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Next year, the Brooklyn Eats festival should be filmed as a "Survivor" for the food world. Cameras could trail a group of enthusiastic foodies as they wade through the offerings of 70 restaurants. Camera people would capture the group’s initial comments, "I can’t wait to try the pate and the duck confit! And those cakes!"

As their cameras rolled, viewers would admire the group’s stoic determination to continue as participants’ shaky hands lifted the final bites of cheesecake to their lips. The last man or woman standing who tried everything would win the evening’s equivalent to the immunity necklace on "Survivor" - a day of fasting and massage at a local spa.

The eighth annual Brooklyn Eats, held on Oct. 18 in the New York Marriott Brooklyn, wasn’t filmed for national broadcast. But the event, sponsored by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, tested the endurance of about 800 diners. The evening’s challenge was to sample each of the 62 contributing chef and food purveyors’ delicacies and sip glasses of wine, beer, limeade, coffee and sodas from the 10 beverage vendors. (Not to mention Schnack restaurant’s award-winning beer shakes.)

And game they were. Each diner exhibited their own style - some paced themselves, beginning the evening with small bites of sharp gruyere cheese and a pungent buttermilk bleu to dab with a swirl of port wine reduction from Boerum Hill’s Tuller Premium Foods, building up to the big bang with a slice of Junior’s cheesecake from the Downtown Brooklyn institution. Others jumped fork-first into Mama Duke’s - of Prospect Heights - spicy, peppery barbecued chicken wings with creamy macaroni and cheese then sampled dishes and desserts in no particular order.

As the night wore on, some diners exhibited glassy eyes, an upper lip beaded with sweat and trembling hands - signs of a food hangover - but no one was complaining.

The lure of the chefs’ goods made walking by without a taste impossible for some. The best of the many shrimp dishes (too many some felt) came from Peter How, the chef of Bay Ridge’s Malaysian bistro Banana Leaf, who served large crisp shrimp in light coconut batter atop tiny cubes of wasabi and tamarind-spiked sweet pineapple. Chef Walter Plendner of Archives Restaurant at the Marriott offered huge, tender grilled prawns wrapped in bacon over a sprightly frisee salad, and Basil Jones of Footprints Cafe in East Flatbush dished out hair-raisingly hot, smoky jerk shrimp.

Up there with the best was Great Performances, the caterer of BAMcafe, whose chef, Carlos Gomez, did a riff on traditional southern shrimp and grits. His shrimp were grilled with chipotle peppers, their chili-enhanced sweetness amplified by a delicious side of creamy grits laced with a generous amount of aged cheddar, Parmesan and pungent Asiago cheeses.

Milder but equally good were crisp lettuce leaves filled with salmon ceviche (raw fish and shellfish marinated in citrus juice) tinged with wasabi and topped with crunchy beads of red caviar, an ingenious creation by chef Marc Elliot of Blue Star in Cobble Hill. Monroe Shannon of Akwaaba Cafe dished out rare squares of salmon (not an easy feat with chafing dishes) served with a tangy citrus sauce and a sprinkling of salmon caviar. And, the elegant avocado and crab "Napoleon," a simple disc of the ingredients napped with a tangy lemon buerre blanc and a hit of herbal fresh basil oil, from chef Anthony Rinaldi of the Pearl Room in Bay Ridge, was an understated delight.

Meat eaters headed to the Blue Ribbon table where Park Slope’s chef Bruce Bromberg served sweet and smoky barbecue pulled pork on challah nicely offset by the tinge of anise flavoring in the beef’s partner, a crisp fennel slaw. Somewhere between a meatloaf and pate, was Jim Tackas’ smoked wild boar and venison meat loaf with rich "Brooklyn monster gravy." (Tackas is the chef at the Waterfront Ale House in Brooklyn Heights.) Rebecca Peters of Cocotte Restaurant in Park Slope managed to balance rich and light tastes in her lovely roasted squash and duck confit wrapped in a light, eggy crepe.

Other savory hits that deserve mentioning are the fall-off-the-bone Moroccan lamb shanks with chick pea salad from Five Front in DUMBO by chef Paul Vicino; moist, crisp-skinned, deep-fried turkey from Aricka Westbrooks of Jive Turkey in Fort Greene; the salmon accented with chunks of cinnamon-tinged mango offered by chef Karen Pompey of JRG Restaurant Bar & Fashion Café in Fort Greene; and a delicate, not sweet, eggplant caponata, served by chefs Mario DeBiase and Gregorio Huerta of Sotto Voce in Park Slope that was especially appealing. The chefs from Sotto Voce also poured potent, homemade liqueurs that filled the palate with a clean hit of lemon, basil or rose; the rose was enchanting.

Straddling savory and sweet, was the luscious kabocha (winter) squash and pear bisque topped with pear and melted brie croutons drizzled with a bit of cinnamon creme fraiche from chef Martha Johnson whose cafe, Zoila in Boerum Hill, was a newcomer to the event,

Sweets eaters were lured to the tables by many of the borough’s best pastry chefs. Andrea Lekberg of Sweet Melissa Patisserie, in Cobble Hill, scored big points for her vanilla cake filled with caramel cream and slices of ripe banana; its espresso butter cream icing served to cut the sweetness of the cake. Lassen & Hennigs, the gourmet prepared foods shop in Brooklyn Heights, offered slices of ethereal strawberry shortcake cut from coffee table-sized slabs. The cake’s crumb was fine and moist and the strawberries ripe. Loulou, a French bistro in Fort Greene, attracted a crowd with chef Bill Snell’s light, barely sweet crepe filled with a cloud of whipped ricotta cheese and a slice of Bosc pear, given crunch with a sprinkling of crisp, sweet pecans.

New York City College of Technology students Shakia Hall, Latoya Mason and Ronney Williams, were winners of this year’s Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Brooklyn Eats Scholarships. The three offered a cake developed for the event, "City Tech’s Chocolate Cherry Cake." The dessert’s deep chocolate flavor was lightened with a layer of soft, boozy sweet cherries.

Next year, the same diners, and plenty of others like them, will face the vast tables of food determined to taste everything. A few will succeed. Most will leave defeated. Some will collapse from the strain of overindulgence. That’s the way it goes when the tribal council has spoken.

©2004 Community Newspaper Group