Knife and Fork Wins the Quarter Finals of the 2012 WNC Chef's Challenge at Pack Tavern Asheville

(Note: Once you click above, you'll be able to drag up and down and around in the panorama.)

My favorite dish: Chef Nate Allen, Gaelan Corzine, and Elizabeth Scultenover made an incredible sweet potato doughnut with candied hog jowl (which Nate, during the post-dinner Q and A, called "face bacon").

Nate and company had stiff competition from Jesse Roque of Never Blue Tapas Bar and Grille and her Thai potion-soaked ribs, served on a bed of sweet potato au gratin and topped with a cilantro creme fraiche gremolata.

(Yes, I did go home and look up the origin of "gratin" and "gremolata" -- the first from grate and the second from the Italian word for a stick used to beat the fibers from hemp or flax -- the gremola.)

The semi-finals of the 2012 Chef's Challenge will be sometime in August.