For her competition dish, Dioso merged her Philippine roots with those of the city where she now calls Prince Albert home with a bison filet and a black-skin stuffed lobster dish. The dish consisted of a piece of bison filet topped with a wild mushroom and Saskatoon berry demi-glace, accompanied by a lobster-stuffed black rice croquette with black truffle sriracha aioli shavings. from Burgundy, all on a “Three Sisters” corn puree, squash and beans, the “Three Sisters of indigenous agriculture”.

The dish not only honors her in homes across the Philippines and now here in Prince Albert with the contents of the dish, but also in the way she sourced the ingredients.

“I purchased most of my ingredients from our local suppliers. I always support the Bison Rich Farm located northwest of Prince Albert, so that’s where I get my bison from. My berries were hand picked by our General Manager’s Executive Assistant directly from their berry farm this summer. My black rice from our local Asian store and my wild mushrooms from the northern (Boreal Heartland), it’s an indigenous business.

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

Even though she didn’t earn the chance to qualify for the national competition in Ottawa, Dioso still feels like she won the competition. She had the longest line to try her dish throughout the evening and received a ton of positive feedback from the crowd who came to try her dish, and she said her general manager at Northern Lights Casino, Angela Isbister , had found the public prize to also be the most important.

“That’s also what my general manager said. What would you like, the choice of the people or simply the choice of the seven judges? She said it’s the people’s vote that counts because it’s the general vote. There are more guests than judges, right? I don’t want to offend the judges, but they’re probably looking for something else to judge, but I still won the hearts of the guests, and it’s a top-notch competition.

Dioso has already been contacted to participate in Canada’s Great Kitchen Party next year, and she plans to compete again. Earlier this year, Dioso won both the people’s choice award and the judge’s vote during the Wintershines YXE Chefs Soup is prepared in February.