Winning Chef Paul Mok, left, of Gate Gourmet Sydney receives tickets on Thai Airways from Kawin Asawachatroj, vice president of on board catering and equipment administration department at Thai Airways

Gate Gourmet chef wins for Down Under favorites

A panel of five judges picked a selection of Australian seafood with native herbs and wild lime sauce created by Paul Mok of Gate Gourmet’s unit in Sydney as the winner of the chef competition at the IFSA Global Leadership Conference held last week in Phuket, Thailand.

Four chefs submitted entrees to the panel of judges during the opening day of the conference June 7, in an afternoon session. Mok was given the award as the winner the final evening of the event. In addition to the trophy, Mok received two business class tickets on Thai Airways for taking top honors.

Three other chefs competed in the event: Takayuki Hosonuma of TFK Corp. in Tokyo; Wilfredo B. Quilatan of Philippine Airlines and Zoppis Santo of Thai Airways International.

Judging the event this year was JP Guerin, executive chef and director of costing at CLS Catering Services Ltd. in Vancouver; David Lau of Do Foods in Bangkok; Rapeepan Luangaramrut, president of Kuhn Reed Corp.; Masaru Morita, Western Cuisine Chef of TFK Corp. and last year’s winner, Take Tsuchihashi, senior general manager of marketing and sales at Jamco Corp. in Tokyo and Francis Sengol, vice president of sales and marketing at HACOR, Inc. in Los Angeles.