Lunch with Adam Liaw

I have been a busy little bee lately. Though, clearly, not a busy little blogging bee, so now it’s time to play major catch up. It’s been a fairly epic past week actually, I had the honour of meeting he of MasterChef Australia fame, Adam Liaw, which I’ll tell you a little more about in just a minute. And in upcoming posts, I’ll spill on my star-spangled evening with fellow SA cookbook authors at the RandomStruik Open Book evening in Cape Town last Friday. Also, Rob turned 30! And we ate and drank our way through a dramatically unhealthy amount during a weekend of fun with friends in Cape Town and Franschhoek, which you’ll want to hear about, because you’ll want to go and eat at Maison Estate very, very soon. But for now, let’s talk about lunch with Adam Liaw, shall we?

LG and Food 24 ever so kindly invited me to join their media table at one of the Joburg Good Food & Wine Show pre-events last Wednesday, where the guest of honor was none other than Adam Liaw, and the food was ‘heritage fare’ cooked up by MondoVino Restaurant chef Arnold Stuurman. Also briefly in attendance was South African Masterchef winner Deena Naidoo. Like I said before, I was geekishly excited for this day to come.

‘Heritage Fare’? Take a peek at the menu…

There’s my menu (signed. did you see that?)

Including a first for me in the form of chicken feet, more fondly known in South Africa as ‘walkie talkies’.
Curried, these were totally delicious.

Chef Arnold Stuurman

Main Course
Mini bobotie, Kudu boerewors and Pork Belly potjie

And what about Adam?
Is he as nice and self-deprecating in real life as he seems on TV? Absolutely yes.
When we met at lunch just got off a plan that had brought him from Northern Japan (where he was with his wife) – Tokyo – Sydney – Perth – Joburg so suffice to say I wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t even known which day of the week it was, but he still had a warm smile for each and ever star struck one of us that lined up to chat to him.

Is he planning on opening his own restaurant? Youbetcha. In Sydney, hopefully in early 2014, and it’ll be a Japanese ‘pub’ style place, with laid-back food that’s packed full of flavour (of course).

Is he writing another recipe book? Yip. Adam has already published ‘Two Asian Kitchens’ on the back of his Masterchef Australia, and the concept of his second book will be ‘Asian after work’. It’s about no-mess no-fuss food, favouring the Japanese style of ‘people up and not chef down’ cuisine. I love it already.

His favourite South African food so far? Malva pudding.

I also wanted to know what Adam’s favourite dish is that his wife cooks for him. He said it’s a kind of Japanese ‘mille feuille’ with layers of chinese cabbage and pork baked together in a ‘potjie’ style with ponzu sauce. Sounds amazing.

And, random facts for you, did you know he started University at the age of 16 (studying Law, no less) and he also free-lance food writes for the Wall Street Journal. Pretty cool hey?

Also, Adam was in town as a guest judge at the Good Food and Wine Show, and one of his roles was judging the LG Home Chef Championship.

Joanne Harding and Kerry-Ann Chaston emerged winners of the South African leg of the competition and will soon be heading to Dubai to compete in the Middle East and Africa LG Home Chef Championship from 8-10th October 2012.

The winning pair will receive a five day return trip to Paris, where they will enjoy a full day Le Cordon Bleu class as well as a prize of two LG smart phones. The event will include 13 teams from 7 Countries, including UAE, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.