First of all I’d like thank everyone that voted for me for the Well Fed Awards. I was nominated for Best Food Blog-City and Best Food Blog-Post for my Freeganism story. I didn’t win either (check out Well Fed’s announcement of the winners here) but congratulations to the winners and thankyou to Well Fed for creating the awards!

I can genuinely say that it was truly an honour to be nominated -for I didn’t realise that I would get nominated in a single category let alone two. I was too scared to see if anyone would nominate me (I’m a chicken that way) but my husband would read out the lovely comments where readers suggested my site never thinking that I would even make the final cut when compared to the other sites discussed, nor did I ever think I would get 2 out of 4 Australian nominations (unfortunately no Aussies picked up an award this year). Perhaps I am destined to be the Kate Winslet of the food blog award world I joke!

But seriosuly, again I’d like to thank everyone that nominated and voted for me. Your support means a great deal to me and motivates me to make this even bigger, better and more creative every day. This blog is a testament to how much I value you.

Lots of love,

Lorraine

xxx

And now onto the story…

As I’ve mentioned there was a bit of clash this year with Chinese New Year and Australia Day. So because of this, we were celebrating Chinese New Year on Tuesday the 27th of January instead of the 26th. No matter, more meals and more spread out. It was a win win! We chose Ginger & Spice because we wanted to have some Singaporean and Malaysian food without trekking out too far (my father and uncle dislike traveling for their food, in fact getting them to cross the Harbour Bridge was far enough as far as they were concerned). It’s freezing inside with the air conditioning being turned up to Singapore shopping mall levels.

Ginger & Spice is also interestingly a favourite place of uber chef Tetsuya Wakuda, his image on the wall.

Yusheng Raw Fish Prosperity Salad $78

We’ve ordered this dish ahead as it’s a special Chinese NY dish that A told us about at the Multicultural Australia Day party the day before. They had told my mum about it when she booked but she dismissed it as it was a Raw Fish Salad. However after a bit of convincing she was interested again. We ordered the small as my parents and my uncle dislike raw fish.

Its’ brought to the table on a large platter and consists of shredded radish, sweet potato, carrot, sashimi salmon, ginger, chili, coriander and spring onions. They scatter a peanut sesame mix over it, then a sweet plum sauce and then finally some crackers (deep fried dumpling wrappers).

Flurry of salad tossing!

The whole idea is that you grab your chopsticks and toss the salad together digging your chopsticks deep and getting salad from the bottom.  The higher you toss the better and more luck. And despite their initial fear, my parents and my uncle enjoy this salad.

Whole Hainanese Chicken $34.80

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Regular readers of my blog know that I am crazy about the man but like a lot of Sydney, and the rest of the world, we don’t know a lot about him, apart from the fact that he makes some of the most stunningly masterful creations known to humankind which if anything, gives us a fleeting glimpse into his soul. He’s shy and if I recall back to the first time I met him, nothing like I expected him to look like (I don’t know why but I expected either a portly older gentleman or a skinny ponytailed Franck Eggelhoffer).

To meet the man in the flesh is a surprise. He’s young, modest, agreeable, quite shy and down to earth and possessed with broodingly Brando-esque looks. Nothing like the tortured aesthetically crazed genius that I expected. And he makes the girls go crazy like nothing we’ve seen. A friend of mine, when I told her about meeting him said “Maybe just lick him for me or something” (I didn’t dear reader, although I suspect he might taste of cake, nor did I inquire of her what the ‘or something’ meant). Married or attached friends of mine would profess their outright lust for the man. It seems that a man that creates these beauties can do no wrong with the womenfolk.

I wanted to delve a bit more into the man himself, what fueled his passion and his artistry and so I did what the curious do, I asked for an interview and he was happy to oblige. We talked about his history, growing up, how he comes up with his collections, what he does in his downtime, his thoughts on bloggers, Pierre Hermé and of course the question that everyone wanted to know, whether he is single or not.

It’s a Sunday afternoon when I meet him at his cafe in Balmain, just a few doors down from the shop. He’s late by about 5-10 minutes but calls to let me know.  When he arrives he’s sporting a “I love Betty” t shirt (Betty being the Beresford pub), a few day’s worth of stubble and a New York Jets cap. And of course his eyebrow piercing, arm tattoo (“I’m a bit superstitious,” he has a tattoo of a scarab beetle for luck and his favourite numbers) and shy demeanor. I place my voice recorder down and he straight away asks if I want the music (Come On Eileen currently playing) turned down and I agree with visions of hours of tape of recorded music instead of speech in my head.

The Young(er) Zumbo

Spot the younger Zumbo

Being quite comfortable in Balmain (Zumbo lives here and has both his shop and cafe here) I first enquire about where and how he grew up. He was brought up in Coonamble, near Dubbo, where his parents owned supermarkets, one having a bakery in which he played around after school. He also remembers fondly the other perks of having supermarket owning parents. “I grew up on junkfood. I ate crumbed chicken, Vegemite (which probably explains why his “Zumbo the Kid” cake has Vegemite in it), peanut butter, hot chips with chicken salt, ham panini and pasta with no sauce, only olive oil. I wouldn’t touch sauce, that was yucky and all red with tomatoes.”

Zumbo the Kid-Photo from the Zumbo family.

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