For those of you who watched Top Chef season 5, you’ll recall Fabio Viviani‘s famous line: “this is Top Chef, not Top Scallop” (referring to Jamie’s lack of variety after making her umpteenth scallop dish). I had the chance to meet Fabio this weekend at the inaugural Gig Harbor Wine and Food Festival.

And during our first encounter at one of the tasting booths, Fabio mentioned that he hates cilantro and I smartly replied, “same here, it’s not Top Cilantro after all.” Yeah…not quite as funny when I say it…

Anyway, I accompanied @foodiecritic to the event as her unofficial photographer. I’ll let her give you an in-depth recap in her Belles of the Sound blog post on Friday — be sure to check it out. In the mean time, I would like to give a shout out to the brilliant folks at Anthony‘s for these insanely delicious Ahi tuna crisps — definitely my favorite nibble of the day.

And now I leave you with my Flickr slideshow of the press event and cooking competition between Fabio and chef Craig Haslebacher, who recently beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America.

Ciao!