The City and Mee: EATING : The Scotch Egg Challenge 2012 at The Ship

The Scotch Egg Challenge 2012 at The Ship Wandsworth

Today is the day! (or, rather Tuesday was the day!) The hotly contested Scotch Egg Challenge 2012...

This week I headed down to one of my favourite riverside pubs in London - The Ship. This pub has seen me spend many hours soaking up the sun over summer, but as the nights draw in and the temperatures drop I headed there on Tuesday for a very different purpose - to eat eggs!

Tuesday saw the highly anticipated Scotch Egg Challenge take place - complete with celebrity judges, Michelin starred competitors and a crowd that can only be described as West London's eagerest human gannets.

The judging panel consisted of seleb chef and television presenter Gizzi Erskine, master Pâtissier Eric Lanlard AKA Cake Boy, Fortnum and Mason’s executive chef and owner of The Walnut Tree Shaun Hill, foodie writer David J Constable and James Knappett from Bubbledogs(Which I've yet to visit but am planning a trip soon!)

The eggs provided by the Fulham Football Club Chickens for the Ship's Scotch Egg offering

Photo by @ShipWandsworth

One hungry crowd

Whilst the judges chowed down on the eggsellent competitors we swayed about in the surging crowd, clutching our Bloody Marys and awaited our first bite of these yummy treats... after 15mins of no scotch egg action we eventually had to give up on trying to sample the competition egg's - the crowd was so large, and with us being quite near the back I figured we would be lucky to get a look in.

Instead we snuck off and approached the grill outside - ordered a burger, some of the Ship's delicious ribs and got ready to lick our wounds. And lo and behold - at that moment, guess what - I spotted the last few of the Ship's own offering of hot little scotch eggs, just sitting there... me being me I pestered the chefs to throw in an egg with our meal and luckily he obliged.

With our hands finally on one of these yummy sausage and breadcrumb coated eggs, and enough sauces to last a life time we headed outside to the Ship's riverside terrace and sat down to enjoy the meal! And boy was it DELICIOUS.

Our Ship Wandsworth Scotch Egg (winning sauce? Brown sauce)

The Rib's.. mmm

So who won?

The special David Constable Best Scottish Egg Award went to Peyton & Byrne for their braised pigs cheek and shoulder, with oatcake and crackling crumb. (I spotted Oliver Peyton himself putting in an appearance)

Third prize went to The Drapers Arms - who made a black pudding version with pork and panko crumbs - won third prize.

Second prize was awarded to The Hinds Head - with their truffled quail egg wrapped in a mix of Iberico pork sausage meat and lardo.

And the first prize - went to the Eggselent Bladebone Inn in Berkshire for their 'ham, egg and chips' made with duck egg, truffled layer and a potato and parma ham breadcrumb.