WA produce showcased in China forum

Local Mangrove Resort Hotel apprentice chef Phillip “Rocky” Mckenzie has travelled to China as part of a three-day “East x West Forum”.

The culinary event organised by the Pilbara Regional Council of Western Australia and sponsored by Pardoo Beef Corporation featured a dinner for 300 WA and Chinese invitees at the Four Seasons Hotel in Shenzhen on April 11 to sample the best produce WA has to offer.

Mckenzie, who is also known for starring in “Bran Nue Day” said he was enjoying the Chinese environment which is not unlike Australia and using the best produce available including Pilbara snow crabs, Exmouth lobsters, Pardoo beef and fine Australian wines or spirits in his cooking.

“The trip has been pretty cool, we’ve seen authentic China and it was really interesting — the weather is very similar to Broome, it’s warm and very, very humid so I didn’t have to acclimatise to it,” he said.

“I’m trying to get a lot of native foods into my cooking and I’m trying to implement native indigenous foods manipulated with modern day cooking — for example, we’ve made desert lime oil into a snow to go on the freshwater marron dish and even with the pavlovas we are using wattle seeds”.

Fellow chef, West Australian food ambassador Don Hancey said the team including expert WA chefs Stephen Clarke and Stuart Laws had put “thousands of hours of work” into the event.

“It’s been absolutely magic, there will be Chinese chefs coming over in the future and I’m pretty confident there will be trade to come out of this in both tourism and export,” he said.

“Fostering fellowship over such a unique meal can be one of the most powerful means for us to continue to build and strengthen the bridge of friendship between our two great countries, China and Australia”.

Pilbara Regional Council of Western Australia acting chief executive Alexis Guillot said the forum was designed to explore foreign investment, tourism, education and cultural exchanges but there was definitely a strong impression left by the food.

“It was over and above previous years, the cross experience and magnificence of North West produce being cooked in Chinese style by Australian chefs was quite extraordinary — two cultures merge and engage to showcase some of the premium offerings that the Chinese market is looking for, dinner was definitely something that was sticking in people’s minds,” he said.