HAIL TO THE CHEF

PALMER — It’s five minutes until his deadline and chef Eric DuBey moves with speed and efficiency. He carefully places a piece of perfectly barbecued coho salmon atop a mound of German potato salad drizzled with a balsamic reduction. The fish is moist and flaky, but doesn’t break.

With a garnish of crispy shoestring potatoes, the picnic salmon dish DuBey so carefully constructed is about to be dissected.

As one of three chefs to be invited to compete in the Alaska Seafood Throwdown challenge at the Alaska State Fair, DuBey takes the competition seriously. As the only Valley resident in the cook-off, he represents local residents.

“It’s my turf all right,” he said. “You always want to do well, impress the judges and the people.”

As chef/owner of 36 Bistro in Anchorage, DuBey is looking to expand his mark on the Southcentral culinary scene. And his food is familiar to Valley residents. He lives near Hatcher Pass and cooked at the Best Western Lake Lucille before doing a stint at the Glacier Brewhouse in Anchorage.

“Ultimately, my goal is to open up a restaurant in Wasilla,” he said, adding it won’t be too uptight. “Just fun and good food.”

DuBey grew up in Soldotna and moved to the Valley 12 years ago, but his place at the Seafood Throwdown was earned last year when he won two of three rounds and all the people’s choice awards at the fair’s Beef Throwdown.

He was also a hit on Sunday, winning one of the people’s choice awards and placing second overall to Patrick Hoogerhyde of Glacier Brewhouse. Rounding out the lineup was Naomi Everett, a chef and instructor at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s culinary school. It’s a friendly rivalry between longtime chefs. DuBey and Hoogerhyde worked together at the Marriott restaurant and DuBey was the chef at Glacier Brewhouse before Hoogerhyde.

“He was my sous chef at the Marriott,” Hoogerhyde said of DuBey. “We teach each other and we definitely have different styles of cooking. Eric is great, so this is a good competition. Eric likes to do a lot of Pan-Asian. He’s straightforward with his cooking techniques, but likes the pizzazz, the flair.”

That Pan-Asian flair was evident in DuBey’s first dish, a miso-glazed salmon skewer served with bean sprout kimchi and a wasabi aiole sauce. It was a dish that even impressed the judges, Annalise and Jens Hansen of Jens’ Restaurant in Anchorage, and seafood supplier Greg Favretto.

Because seafood is the specialty at Jens’ Restaurant, “It’s going to take a little bit to impress us,” Annalise said. “I thought they did quite well. They tried to do interesting things with the salmon, like the barbecue sauce.”

In the end, DuBey’s picnic salmon was memorable, she said. “That potato salad with it was very nice and interesting.”

While the chefs worked three furious rounds cooking original dishes — two salmon and one cod — fairgoers enjoyed a refreshing twist on typical fair food. Nothing in the throwdown tent spent any time in a deep-fat fryer.

“It’s nice to have fair food that isn’t deep fried,” said Lisa Davis, admitting she’s had her share of that at the fair. “Oh yeah, I’ve had a cream puff, the potato chips, I’ve had the cheese curds.”

Even the younger generation appreciated a more upscale taste at the fair.

“This is pretty good,” said 14-year-old Andrew Nelson of Palmer around a mouthful of DuBey’s picnic salmon. “It’s kind of sweet and spicy at the same time.”

It was that spicy kick that impressed Dave Daum of Anchorage, who put his people’s choice token in DuBey’s bag.

“I thought it had a little more flavor that the other ones, a little more kick,” he said. “It was cooked perfectly, nice and soft, cooked to perfection. The potato salad was good, a little different.”

Wasilla resident Dale Majeske was impressed with DuBey’s potato salad, but gave Everett his nod for her grilled salmon with tomato butter and rice pilaf.

“I thought (DuBey’s) potato salad was great, but the fish was still raw,” he said. “And with (Hoogerhyde) we ran into the same problem — it was raw in the middle.”

Others, like Tom Swavely of Palmer, weren’t as critical. They know good food when they taste it, even if they don’t know what it is.

“This is really good,” Swavely said, munching on Hoogerhyde’s barbecue salmon with arugula and spinach salad. “I like this leaf. The sauce on the salmon, I haven’t recognized it yet, but it’s really tasty.”

After five hours of cooking, serving the public and being judged, DuBey said he would’ve like to win, but is fine finishing second to a friend. Winning a people’s choice award was gratifying.

“I respect what the people say,” he said. “You have three judges who may waver, but these people don’t particularly know me or any of the other chefs. They’re going to tell you the honest truth. If they like it, they like it. If they don’t, they don’t. I think it went really good. We talked to a lot of people and I’m glad we came and did this.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.