IT’S National University’s time to shine. After taking the much coveted championship in the UAAP Men’s Basketball Championship and the equally celebrated Cheer Dance Competition, National University once again shows its domination — this time in culinary arts—when the school won the Grand Prize in Gardenia’s Next Big Sandwich Hit, a three-stage, sandwich-making competition whose Grand Finals took place at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia recently.
The National University team, Bianessa, made up of Bianca Cadizal and Vanessa Andrada, emerged on top of the 10 competing teams after battling it out in a tough and grueling three-stage competition. During the Grand Finals, the teams, composed of HRM and culinary school students, had to complete the two main components that made up the competition—Audience Vote and Main Cooking Challenge.
To get the Audience Vote, all 10 teams had one hour to prepare and serve out 100 bite-sized sandwiches to the audience, who then cast their votes.
For the Main Cooking Challenge, the teams had 40 minutes to prepare two thematic full-sized sandwiches to the judges. They had to make a Sexy Sandwich, defined as a healthy yet delicious sandwich; and a Philippine City Sandwich, which is a sandwich that best represents a certain Philippine city. The teams drew lots to pick their assigned Philippine city during the Elimination Round. For the Sexy Sandwich, they had to use any or a combination of Gardenia Classic White Bread, Gardenia High Fiber Wheat Bread, Gardenia High Fiber Wheat Raisin Loaf, Gardenia Wheat Cranberry Loaf, Gardenia Slim n Fit Wheaten Bread and Gardenia Wheat Pandesal. For the Philippine City Sandwich, the teams used Gardenia Classic White Bread alone or in combination with Gardenia High Fiber Wheat Bread, Gardenia High Fiber Wheat Raisin Loaf, Gardenia Wheat Cranberry Loaf, Gardenia Slim n Fit Wheaten Bread or Gardenia Flavored Bread.
National University’s entries, Pan Grilled Herbed Chicken and Tofu with Balsamic Reduction (Sexy Sandwich) and Pan Fusionado (Philippine City Sandwich, with Manila as featured city), stood out, won the nod of the judges and went on to win the Grand Championship. The team took home Php80,000 in cash, Php30,000 worth of Gardenia breads for business, Php50,000 worth of breads for the winning school plus kitchen appliances.
La Consolacion College, whose Sexy Chefs team is composed of Maria Beatriz Sarte and Adryx Ivan Rafols, was named first runner-up. Sarte and Rafols’ entries were Gardenia Healthy Box Sandwich (Sexy Sandwich) and Longganiza Royale: Vigan’s 7th Wonder Sandwich (Philippine City Sandwich, with Vigan, Ilocos Sur, as featured city), which won for them Php40,000 in cash.
Emerging as second runner-up was Philippine Women’s University, represented by the Dream Team of Roven Jayson Amistad and Jose Mari Tanglao, who made Gardenia Sexylicious Tuna & Shrimp Tempura Overload (Sexy Sandwich) and Gardenia Creamy Durian & Coffee Duo Sandwich (Philippine City Sandwich, with Davao as featured city). The team took home a cash prize of Php20,000.
The Grand Finals of Gardenia’s Next Big Sandwich Hit competition was made to coincide with the celebration of the Happy Bread Day and attracted crowds because, aside from the competitions, guests were treated to a number of other attractions. These included product sampling; and the Hit Maker’s Sandwich Bar, which allowed everyone to ‘customize’ their sandwich by pressing buttons representing the kind of bread they like plus two fillings, and the actual sandwich was ‘dispensed’ by the machine in a matter of seconds. Celebrity mom Donita Rose was also around to conduct a sandwich-making demo on stage, after which she picked members of the audience to taste her sandwiches.
“In the end, more than just the prize money, the real winners of this competition are all the 10 teams who participated, as they definitely learned the real value of hard work, teamwork and resourcefulness,” says Gardenia marketing manager Thea Tan.
The other schools who joined the competition were Adamson University, Far Eastern University, St. Paul University Quezon City, St. Scholastica’s College Manila, University of the East, University of the Philippines and University of Sto. Tomas.
