LUCKY COUNTRY
Australia is spoilt when it comes to Chinese food, writes LES LUXFORD, but it wasn’t always the case. He takes a retrospective tour of how far we’ve come.
Australia is spoilt when it comes to Chinese food, writes Les Luxford. He takes a tour of how far we’ve come.
Australia has the best Chinese food outside Asia. Better than London, New York, Paris or San Francisco. Better even than Vancouver. We can enjoy steamed prawns that were live a few minutes ago, fresh mud crab, pipis in XO, Cantonese duck and Tung Po pork. We can even get very Cantonese dishes like steamed pork cake with salted eggs or squid with fermented prawn paste. There are fiery dan dan noodles from Chengdu, big Beijing dumplings perfect for a freezing morning, lion’s head meatballs from Shanghai and dishes the Chairman himself may have eaten from Hunan.
But it wasn’t always this way. Before we had Lee Ho Fook or Mr Wong things were pretty crook. It took the work of many passionate and talented Chinese Australians to start the revolution.
The first wave of Chinese immigration began during the gold rushes of the 1850s. They came from the villages of southern China seeking their fortune. Those who struck it rich immediately returned for the good life in China.
The rest, like my maternal grandparents, were condemned to eke out a living in a foreign land.
Many cooked for the locals as well as their clansmen, and the Chinese café was born. But these men and women were not trained; they cooked basic homestyle dishes which became tainted with Australian tastes, especially after a bit of intermarriage. The infamous White Australia policy of 1901 stopped the arrival of new blood and new ideas, and we ended up with bright red sweet and sour pork with canned pineapple, nothing like the original Cantonese delicacy.
By the time man had set foot on the moon our Chinese food was still in the dark ages – lup sup (rubbish), as Cantonese visitors would say – but things were slowly changing.
In Sydney a group of southern Chinese who couldn’t return to China when World War II broke out set up Tai Ping in Chinatown. The food was mostly genuine and they adapted Australian ingredients. The problem was that most dishes were inaccessible unless you could speak Cantonese or were a card-carrying member of the ALP.
Some waiters were openly hostile to the gweilos. I remember film director Barrie Smith ordering squid and being asked if he’d like good squid or bad squid. “Only bad squid today,” said the young waiter – I was told there was a secret code to indicate a special
customer, and another for gweilos, who no doubt had their meal prepared by the most junior cook. Nonetheless even the “Aussie-style” Chinese dishes were so good there was always a queue. We had developed a taste for fried dim sum, spring rolls and special fried rice.
I was there the day it changed. As a young film editor I had been tasked with taking Peter Prager, the famous producer of Coke commercials and bon vivant, to lunch. We had the same waiter. Peter grabbed the menu. “Bring steamed and fried gow gees, dim sum, spring rolls, three-storey prawns, pork ribs with plum sauce, Billy Kee chicken, fish in blackbean sauce and special fried rice. Now what do you want, Les?”
After this huge lunch Prager threw
$20 on the table. That was an unbelievable tip in the days when a bottle of Penfolds Bin 389 cost considerably less than $3.89.
Next time we went for lunch our young waiter spied us, pulled us out of line and showed us to a table over which he ostentatiously threw a crisp white tablecloth. He then recited specials we never knew existed. Soon the restaurant was transformed, with waiters eagerly suggesting dishes to the growing crowds of Australians seeking the real thing –
Tai Ping became the preferred restaurant for long advertising agency lunches for Sydney’s “mad men”, and the ALP campaign that saw Gough Whitlam come to power was planned at its tables.
The great leap forward was Flower Drum, which opened in Melbourne in 1975. Owner Gilbert Lau, who immigrated to Australia in 1957 and worked in Canada and the US, insisted on service that rivalled the best of
Europe. His waiters, some of whom are still at the Drum, were drilled in the art of serving Westerners. He even had a sommelier from Hong Kong’s famous fine diner, Gaddi’s, and a wine list featuring the best of France and Australia.
The kitchen was just as radical. Gilbert insisted on the very best ingredients, whatever the cost. His ducks were from a small supplier, and even today the Drum’s roast duck sets the standard, with the requisite crisp skin, the breast meat very slightly rare and a delightfully sweet, pure duck taste. He championed the best Australian fish with superb steamed Murray cod becoming a signature. His congee was served with raw sliced beef fillet cooked by the heat of the boiling gruel. A simple omelette was transformed when cooked with lobster meat and loads of cream.
The Drum was soon recognised as one of Australia’s very best restaurants and made the World’s 50 Best list. Gilbert is now retired but the Drum lives on.
Back in Sydney, Eric and Linda Wong opened Golden Century in 1989. Like Gilbert, Eric insisted on the very best ingredients and had a wall of fish tanks, just like the finest Hong Kong restaurants. The service remained rather Chinese, but Sydney’s chefs understood the quality – it’s still a chef’s canteen, where they go for mud crab congee and cognac in the wee hours after service – and their pipis in XO sauce is imitated in just about every Cantonese restaurant in the country.
Sydney would have to wait until Mr Wong before they had a restaurant to rival Flower Drum’s service. With a carefully crafted menu and a wine list put together with the backing of the Merivale empire, it’s probably Sydney’s finest. But the battle is on, with the
Wong family having added an extensive wine room dining space to the venerable Golden Century and preparing to open a modern Chinese restaurant, XOPP.
Others have contributed to the fine Chinese food we now enjoy. Mathew Chan, who looks after his regulars like no other at Peacock Gardens. Ying Tan, who tried to introduce real Cantonese seafood to Sydney’s Crows Nest when he had Ying’s. Lee Ngann Ly, always known as Mr Lee, who shared Gilbert’s passion for the very best ingredients at Palace and now The East. Tong Lau, a chef from Hong Kong’s famous Yung Kee, who opened Sea Treasure and now has House of Tong, brought pure and unusual Cantonese dishes to a wider audience.
After Tiananmen Square in 1989, with Bob Hawke granting residency to the many Chinese students in Australia, we’ve seen the emergence of non-Cantonese restaurants. Now we enjoy the food of Shanghai, Beijing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Hunan.
And a new generation, often the sons and daughters of the pioneers, are opening restaurants that combine the best of tradition with Aussie innovation. Think Fei Jai, Super Ling, Lee Ho Fook and Lau’s Family Kitchen – the family patriarch Gilbert shares his favourite recipes on p98.
An old Chinese proverb goes like this: live in Hangzhou (the best views), marry in Suzhou (the prettiest women), dine in Guangzhou (the best food) and die in Luzhou (the best coffins).
Hong Kong is still the food mecca, but if you don’t want to fly for nine hours, enjoy Flower Drum, Mr Wong, Golden Century, and all the Cantonese and regional Chinese restaurants that make Australia the lucky country when it comes to eating outside of Asia.
The ALP campaign that saw Gough Whitlam come to power was planned at Tai Ping’s tables.