The dessert is upside down cheese cake with lemon curd, together with crackers and cheese.
Executive chef Kenny Ngubane dared to cook outside his comfort zone during the second Tsogo Sun’s Chef Challenge recently hosted at the Aarya restaurant in Montecasino.
Executive Chef Kenny Ngubane challenged his cooking skills in the second round of the Tsogo Sun Chef Challenge.
Ngubane was tasked with preparing five courses taken from the Aarya menu for a group of selected ‘foodies’.
Deena Naidoo, the first winner of MasterChef SA, works at the Aarya restaurant most nights and showed up to support Kenny Ngubane during the former’s chef challenge.
The challenge was created by the Tsogo Sun in order to take the hospitality group’s leading chefs away from dishes that they are familiar with in order to test their culinary abilities. Participants were also expected to serve the menu in a tented picnic-style area on the Montecasino grounds.
The second chefs challenge is hosted at Aarya restaurant at Montecasino and is attended by food bloggers and media personnel.
The first challenge in the series saw Chef Gareth Jordaan taking up the cooking gauntlet at the Lucé restaurant in Hyde Park in October of last year.
Ngubane was excited to take up the challenge next. “To be in an environment that I am not accustomed to is very liberating, and a breath of fresh air,” Ngubane said, adding that to him the most difficult aspect of the challenge was being outdoors without easy access to the resources he was used to.
Pizzettes (smaller pizzas), a firm favourite on the Aarya menu among diners, is served as starters.
The menu comprised five dishes from the Aarya menu including, canapes, a lamb pizzette starter, a mixed leaf salad, a trio of curries as the main course and an upside down lemon curd cheese cake for dessert.
The main course for the challenge is Deena’s trio of curry, with a vegetarian option of two meat-free curries and deep fried vegetables.
Present at the challenge was Deena Naidoo, who was the first-ever winner of MasterChef South Africa in 2011. “I’m mostly here to support Kenny during his challenge. It’s also wonderful to spend some time outside the restaurant kitchen and with people who know and love food [like I do],” Naidoo told Fourways Review.
Ngubane started his cooking career in 1990 when he got his first job at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg after finishing matric. He has been with Tsogo Sun since 2007 and is now an executive chef at Montecasino, often working alongside his colleagues at Aarya.
