MISTER JIU’S at LEE HO FOOK

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival celebrates 30 years of collaborative community showcasing excellence, after being unable to be held for the last 2 years - we are grateful as an industry to be able to share our ideas, collaborate on menus and showcase the best of Melbourne with the rest of the world. We have always been a collaborative environment at Lee Ho Fook. Being able to host guests again and show them the best of Melbourne whilst giving them a platform to showcase their style of hospitality in our amazing city has been very rewarding.

Having Brandon Jew from San Francisco visit and cook his brand of American Chinese cuisine has been a meeting of the minds, Brandon’s approach to custodian cooking sees him research the cuisine’s traditional aspects and the new frontier more modern aspects of the cookings approach. Highly intelligent and deeply emotional approach to delicious food.

Our industry has always had a great sense of camaraderie and community, during these events where we are on the world stage it unites us all and gives us all a sense of family and solidarity, especially after a particularly tough 2 years. As we have all recently realised, we are more connected than we think.

‘All under heaven and within the four seas, all men are brothers’ - Confucius

4th April, 2022

THE IMPORTANCE OF VEGETABLES IN CHINESE CUISINE

Vegetables are integral to Chinese cuisine, so much so that the colloquial term for cooking in Chinese is to ‘Zhu Cai’ - literally meaning to cook vegetables. Linked to balancing a meal, medicinal purposes, textural pleasure and good health. The embracing of vibrant and local vegetables have been a hallmark of inventive and creative Chinese cooks the world over.

I remember when we first arrived in Australia and my mother would simply stir-fry zucchini and squash with ginger she bought at the supermarket until she could figure out where the local Chinese grocer was, to later replace them with more familiar greens like bok choi and gailan.

As we evolve our cooking style, we work closely with local growers and farmers to continue this pillar of our cuisine, locally, passionately and carefully grown vegetables, on all of our menus, it’s our constant homage to the traditions of the past and our ethos moving into the future.

8th January 2022

FOUR DANCES OF THE SEA - the Importance of Cheong Liew

Growing up there weren’t many Chinese Australian chefs, I remembered reading names of great chefs in food magazines and in newspapers and marvelling in their dishes and hoping to one day visit their restaurant. Cheong Liew the chef at the Grange in Adelaide stood out the most, and like me grew up in Malaysia, I remember getting his cookbook, My Food for my 14th birthday and reading these recipes that sounded a lot like the food I ate growing up, but with great finesse and using local South Australian ingredients.

His iconic dish, the Four Dances of the Sea - four varieties of seafood in four distinctive national styles that influenced Cheong’s cuisine style was a marvel to behold. I’m glad to have worked alongside Cheong at Tasting Australia in 2017, we shared meals, told stories, drank too much wine and cooked our menu over 2 nights.

With his blessing I continue the Four Dances in our style, proudly continuing his legacy of cuisine in an Australian Chinese lens.

8th November, 2021

FANFARE - Farewell Golden Century Seafood Restaurant

Golden Century was an iconic meeting place and late night supper establishment in Sydney’s Chinatown on Sussex Street. Opened to 4am it was a natural meeting place for supper and cooked a range of classic high quality Cantonese delicacies. We all ate there. I went there most with my brother Arthur, also a chef. It was always opened and we always ordered the same dishes. It was a meeting place we loved and were familiar with. It made us closer and proud of Chinese cuisine in Australia.

Their influence on the hospitality landscape can be seen through the proliferation of XO sauce on menus all over the country, chefs eating their signature pippies with XO sauce, then thinking to reinterpret a version of XO sauce of their own - this is highlighted in Pat Nourse’s great Gourmet Traveller article - we say farewell to Golden Century this week, and mourn the loss of a very important restaurant. A victim to the pandemic and decline in foot traffic in Sydney’s Chinatown - a reminder to support your favourite restaurants and the hospitality industry with your constant patronage - if you don’t feed it, it doesn’t grow.

21st August 2021

TASTING MENU

Lee Ho Fook is constantly evolving, with it’s latest iteration being a tasting menu only. We’ve made the decision because I feel it tells the story of Chinese cuisine better. The menu is set out in 4 acts - with 10-12 dishes at dinner and 6 dishes at lunchtime with the option to add on your favourite classics. I feel the course progression allows us to explore the multitude of tastes and textures and to showcase the Australian wines we hand select in a broader more layered presentation. I look forward to welcoming you all back to Lee Ho Fook.

Best,

Victor - 13th February 2021