“In rural Australia, the Chinese restaurant has long held a special significance, whether as the first culinary experience to fragrantly suggest another culture to locals or a far-flung destination for proprietors, chefs and their families.

It’s a crossroads – with sweet and sour pork and Mongolian lamb. With a love of good food and bad puns, comedian Jennifer Wong enthusiastically visits a different regional Chinese restaurant in each of these six quarter-hour episodes, gently revealing tradition, quirks, and how cooking can help maintain a community.

Some of these restaurants are now third-generation ventures, making them sturdy links in the lengthy Chinese diaspora in colonial Australia, and Wong distinguishes variants such as Chinese-Malaysian menus alongside the point where local habits meet Chinese history, while referencing plenty of sizzling hero-dish shots.

The tone is definitely sweet, not sour, with a glowing Wong being presented with deep-fried ice-cream and declaring, “I’m like an eight-year-old again!”

She’s not the only one.”

The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 2021