Taranaki twin toastie battle that’s smoking hot
Twin brothers Richard and Freddie Ponder’s first foray into the world of toasted sandwiches would send a shudder down any chef’s spine.
“Me and Freddie used to come home from school and chuck some cheese on white bread with tomato sauce, into the microwave,” Richard said.
Now, some two decades and a bit later, the award-winning New Plymouth chefs have moved on from the microwave and are both entered in the Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover.
Each year the increasingly popular Mclure’s Pickles promotion leads to an explosion in toasted sandwich offerings around the country.
This year 170 eateries are competing to have their toastie judged the best.
And the best is definitely what Freddie is chasing. Last year the smoked eel and pickled caviar toastie at Shining Peak, where he is executive chef, netted the New Plymouth bar a top-three finish.
This year he has stuck with a similar approach to ingredients, opting for locally caught, hickory-smoked snapper with pickled celery bread, smoked cheese, rocket and chilli aioli, pickle juice foam and, as is required in a pickle promotion, Mcclure’s sweet and spicy pickles.
“I looked through what others were doing,” Freddie explained. “Most people were using ham. I just try to keep it simple and nice and try to put a unique touch on it.”
The smoked snapper certainly does that, providing a striking yet smooth flavour as well as a satisfyingly soft contrast to the toasted bread. “It’s hard to make a bad toastie, but you have to be pretty good to make a good toastie,” Freddie advised.
Richard, whose decision to enter spurred Freddie’s, isn’t necessarily aiming to win the cheesy crown of best toastie on behalf of Haukai Bistro and Bar, where he is executive chef.
He just wants to beat his brother.
“Just kidding,” he said, not altogether convincingly. Richard’s toastie is a close cousin of a cheeseburger.
There’s mashed local Angus beef, smoked cheddar, grilled bacon, plenty of Mcclure’s sweet & spicy pickle and even smoked Mcclure’s pickle foam.
“I just thought about what I would like to eat in a toastie,” he said of the deliciously rich and faintly familiar sandwich that is best bitten into following a generous dip in the foam.
The brother’s toasties are currently within five votes of each other on the allimportant People’s Choice leaderboard, meaning it could go either way before voting closes early next month.
Yesterday, Freddie’s snapper sandwich was in 42nd place with 26 votes, while Richard’s smash burger toastie was in
48th place with 21 votes. But they are both behind Brunchroom, the Urenui eatery whose vegetarian smoked Ferry Rd halloumi, roasted garlic mushrooms and rocket was in 18th place with 53 votes.
House Wine and Joe’s Garage in New Plymouth and Upside Down Eatery in Hāwera have also entered the toastie competition.