Yu Bo’s Sichuan banquet at Sydney International food festival
Is it possible to talk about Sydney and Melbourne without making a comparison of which is best? I think not.
And so is the debate between which was the best food festival this year: the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival or Sydney.
I went to both on freebies, although sponsored by NSW Tourism this trip was $$$$$$$$$$.
I think Sydney wins for its focus and theming on Asia and perhaps reflecting the food culture of Sydney, which is a far more Asian city than Melbourne which is still mostly obsessed with Europe.
Also from what I saw of both, despite the big named chefs attending, there were more hits in Sydney and misses in Melbourne.
The two parts I really paid attention to where the Chinese chefs and the sessions which highlighted something I’d always had been conscious of but never really thought about – the influence of Japan on French chefs.
I’ll tackle France next post.
Here I want to talk about the woman I want to run away to China with author Fuchsia Dunlop, who undoubtably in my mind was the star of the festival.
Quite simply if you want to know anything about Chinese, or Sichuan food Dunlop is the woman.
I sat in two sessions with her, one in which she demonstrated dishes including the delicious Fish Fragrant Eggplant, which isn’t fishing but prepared using a method usually used for fish.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBiVCOiR4XI]Dai Shuang’s porcupine buns as recorded by Amanda from Spread My Butter
The most exciting session was with Sichuan chef Yu Po from Chengdu and his wife Dai Shuang’s (Yu Bo’s wife) porcupine buns, where each spine is cut using shears.
Some of Australia’s top chefs were mesmerised while Dunlop explained Yu Po’s Sichuan food and food culture in China. He presented some 25 dishes, not the chilli laden clichés from Sichuan but each artfully carved, tied or sculpted from the most humble of ingredients.It’s worth taking a look at my Flickr group of dishes here.
8 Comments