When it's time to eat, we say SIK FAN LAH. Join us on a culinary adventure across Aotearoa New Zealand where we uncover stories of modern Kiwi-Chinese life through our universal love for food.
When it's time to eat, we say SIK FAN LAH! Join us on a culinary adventure across Aotearoa New Zealand, where we uncover hilarious and hearty stories of modern Kiwi-Chinese life through our universal love for food. Whether it's a 65 kilogram whole roast pig, claypot rice cooked in the Otago goldfields, or geothermal Chinese paua in Rotorua - there's plenty to munch on! In the first episode 'Sam Low vs. Her Highness', Masterchef and barista champion Sam Low, knows his mission: to be the representation he wished he had growing up. After hosting a Lantern Festival feast for his friends, he sets off to meet Chinese beauty queen - Miss Rotorua, Kogi So. Kogi introduces Sam to the secret menu of Oppies and he samples geothermal Chinese food at Te Puia. They quickly become BFFs as Sam discovers that he and Kogi not only share the same mission, but the same language of love - food. In Episode Two 'A Path More Evil', Nat and Steph Chin were on the 'right path' until they dropped uni to start the Evil Twins café against their mother's wishes. The Twins seek out fellow rebels in Wellington, like Vicki Young who quit law school to become a pastry chef. Teaming up with the Twins and their James Bond-like brother-in-law, Vicki uses the foraging skills she learned from her parents to put on a wild, seaside Chinese banquet. Elder Chinese rebel, Esther Fung, teaches the Twins that the right path is to be themselves and proud of who they are. In Episode Three, Olympic gold medalist rugby star Tyla Nathan-Wong won't back away from a challenge! She demolishes a titanic bowl of hand-pulled noodles before joining the harvesting squad on a family-run market garden in Pukekohe. Back in Auckland, sweat becomes tears as Tyla helps Enna Ye and her Mum cook the recipes of Enna's late father. Tyla pays tribute to her grandfather, a pioneering Chinese rugby player, by shouting him a monstrous six-course meal. Family is priceless, after all. In the next episode 'Janice's Southern Migration', home is wherever it nourishes you, according to Janice Huang, a wildlife educator at Dunedin's Royal Albatross Centre. After mahjong and dim sum with the descendants of Aotearoa's oldest Chinese families, Janice takes a road trip to experience the hardships of the Otago goldfields first-hand - especially while cooking on an exposed mountainside! From the winemaker who turned old goldfields into the world's best pinot noir to the new immigrant five-star chef serving novel delicacies, Janice learns how migrants nourish their new homes in return. In Episode Five, 'Pig Out in Palmy', uni student and meme queen, Abigail Masengi, gathers her razor-sharp wit and heads to Palmerston North to witness the epic roasting of a 65kg whole pig in a traditional Chinese earth oven. Abby's learning journey takes her from the mixed cultures of a Malaysian-Maori chef's marae to the laborious process of making mooncakes. It'll be two long days of towering flames and heaving hunks of meat before Abby can relish the slow-cooked, old-school meal that brings the Chinese community together. In the final episode 'Return of the Prodigy Son', playwright, poet, performer, producer and son of fish and chip shop owners, Nathan Joe rediscovers his childhood home of Christchurch through adult eyes. There's the new - youthful, fusion dim sum with cocktails and bubble tea hotpot - right next to ancient buildings and century-old Kiwi-Chinese recipes fighting to be remembered. Like his complicated love for his father, there's no easy answer to what home means.
