It's a cracker: Smoking Goat wins Scotch Egg Challenge 2018
The Thai restaurant took home the coveted top spot of the cooking competition with its fiery Tamworth pork and southern Thai curry fermented crab scotch egg.
Second place went to former Scotch Egg Challenge winner The Drapers Arms, which impressed with its ham and sage breakfast egg, with the third spot being shared by Nanban restaurant in London and The Star Inn The City in Yorkshire.
Nanban’s entry - a tea pickled egg with pork mince flavoured with Scotch Bonnet, bamboo shoots and garlic chips and a parmesan-ramen noodle panko crumb, and served with a ‘leopard’ sesame pork dipping broth - was among the most inventive of the scotch eggs, sharing its overall score with The Star Inn The City’s duck breast and confit duck leg with pork and crackling crumb egg.
Other entries included a vegan scotch egg, one made with aged beef and haggis with a dashi sauce, a Caesar salad option and a masala dahl egg with crisp vermicelli, aromatic dahl and minted yoghurt.
Now in its eighth year, the competition once again attracted top pub and restaurant chefs from across the UK. Among the 23 entrants this year were Holborn Dining Room’s Calum Franklin, Mick Dore from The Rat Inn in Northumberland, Chantelle Nicholson at Tredwells, Pidgin and Magpie’s James Ramsden, and Ben Maschler from The Compasses Inn in Wiltshire.
Judging this year’s event were Sunday Times Magazine food editor Lisa Markwell, Bob Granleese, food and drink editor of the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, Guardian and New Statesman writer Felicity Cloake, and Restaurant magazine editor Stefan Chomka.
