From SBS Food Five Indian restaurants have been awarded Michelin stars in the UK since 2001. Ed Charles investigates how the trend towards Indian fine diners is progressing Australia. When Chandra Kanodia opened the Phantom India restaurant in June 1979 on Swanston Street in Carlton, just outside the City of Melbourne, it claimed to be [...]

From SBS Food As he hits Australia to promote his new book A Day at El Bulli, Ed Charles catches up with the man who is changing the way we relate to food. There is no easy way to explain the food of Ferran Adria at El Bulli, which has been unanimously voted, for the [...]

From SBS Food Sure Alba has it’s gothic towers dating back to the 12th century. Yes, there really isn’t anything else than can match the easy European charm of the town, some 75km south or Turin in Piedmont, with it’s wonderful rustic food, wines and cobbled ancient streets. But really the whole point of Alba [...]

From SBS Food Phununication Do not say foe Do not say foo And especially don’t Say the word which describes a “number two” Start with an fff To be followed by an urgh Once it become un-Pho-gettable You’ll get with the slue. An extract from Phonunication courtesey, Katie Nguyen from the I Love Pho booklet. [...]

From SBS Food For something that is more or less an underwater snail, the humble abalone has done pretty well for itself. Twenty years ago a Chinese grocer would pay a few dollars for a barrow load of the ugly blighters known as ‘Muttonfish’ picked out of Port Phillip Bay. Nowadays this mollusk, or to [...]

From SBS Food Ed Charles takes a tour of Beijing’s culinary underbelly and uncovers the seven strangest foods you’ll find in the Olympic City. You can encounter some pretty weird food in Beijing. But mostly it is designed for tourists more than the locals. “For westerners going to China for the Olympics, if they want [...]

From SBS Food The hunt is on! Ed Charles joins Victorian truffle farmers as they seek out the heady aromas of this most mysterious funghi. Spice, is two weeks from pup, but the two year old Australian Shepherd, whose pedigree name is Mazasuka Star Struck, wants to do the job she was trained for. That [...]

From SBS Food Deep-fried scorpion, silk worm pupae and wok-fried beetles – all excellent sources of protein. Ed Charles takes a look at Western food taboos and the people who break them. Cows are seen as a civilised food. Insects are not. It is a division that partly accounted for Australia’s first European settlers villifying [...]

From SBS Food Chilli is an essential ingredient in many cuisines throughout the world, featuring in everything from from piping hot vindaloo to Portuguese piri piri sauce, but who started the fire? Ed Charles investigates. Christopher Columbus has a lot to answer for. He was the first European on record to find chillis, and now, [...]