Food Jury 08

The Festivals Company today (26/02/08) announced the names of the three National Independent Judges responsible for deciding the winner of the Welsh Curry House of the Year 2008 competition. The three judges will now visit the final three restaurants before announcing the winner during an awards presentation at the Senedd on 12^th March 2008.

"I’m delighted that Shadek, Uma and Peter have agreed to be the 2008 judges. Between them they have all the bases covered to tackle the task ahead of them as they visit Swansea, Llanrwst and Llanelli over the next couple of weeks," said Berwyn Rowlands, Festivals Company.

Peter Stead, Uma Sims and Shadek Ali are pictured above.

The Welsh Curry House of the Year 2008 will be featured in Some Like it Hot on ITV 1 Wales starting Thursday 20 March 2008 at 10.35pm. The competition is sponsored by Kingfisher Lager and Meat Promotion Wales.

Peter Stead

Swansea based writer, broadcaster and cultural historian Professor Peter Stead is a self confessed curry fanatic. His passion for Indian cuisine started during his university days sharing one or two curries with Neil Kinnock! Extensive travelling over the past 40 years, including many visits to India, has allowed Peter to experience traditional Indian cooking at first hand.

Uma Sims

Cookery Tutor Uma Sims established Cardamom Queen in October 2005 to provide genuine, high quality Indian food to the more discerning customer in the Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff areas. Her locally sourced produce includes Welsh Lamb in the meat dishes (Lamb Pasanda and Lamb Rogan Josh) and Organic potatoes in the Bombay Aloo with all dishes free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. Cardamom Queen’s unforgettable Kulfi - was nominated for a Waitrose Small Producer Award.

Shadek Ali

Shadek Ali’s Sopna Indian Restaurant at Pontrug near Caernarfon was the 2007 winner of the Welsh Curry House of the Year competition. He is known to his customers as Sid and has been running the popular North Wales restaurant for almost 4 years. At the end of 2007 Sid opened a second Sopna Restaurant in Menai Bridge offering the people of Ynys Mon (Anglesey) an opportunity to taste his award winning food.