By Brooke A. Jumbelick

Sunday, May 15, 2011, Myrtle Beach — With some 200 gala attendees looking on, Chef Eric Masson of The Brentwood Restaurant in Little River won the 2011 Coastal Uncorked food challenge champion with local seafood.

Coastal Uncorked Food, Wine & Spirits Festival wrapped up a week's worth of events with the second annual gala event at the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes, when seven local chefs battled for the title of 2011champion.

The evening's events began with open tasting booths, live jazz and ice sculpting. Approximately 200 guests attended the event, and the majority of the crowd were local residents. Tickets were $75.

Judging the event were Matt and Ted Lee, brothers from Charleston who are cookbook authors, and Tony Hirsh of Myrtle Beach with the local chapter of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, which is an international food and wine society.

Judges received the rules and regulations prior to the event, and those rules and regulations were posted at the judging station throughout the competition. Attorney Nancy Gryniewski was also close by to ensure those rules were adhered to. None of the judges were paid to attend the event, they said.

This was Tony Hirsh’s second year judging the event, and he said, “I am very excited to be a part of the best chefs in Myrtle Beach competition.”

Ted Lee elaborated by saying, “I am not only very excited, but I take this event very seriously. The objective and what is most important is to judge the chef by what they set out to do and how well they met their intentions.”

Each judge rated the competing chefs from 1 – 10 with a total of 30 points being the highest score awarded in each round.

The 2010 winner and challenger was Mike McKinnon of The Cypress Room at Island Vista. The six competing chefs were James H. Clark, The Marina Inn at Grande Dunes, Bradley Daniels of Croissants Bistro and Bakery, Andrew Gardo of The Sea Captain's House, Andreann Geise of Mykonos, Eric Masson of The Brentwood and Eric Wagner of Horry Georgetown Technical College. Andreann Geise was the only female and competed with a broken leg, complete with cast.

Round one featured Chef James Clark competing against Andreann Geiss, Brad Daniels competing against Andrew Gardo and Eric Wagner competing against Eric Masson. Each competition lasted 12 minutes and featured a ‘mystery ingredient’ announced seconds before the challenge began.

Winners of the first round were James Clark, Brad Daniels and Eric Masson. Eric Masson scored the highest winning points of the three, so he sat out as James Clark and Brad Daniels entered the semi-final competition. James Clark won against Brad Daniels, and moved into the semi-finals with Chef Masson. Masson won the semi-finals by one point, and moved into the finals with Chef Mike McKinnon for the 2011 title.

Mystery ingredients for the final round were coastal seafood including hog snapper, shrimp and little neck clams.

Eric Masson won the event and title of Top Chef for the Second Annual Coastal Uncorked. Before the event started, Masson said, “I am very excited...I am very happy to be a part of the event, a little nervous, but very happy.”