Nine a.m. Friday: The members of Kapi'iolani Community College's Team Hawai'i, winners of the western region American Culinary Federation Student Team Competition, have been at work in KCC's Asian Kitchen for 2 1/2 hours. They're practicing for the national competition in Orlando, Fla., July 13. Today, and on half a dozen days before their departure July 7, they'll run through the four-course competition menu for 20 guests who have paid $250 a plate for the sneak preview (and a chance to offer constructive criticism).

Posted on the stainless steel doors of the refrigerator units that line one wall are timelines that detail every task to be accomplished in the next four hours, with the number of minutes each should take. Service is to begin promptly at 11:30 a.m. The team of five — a sixth member, Ken Yi, in charge of logistics, is meeting with chef-instructor Alan Tsuchiyama to discuss the trip — works intently, largely in silence except to call for a needed tool, warn of a hot pot or request the aid of an extra pair of hands. Occasionally, an insistent timer breaks into the mood of concentration.

By noon, 24 meals (four are for stand-in judges) have gone out, the last one emerging 7 minutes over the allotted time, a great improvement over their first effort, which took 30 minutes longer than it should. But in contrast to backstage at "Top Chef," there are no high-fives, no bottles of wine or beer, no jokes or jiving post-mortems.

That's because they're still competing: Within 30 minutes, the four chef-instructors who are acting as judges today will be in the kitchen, expecting to see pristine surfaces, all food stored, all dishes washed. They'll even inspect the stainless steel containers labeled compost, trash, recycle, to be sure nothing useful has been discarded.

Admittedly, it's not world peace. But standing in a corner trying not to get in the way, it's difficult not to get caught up in the seriousness of this effort, for these students, for the college and for the food scene in Hawai'i in general. It does feel, as team leader chef Frank Leake has said, rather like preparing for a UH championship football game (if they ever got into a championship).

A win would make history; while Maui Culinary College's team has competed in the nationals, no Island team has ever emerged victorious. It will give a big boost to these students' careers and the reputation of KCC and the whole state culinary training system. And, with a multimillion-dollar fundraising effort under way to pay for a new headquarters for the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at the old Cannon Club site, any boost has a most practical application.

Meanwhile, the kitchen smells like Thanksgiving: crisping duck skin, buttery confections baking, a currant sauce bubbling.

Team captain San Shoppell, 47, is the coach (though they're here on this day, neither Leake nor Tsuchiyama will be allowed to be present for the competition or to guide or communicate with the students in any way).

She exorts: "How are you doing, guys?" she calls out at intervals, expecting answers and probing if someone's answer indicates a problem. "Stay focused! Keep pushing," she calls out every few minutes.

Instructs: When one competitor repeatedly calls the name of team member Anna Hirano, who today is expediter, in charge of fetching, carrying, keeping time and washing up, Shoppell admonishes, "Come talk to her. Don't just call her name. Tell her what you need." (Poor Anna's name is called half a hundred times — pot! bowl! spoon! gloves! clear this up! She gets a workout.)

Consults: As she puts together various chutneys, dressings and other flavoring agents, Shoppell repeatedly ducks over to the hot line to get chef student Tate Nakano-Edwards to taste her creations.

Despite signs of tension — Shoppell's hands are shaking and her sidekick, Rena Suzuki, is clearly flustered when a batch of cheese tuiles burns — work continues and there are no "Top Chef"-style outbursts. Politeness rules. Every time Hirano shouts out the time remaining, the team responds with thanks. Every time someone passes behind someone with a hot pot, they call out a warning.

Suzuki is hurriedly preparing fussy garnishes, which must be sliced as precisely as milled machine parts. Like Hirano, she is originally from Japan. Periodically, the two forget themselves and call out "hai!," instead of "yes," and she affectionately calls Hirano "Anna-chan."

Nakano-Edwards has a half-dozen things going at once: shreds of leek crisping in hot fat, duck legs cooking in a hissing pressure cooker, vegetable steaming, two sauces bubbling, a mousseline of duck and truffles poaching. He seems unfazed despite sitting in the (literal) hottest seat.

Keaka Lee, pastry chef for this outing, displays an unflappable solemnity. He pipes chocolate, whips up an Italian meringue, cuts shapes in a cake so thin it resembles a Silpat sheet, forms tiny balls of coconut sorbet on a chilled piece of marble. He talks not at all until just before his own service begins, when he suddenly begins calling insistently for help in completing the half-finished plates.

Team leader Leake observes closely, but he's beaming, too, proudly relating the news that on Sunday, the team is to be inducted into the prestigious Chaine de Rotisseurs, a venerable group of passionate food enthusiasts. It's rare for students to be accepted to membership if they're not actively involved in Chaine events, he says.

"It's a measure of how important this is."

Meanwhile, Tsuchiyama is contemplating an undertaking along the lines of a safari: wrangling 27 hefty pieces of luggage and cargo, some of it perishable; liaising with Roy's Restaurant in Orlando and a former student, chef Nora Galdiano, to help get the fresh ingredients they can't transport; planning for every contingency.

In the end, it all comes down to the plate (we can't tell you what's on it right now, except that there's a fish course, a salad, an entree and a dessert — the team doesn't want their competitors reading this). Leake explains that the judges will be looking for evidence of a variety of skills and techniques in each dish.

Tsuchiyama is smiling as the cleanup work begins.

"This is a great improvement," he says. "I feel optimistic."