OBX Shrimp CookOff!

     A very special Thank You to all who attended, helped with, and competed in this year’s Shrimp CookOff!  We had a fantastic event enjoyed by over 100 guests!  A lot of local area businesses and friends contributed to making the event fun and we plan to recognize all of them in a “Contributors” tab over the next couple of weeks, just in time for Christmas and Holiday Shopping!  After all, buying local is important, and we want to support those who support our community.

     Now, for the winners of the 2011 Shrimp CookOff:

     The judges chose Renee from the Black Pelican as the chef with the best Shrimp Dish this year!

     People’s Chioce went to Dan from Coastal Provisions!

     The chefs chose Mark from Metropolis!

     All the chefs involved did a great job and there were quite a variety of shrimp dishes represented with something (in my opinion, everything) to please everyone!

Adam Lindstrom from The Port o’Call Restaurant and Travis Robinson from The Sanderling Inn’s Left Bank Restaurant have joined the effort to round out our group of competitors for this year!  That makes for quite a diverse assortment of tasty shrimp!

Matt Hale from Barefoot Bernie’s Tropical Grill and Bar has staked his claim as a returning chef this year!  The lineup is almost complete and a panel of three fun and talented judges has been assembled.  Things are really coming together for this year’s event!

Renee from the Black Pelican in Kitty Hawk is returning with another great new dish idea!  Also, door prizes and silent auction items are stacking up, and our judging panel has been selected and approved!  Our community has been very supportive so far and this is sure to be another great event!

Dan from Coastal Provisions in Duck and Mark from Metropolis in Corolla have said they’ll return to create more great Shrimp Dishes! That makes Five participants so far, Four more to go!

We have confirmation as of yesterday that Chef Tim from Ocean Boulevard will be preparing a dish for this year’s cookoff as well as Chef Rob from Ban Bean Baja Grill in Kitty Hawk!  Christian Benedi will also be back as our MC (he made the event a lot of fun last year) and also as another competitor!  That makes three great Shrimp dishes so far, with more to come!

     The second annual Shrimp CookOff is slated to be held at Ocean Boulevard Bistro & Martini Bar in  Kitty Hawk, NC – from 12:00 noon until 3:00pm.  This casual, fun competition was a huge success in 2010 and raised almost $5,000 to benefit the Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research.  We will have nine competing chefs from around the Outer Banks, cooking fresh, local shrimp in their favorite style of preparation.  A DJ will be keeping up with announcements and door prizes and a silent auction will also be held on the second floor of Ocean Boulevard, with a People’s Choice Ballot.  The bar will be open serving Beer & Wine specials along with your favorite beverage.  The cost per person is $20 at the door, and tickets can be bought in advance at Ocean Boulevard, or at Outer Banks Veterinarian.  Keep up with this blog to see who’s competing, find out about silent auctions, connect to facebook and see who’s coming, etc!