Tonight: Dine LA Quickfire Competition Champion Crowned in Battle Dessert

Tonight at Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill at LA Live, Chefs Mark Peel (Campanile), Akira Hirose (Maison Akira), Octavio Becerra (Palate Food + Wine), and Eric Greenspan (The Foundry on Melrose), the four finalists in the Dine LA Quickfire compeition, will duke it out for the title of Champion in the final round of the competition, Battle: Dessert. Judging them will be Sherry Yard, the author and pastry chef at Spago, Russ Parsons from the LA Times and Evan Kleiman from Angeli Caffe and KCRW's Good Food.

Each chef in this battle won their preliminary round to advance to the finals.  The championship battle will be held from 6 - 8 pm tonight (Tuesday) and will be open to the public, so bring your sweet tooth as well as your camera. Savory food will be on offer as well, including $6 appetizer specials of spicy tuna tartare and slider trios.

Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill at L.A. LIVE
800 West Olympic Boulevard. Phone: 213.748.9700 Web site: here.

dineLA Cold Soup Quickfire at Petrossian

To help launch this fall's dineLA restaurant weeks (October 3 - 8 and 10-15), dineLA is in the midst of a series of "Quickfire" challenges with some of the top chefs in town facing off in cooking challenges.  The second in the series pitted Celestino Drago of Drago Centro (and other Drago restaurants) against Akira Hirose of Maison Akira in a Cold Soup challenge at Petrossian West Hollywood.  Drago (left) and Akira (right) are pictured below with dineLA director Carrie Kommers (center).

The competition was judged by Petrossian chef Benjamin Bailly, Joshua Lurie of FoodGPS and Esther Tseng of e*star LA.  Each competitor was asked to create a cold soup and include the surprise ingredient of California caviar.  The voting was close but Akira edged out Drago 2 to 1 with his winning dish of French Vichyssoise (below).

You can be part of the action in the third of three preliminary rounds tomorrow from 6 - 8 pm at Starry Kitchen where Chef Octavio Beccera of Palate Food + Wine and Chef Brendan Collins of Waterloo & City will compete in the "Cold Noodle Challenge." If you have always dreamed of being in the audience for an "Iron Chef" style competition, this is your chance as the competitors use one of Starry Kitchen’s signature ingredients: Oyster Sauce, Hoisin Sauce, or Coconut Milk, and offer their interpretation of “Cold Noodles.”

The judging panel will include Starry Kitchen’s Executive Chef Thi Tran, Jeff Miller from Thrillist.com, and Krista Simmons from the Los Angeles Times’ Brand X. Attendees and guests can watch the noodle madness while munching on $5 Happy Hour specials previewing Starry Kitchen’s dineLA menu, including Crispy Tofu Balls and Chicken Wings.