Genalyn Dioso speaks to a taste tester at Canada's Great Kitchen Party in Saskatoon.(Photo submitted/Genalyn Dioso)

By Nick Nielsen

Saskatchewan Bison meets Philippines Lobster Rice

Prince Albert chef wins people’s choice award at Canada’s Great Kitchen Party Saskatoon

Oct 28, 2024 | 4:51 PM

As the Executive Chef at the North Star Restaraunt at Northern Lights Casino, Prince Albert’s own Genalyn Dioso was already an award winning chef before taking part in the Saskatoon edition of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party.

On October 24, seven chefs from Saskatchewan were invited to Prairieland Park in the qualifying event for the Canadian Culinary Championship.

While Dioso didn’t make the podium for the judges’ vote, she did instead win the People’s Choice Award. In the end, Dioso feels she won the more important award, especially since she was the only first time competitor in the competition.

“I still feel accomplished and overwhelmed because it’s the people who speaks for my dish against only a few judges. Maybe the judges have a different perception or different criteria for that, but in the mind of the of the casts, this is what we like. So I feel honored and I feel happy about that knowing that I know how do I satisfy their cravings and I satisfy their taste buds.”

For her dish at the competition, Dioso fused her roots in the Philippines with the roots of the town she now calls home in Prince Albert with a bison tenderloin and black rise stuffed lobster dish. The dish consisted of a piece of bison tenderloin sauced with a wild mushroom and Saskatoon berry demi-glace, paired with lobster stuffed black rice croquette with shaved black burgundy truffle sriracha aioli, all on top of a ‘Three Sisters’ puree made of corn, squash, and beans, the ‘Three Sisters of Indigenous agriculture.

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Chef Dioso’s dish prepared for the competition. (Photo submitted/Genalyn Dioso)

The dish doesn’t just pay homage to her the homes in the Philippines and now here in Prince Albert with the content of the dish, but also in how she sourced the ingredients.

“I sourced out most of my ingredients from our local suppliers. I always support the Bison Ridge Farm located northwest of Prince Albert, so that’s where I got my my bison from. My berries were handpicked by our GM’s executive assistant straight from their berry farm this summer. My black rice from our local Asian store, and my wild mushroom from the north from (Boreal Heartland), it’s an Indigenous company.”

Part of the competition was also finding a wine to pair with the dish, and she chose a 2021 Reserve Meritage from Mission Hill.

Even though she didn’t earn the chance to move forward to the national competition in Ottawa, Dioso still feels like she won the competition. She had the longest line looking to try her dish throughout the night and received a ton of positive feedback from the public that came to try her dish, and she said that her General Manager at the Northern Lights Casino Angela Isbister found the People’s Choice Award to be the more important one as well.

“That’s what my GM said too. What would you like, the people’s choice or the just the choice of the seven judges? She said the people’s vote that matters because it’s the general. There’s more guests than the judges, right? No offense meant to the judges, but they’re probably looking for something else to judge, but I still won the hearts of the of the guests, and it’s a high end competition.”

While Dioso isn’t sure whether or not she will invited to be a part of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party next year, competitors invited once are often invited back again. Earlier this year, Dioso won both the People’s Choice and the judge’s vote at the Wintershines YXE Chefs’ Soup Cook-off back in February.