary Competition were announced.

Three contestants took home the bronze awards: Northeastern style chefs Alex Zhong and Masayuki Kanda, and Cantonese style chef Yu Yang Huang. Each received one thousand dollars.

Two three-thousand-dollar silver awards were handed out, to Cantonese style chef Wen-Chang Hsieh and Sichuan style chef Kefeng Zhao.

It was Yichun Chen—a Sichuan style chef from Australia—who took home the ten- thousand-dollar gold award.

[Yichun Chen, Sichuan Style Chef, Gold Award Winner]:
“It is a great honor to be part of this competition, and very exciting. It’s also a platform that NTD has given me to promote traditional Chinese culture and skills. I’m actually very moved today.”

This is the third time Yichun Chen has taken part in the competition. Last year he won silver.

Chen is so serious about promoting traditional Chinese culture that he’s donating his entire $10,000 dollars gold award to Shen Yun Performing Arts—a dance company specializing in reviving Chinese culture. NTD is also a media partner of Shen Yun.

[Yichun Chen, Sichuan Style Chef, Gold Award Winner]:
“Entering this competition for me, was to achieve a good score. And what would be the result of getting a good score? It is to enable more people to pay attention to this competition and understand Chinese culture. So I decided to donate (the winnings) to Shen Yun.”

This is the third consecutive year the international Chinese Culinary Competition has been held on Times Square. An earnest competition focusing on reviving traditional Chinese cuisine—5000 years in a single bite.