The ‘guru’ of FusiOn

Rashmi Uday Singh’s Good Food Guide

The anticipation is building up. This is it. I am in one of Australia’s finest restaurants and about to taste the ‘All Australian national dish’ cooked up by ‘one of the world’s hottest ten chefs’. Welcome to Adelaide’s ‘The Grange’ where Chef Cheong Liew weaves his wok magic and conjures up ‘Four Dances Of The Sea’. So, if you had any hackneyed pre-conceived notions that Australian food is about kangaroo steak washed down with a pint of Foster’s lager, then you can watch them being blown to smithereens.

Because, here masterly contemporary Australian cuisine reigns,a seamless blend of east and west and much more. “My cuisine is about understanding and appreciating cuisines of different countries and then cooking from the heart,” explains Cheong Liew the soft-spoken and affable Malayasian born Chinese whose fusion of Asian culture, Australian ingredients with classical French techniques has won him the titles of ‘Father of Modern Australian Cuisine’, ‘Guru’ and many others.

Foodies would do well to detour to Adelaide on their Aussie itinerary and pay homage to this great master’s food.

Savour the ‘Four Dances Of The Sea’ with all your senses. Four small islands of seafood on a bare white plate, eaten clockwise in ascending strength of flavour, constructed with 50 separate ingredients, tiny fillets of soused snook (Pike) on avocado slices with a wasabi mayonnaise, thin slices of raw cuttlefish with squid ink noodles, slices of poached octopus with a garlic mayonnaise and spiced prawn sushi with glutinous rice. You got to try his ‘Edible Harmony’ menu and experience the harmony and balance of his creations. Try ‘The Maestro’s Vegetarian’ menu of smoked soy beans and enoki mushrooms, pickled curried eggplant and hazelnut tart, tomato jelly with tarragon and enjoy the dance of the flavours with the varying textures. The menu is masterly and short and includes seafood, black bone chicken, roast suckling pig and dessert exotica, including black rice and palm sugar pudding and more. Before I end, I have to point out that I am not at all a fusion-food-fan, but these are creations in a completely different league. You pick up each nuance and texture and some linger like a well-appreciated forgotten melody, while others surprise and please. There’s no doubting that you’re in the presence of a maestro.