MANILA, Philippines - Twelve-year-old Kyle of Marikina was named the first Junior MasterChef after leading the Junior MasterChef Pinoy Edition finale’s two-part cooking challenge last Feb. 18 with his oyster ravioli and Asian fusion shrimp and scallops, which had the judges raving.
Kyle proved his culinary supremacy over fellow kiddie cooks Philip, Mika and Jobim with an overall score of 91.8 points in the Junior MasterChef Pinoy Edition Finale: The Live Cook-off at the Treston International College and took home the P1M cash prize and P1.5M worth of culinary scholarship.
Trailing by only 0.7 points was the Cebu native and second placer Philip (91.1 pts.) who won P500,000 and P1.5M worth of culinary scholarship. Mika (84 pts.) and Jobim (73.4 pts.) got third and fourth places, respectively, and were both awarded with P250,000 and P500,000 worth of culinary scholarship.
Kyle burst to an early lead in the first challenge, which asked the Final Four kiddie cooks to prepare wow-worthy dishes under a P300-budget. Kyle’s astounding oyster ravioli obtained the highest average score from host Judy Ann Santos-Agoncillo, Chefs Ferns, Lau and Jayps, as well as the 100 special guests who sampled the Final Four’s creations live during the finale.
Due to the high scores he got from Judy Ann and the three judges, Kyle managed to take the lead even if Mika’s chicken three-way dish captivated more people from the crowd composed of students, MMDA personnel, doctors, athletes, nurses, teachers, firemen, government employees and businessmen.
The second challenge let loose Kyle, Philip, Mika and Jobim in preparing their dream dishes, which required no cooking method or ingredient, in a nail-biting 30 minutes. Philip ruled this round but fell short in his final score to beat Kyle.
Aside from Judy Ann and the three resident judges, Via Mare restaurant owner and celebrated cook Glenda Rosales Barretto also critiqued the dream dishes and gave Kyle’s Asian fusion shrimp and scallops a perfect score of 10.
The seafood creation enthralled Chef Lau, who said, “I told you before that in seven years, I want you to work for me. I’m sorry but I’m going to take that back; in seven years, I might work for you!”
The kiddie cooks’ live and final culinary battle, with the hashtag ‘#JuniorMasterFINALE,’ also became the most talked local topic on Twitter and the fourth trending topic worldwide. Filipino netizens even showed their support for their favorite kiddie cooks, flooding the micro-blogging site with terms Congrats Kyle, Go Jobim and Go Philip.
Meanwhile, watch out for ABS-CBN’s local version of MasterChef that will showcase adult amateur and home cooks nationwide.