By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – The dish that will be chosen as the signature flavor of this year’s Garlic Festival can be relished year-round at a local restaurant.
Each year, hundreds of amateur chefs submit recipes to the Great Garlic Cook-Off in hopes of having their dish selected as the winner following a live show judged by professional chefs and food critics.
Although the recipe is widely distributed after the festival, the food itself is usually savored by only a few.
Now, Mama Mia’s Ristorante Italiano will add this year’s cook-off winner to it’s menu and make it available to customers until a new dish is chosen at next year’s festival.
“We get a lot of people all across the year, they come to Gilroy and they want to taste the garlic and taste the Garlic Festival food,” said Majid Bahriny, owner of Mama Mia’s.
In fact, so many garlic-lovers come to the Garlic Capital of the World in search of the pungent herb that the Visitor’s Bureau has a booklet that points them in the right direction. The “Guide to garlic in Gilroy,” as it’s called, provides information about the festival, directs visitors to stores where they can buy garlic products, and includes a list of six restaurants that feature dishes with garlic, said the bureau’s Pam Giminez. Mama Mia’s is one of the restaurants on that list. Other restaurants include Black Bear Diner, Harvest Time Restaurant, The Clubhouse at Eagle Ridge Golf Course, Ashford Dogs, and J.R. Brewski’s.
“Majid and Mama Mia’s were pretty instrumental as far as helping to fine-tune the penne pasta con pesto recipe,” said Jen Speno, president of this year’s festival, referring to the pesto dished that was revamped last year and is on the restaurant’s regular menu.
“As a matter of fact, we have like five or six different garlic items that are from the Garlic Festival on our menu,” Bahriny said, that includes garlic chicken, garlic scampi, and calamari.
The restaurant earned the right to sell the cook-off winner by making a $5,000 bid to the Garlic Festival Association. The association sent a proposal to all the restaurants in Gilroy, and Mama Mia’s was the first to respond.
Bahriny said the cook-off dish will be sold at all four of his restaurants in Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Felton and Campbell.
The winner will belong to one of eight chefs from across the country who will hit the cook-off at 10am on July 30, the second day of the three-day festival.
One of the eight finalists out of 474 entrants is a local, who claimed the cook-off stage in 2001. Adam Sanchez, owner of the Gilroy Jeep, Mazda, Volkswagen dealership, will prepare “Gnock Out” garlic gnocchi this year.
Other finalists include: Curry seafood gumbo with saffron sake by James Gray of San Jose; Basis and garlic-stuffed sea scallops wrapped in prosciutto with spicy beurre blanc by Mary Beth Harris-Murphree of Tyler, TX; Baked chicken in garlic, pears and champagne sauce by Leslie Pew of Lynn, MA.; Pancetta wrapped turkey breast with garlic and wild mushroom stuffing and Tuscan pesto sauce by Bob Hayden of San Francisco; Garlic flan with lime grilled shrimp on wilted arugula by Marion Stevens of Rancho Mirage; Garlic appetizer de-lites by Alice Hagopian of Montclair; and Cosmopolitan garlic seafood pie by Boni Passmore of Antelope.
Lori Stuenkel covers crime and public safety for the Gilroy Dispatch. Reach her at 847-7158 or ls*******@gi************.com.
