Longville Park Farms herb-stuffed tilapia. - file

The first staging of the Tilapia fish cook-off saw Longsville Park Farms walking away with the best-tasting dish for its efforts with herb-stuffed tilapia in banana leaf, which was the crowd favourite.

Competitors wasted no time to show their flexibility in how best to prepare tilapia and patrons treated themselves to what was on offer.

''This is very tasty and I am loving it; in fact I did not know that this type of fish could taste so delicious, it tastes good man,'' remarked Dalton Maragh as he enjoyed sweet-and-sour tilapia and rice.

His view was echoed by a number of persons who spoke with Food; they expressed surprise at how great tilapia could taste.

Wide variety

The variety ranged from fried tilapia, tilapia in cane juice, jerked tilapia, jerked tilapia breadfruit, tilapia curried and in tomato chutney, tilapia in coconut run dung, tilapia salad, escoveitch tilapia, passion fruit sauce over tilapia, and red curried tilapia in pineapple chutney.

All the participants seemed to have preparing their homework and added their own theme to the fresh-water fish.

It was simply tilapia haven for those who made the occasion a very special one and asked for a repeat of the venture which also supports the ''Eat Jamaican'' campaign.

Elated winner

Philip Bunting of Longsville Park Farms said he was elated about winning the competition.

''This is a great feeling to have come out on top of such an established set of persons in food preparation,'' Bunting said.

The participants were East Japanese Restaurant, Jacqui Tyson, Best Dressed Foods, Casual Gourmet, Little Ochi, Lorraine's Seafood, Murray's Seafood and Longsville Park Farms.

There were prizes for Best use of Ingredients, Crowd Favourite and Most Popular Restaurant.

Patron of the event was Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Dr Christopher Tufton, who endorsed the concept as a step into the right direction.