Making the dream

It is a place where good food is not a stranger, or so the people who have eaten there before told me.

The Cypress Columns, a banquet hall tucked away from the traffic in Gray, is just the kind of venue someone might want for a night of inspired noshing. So on Aug. 20, I acceded to an invitation and found myself in the midst of the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s Culinary Showcase, hosted by the organization’s Bayou Chapter.

The money people paid to get in – $25 by reservation and $35 at the door – bought them entry into a wonderland of food.

Chefs from 20 local restaurants dished out samples of their work, and some of it was quite complex and awfully tasty.

There was a stage where Randy Cheramie, of the John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, did the Master of Ceremonies thing, introducing chefs who cooked their specialties right there in front of everybody. Servers later brought to the tables the creations from the stage.

Some of the chefs were people I had seen before, like Randy Barrios from Flanagan’s in Thibodaux and Duke LoCicero from Cafe Giovanni. At one point up there on the stage was a young fellow talking with Randy, who was cooking up there and I figured he must have been a student or something.

It was later on, in the parking lot, that I saw a figure still clad in a chef’s smock, trudging to where his car was parked, as the sun was going down. A brief conversation revealed that he was the student that had been there with Randy. But I also learned that he is a lot more than just a student.

Kenni Bergeron began working as a dishwasher when he was 16-years-old, at Zen Restaurant in Houma, and at the time, he was looking at the potential of a career in criminal justice. The dishwashing was a gig, was all.

At least in the beginning.

But Kenni paid attention to what the sushi magicians at Zen were doing, and he found it to be kind of cool.

Zen owner Ethan Huynh thought his interest was worth developing, and suddenly Kenni found himself learning to cook the rice just so, and cut the fish and the garnishes and lo and behold, he had become, over time, a sushi chef.

“When I would bring dishes up to the sushi bar, I would see what they were doing, and Ethan noticed I had an interest in it and that’s how it started for me,” said Kenni, who learned about saucing and getting the roll not to fall apart and how to vinegar the short-grain rice.

He transferred to the culinary side of Nicholls and now is learning a lot more things from people like Randy.

And right there in the parking lot of Cypress Columns, talking about his future and how he had made a sushi dish called OMG Sushi and the people really liked it.

“It’s our most popular special roll,” said Kenni. “It has the perfect balance of sweet and savory, and it’s got kind of a kick to it. All the flavors really balance very well.”

Kenni has a lot of chances to try out his creations on family, too, what with having three brothers and four sisters, as well as his mom and dad, to cook for.

So what does Kenni see himself doing 10 years from now?

Making the dream

Randy Cheramie (at left) addresses the crowd at the Louisiana Restaurant Association Bayou Chapter’s Culinary Showcase, as student and chef Kenni Bergeron prepares his OMG sushi roll.

JOHN DESANTIS | THE TIMES