Poh Ling Yeow and Adam Liaw couldn’t be more different – but on their new SBS show, their similarities show
One is scientific, the other chaotic. One loves tomato sauce, not the other. It wasn’t until their Aussie road trip that Adam Liaw and Poh Ling Yeow got to really know each other.
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From Malaysia, migration and MasterChef, to making it big on our screens, there’s been a parallel path for two of our favourite TV cooks.
Adam Liaw was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia when he was three. Poh Ling Yeow also grew up in Adelaide, after moving from the Southeast Asian country when she was about nine years old. Yeow was runner up on MasterChef in the first series, while Liaw won season two. There’s been cookbooks and large followings for their food, but also for Liaw’s witticism on the social media site formerly known as Twitter and Yeow for her art and honesty on Instagram.
While everyone mistakenly assumed the pair were firm friends from way back – it was much more a case of paths crossing occasionally and mutual respect emanating from afar.
The pandemic and the states’ closed borders meant they barely filmed together on their first SBS series – Adam and Poh’s Malaysia in Australia. “It was actually really hard to do the PR after that because I didn’t get to know him that well,” Yeow shares.
“People had assumed that we were besties just because we’ve both been on MasterChef but we were on different seasons.
“And then we both were launched on to TV screens really quickly. So we’ve been really busy from day dot.”
That’s all changed now, though. And it’s been a revelation for both of them.
In recent months the pair have spent hours upon hours on a proper road trip as they traversed Australia for their new SBS series Adam and Poh’s Great Australian Bites.
The cameras were largely off in the car and they had the chance to deep dive into each other’s stories. Strong bonds were formed.
Liaw normally queues up an audiobook for his travels, but the conversation flowed so freely that barely a single chapter was heard.
“I really enjoyed travelling with Poh – obviously, when you’re driving together for sometimes five, six, seven hours at a stretch, there’s an awful lot to talk about,” he says.
They discovered they had some things in common; they’re 100 per cent united in their love for Australia and share similar ethos about food – what makes sense, what doesn’t and what possibly is a bit wanky. They also discovered that, in so many ways, they are complete opposites. An odd couple, if you like. Example one: Their views on the use of tomato sauce.
Yeow is a big fat no to smothering it all over a pie. Especially the gourmet beef pie she whips up for passengers on the Spirit of Tasmania in one episode. “Adam was so adamant, he insisted on making a sauce, which really aggrieved me,” she says. “But we ate it with sauce and it was really delicious which proved me a bit wrong. You know, I like to be proved wrong, actually. Whatever makes you happy, do that – you do you, I guess.”
Liaw laughs as he recalls that day. “I’m a bit shocked by that,” he says. “I didn’t even think there was a debate – I just thought you ate a pie with sauce. But apparently some people don’t eat pies with sauce, which I find a bit weird. Poh being one of those people.”
But then Liaw has previously confessed to me that he puts tomato sauce on fried rice – qualifying that he doesn’t ask the waiter to bring him the “dead horse” when he’s dining out in a restaurant. “But when I’m home and I’m having a bowl of fried rice, I’ll put some on it,” he said.
“I’ve done it since I was a kid. I think it’s a combination of the salty savoury fried rice and the sweet and sourness of the sauce. Often if you go and have fried rice in a restaurant, they’ll have something a little sweet (in it) like char siu.
“I don’t know if I’m just trying to justify it – but I think it works.”
He concedes he may take his relish for tomato sauce to extremes when I remind him of that chat. “I’ll admit to being probably a little bit too in the pro-tomato sauce camp,” Liaw says
Example two: Their general approach to cooking. Liaw is, by reputation, precise and methodical. Scientific even. Yeow has a more fly-by-the-seat approach. “He knows all the science behind it – he’ll say ‘Oh, that’s just the blah, blah reaction’ and I’m like, ‘Oh thanks, Doogie Howser’ (after the ’90s TV show about a 16-year-old genius),” Yeow says.
She is renowned for more creative chaos – especially in her on-screen cooking. Her penchant for squatting in front of the oven, willing her creations to be ready as the famed MasterChef clock ticks down to the final seconds has left indelible stress on two sets of the flagship cooking show’s judges … and viewers. But as the new friends grew closer, Yeow took great pleasure in discovering there was also a chaotic side to Liaw’s character to match hers. “I keep bringing this up in every interview,” she says, breaking into her infectious laugh. “I’m really putting this out there – I’m just trying to wreck his reputation for being a really together kind of guy.”
The affable Liaw takes it on the chin. “I will admit that there are some areas where I’m very fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants,” he concedes. “I think Poh and I have certain areas where we are very methodical and certain areas where we are completely chaotic.”
It doesn’t take too long, however, for the differences to emerge again. Take boiling an egg. “If I’m boiling an egg, I am very specific,” Liaw says. “I’ll take an egg of a specific size – usually 60g – and I’ll put it into a large pot of water and boil it for a set amount of time. And then I’ll shock that in ice water so that the egg is perfect every time. Poh just throws the egg into any old water, any old temperature and cooks it at any old amount of time. It is absolutely crazy to me. I do not understand it.”
The pair’s quest was to cover our nation to discover what exactly is Australia’s national dish. They started their travels in the heart of Australia at Uluru, moving on to Darwin and Kakadu exploring Australia’s original First Nations cuisine and subsequent multiculturalism. Then it was on to regional Victoria, examining the three culinary pillars of any country town – a pub, a bakery, and a Chinese restaurant.
Next they headed to Tasmania to investigate the great Aussie meat pie, and in SA they discover how Australia’s love of cafe culture took Australian brunch to the world stage.
In Sydney, surrounded by the icons of Australia, they look at the icons of Australian food and create a spectacular cake, before ending up in the nation’s capital, Canberra, to hopefully answer, once and for all, what our national dish might be.
Along the way, they catch up with plenty of famous faces who have shaped both the culinary and cultural fabric of Australia, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, artist Ken Done, culinary royalty Maggie Beer, celebrity chef Elizabeth Chong, TV personality Peter Everett and Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book legendary creator Pamela Clark, to name just a few. Liaw reckons the iconic Birthday Cake book should be part of the Australian citizenship test. “Have you eaten or made, or had made for you a cake from the Women’s Weekly cake book? And if you answer yes – then you’re Australian,” he laughs. “I’ve made cakes from it, I’ve had cakes made for me from it. I have eaten lots of cakes from it. It really is one of the classics of Australia.”
While those celebrated cakes are regular fare, there were once-in-a-lifetime experiences such as at Tali Wiru’s open-air, fine-dining restaurant at Uluru – dishes infused with native ingredients served under the Southern Desert night sky.
“It was just fascinating and very, very, very cool to be eating as the sun goes down next to the spiritual heart of Australia,” Liaw says.
“We are very lucky to do what we do. It’s not always picnics and lovely dinners at Uluru. It does, I guess, allow us to have some experiences which we otherwise probably wouldn’t have.”
Yeow soaked up the diverse and beautiful landscapes as they drove “those miles and miles of country roads”. “Going through Kakadu and just seeing wild horses and crocs and wallabies literally lining the side of the road – we live in such an amazing country, we see every different kind of landscape and geography,” she says.
And with each different landscape came unique delicacies. “So in country Victoria, we’re eating Chiko rolls and then scallop pies in Tassie and then laksas in Darwin,” Yeow says. “There are places where you would feel like you are not in Australia, some of those food markets make you feel like you are in Asia. I love this country but it just made me love Australia even more.”
Ultimately, they discovered our national dish is not anything too fancy.
“The heart of Australian food is in the vanilla slice, pub schnitzel and mum’s spag bol,” Liaw says. “We’re a country where everyone has their favourite laksa place, fights over where makes the best banh mi and has a strong opinion on whether tomato sauce or barbecue goes on a bacon and egg roll.”
Liaw and Yeow also come together in the shared dilemma of trying to navigate the busyness of their lives. Yeow recently shared a video to her 369k Instagram followers in answer to that constant question, “Just how do you do it?” It was in the weeks after she’d finalised her works for her exhibition as part of Illuminate Adelaide, while still maintaining baking for JamFace’s weekly market presence, she took fans on a virtual tour of her house. “This is how – I live in squalor,” she says candidly, showing piles of laundry to be folded, the birdseed piles which are always on the ground because she needs to first sort out the budgie feathers scattered amongst them so she can create more of her gorgeous mandala art with them.
Yeow continues on to her bedroom – or the “piece-de-resistance” as she brands it, with its unmade bed and more clothes strewn across it.
“So in answer to your question – I live like a teenager, a gross little worm while I’m intensively creating.”
Yeow laughs, as she says – like most of us – she wants her social media to be aspirational.
“But I’m very aware that my social media affects people in certain ways, and people need to know the fallout,” she says. “It has had such a warm reception. I was like, ‘This is something I need to keep pushing’ because I get so many comments saying ‘I’ve feel so seen.’ And yes, it’s being funny, but there is a very real message I can see that people are really responding to.
“People see the exhibition, and my TV and I feel I need to post something that’s normal so they don’t think this is effortless and that everything else in my life is seamless. It’s not at all – like this is how my house looks after that happens.” Yeow say she’s trying to be more considered in her career choices, especially since losing her beloved mum Christina to cancer last year. It came after possibly the biggest TV year of her career, with her role on Nine’s travel show Getaway and Snackmasters, heading into the jungle for Ten’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here and guest appearances on MasterChef.
“They were really fun to do – but with Mum’s passing in November, it has given me a bit of a wake-up call in terms of needing to spend proper time with the family,” she says. “And making room to live. It taught me to square things away because life keeps happening and it’s not going to wait for you to be ready.”
Liaw hasn’t quite had the same epiphany – acknowledging he still bites off more than he can chew. This year saw his nightly show The Cook Up with Adam Liaw become SBS’s most commissioned series, with 500 episodes and three seasons. He also hosts the Audible podcast How Taste Changed the World and has his ninth cookbook coming out in October.
“My rule has always been if I want to do the project, I’ll do it,” Liaw says. “So what that means is I often have too many interests for my capabilities. And I tend to take on a lot more projects than I probably should and the result is probably working too hard to complete all those projects. But they all seem to get done, and I’m happy with them. So I’m not too upset about doing that because it does mean I do have a very rich and full life. But sometimes I think if I just did a little bit less, it would be a lot less stressful.”
There are very few things at which Liaw doesn’t excel at – but chilling out at home is perhaps the only chink in his armour.
“Ah no – that’s just not a thing I do,” he shares. “You know, I’ll try to do it, but I just feel like I’m wasting time. I’d like to get to a mental state personally where I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time by picking up my guitar and playing for an hour. But, unfortunately, that’s where I’m at. I do need to work on that – it is a character flaw of mine that I feel I need to be productive all the time.”
He even finds it hard to get into holiday mode. Liaw and wife Asami aim for a lengthy family trip with their three kids each year. It takes him a good week-and-a-half to relax. He manages to get in the groove … before winding back up to work mode.
Often those holidays are road trips. And they’re not quite as smooth sailing as the one he took with Yeow. Especially with the three kids in the back. But Liaw still loves them – it’s a throwback to his childhood.
“That’s how we did all holidays when I was young – we drove all the way from Adelaide to Far North Queensland one year. We couldn’t afford to fly overseas all the time. So we would drive to the snow. My dad worked in Whyalla (as a doctor) so he’d do the four-hour drive to Adelaide, pick us up and then drive eight hours through the night and we’d get on the slopes the next morning. We did a lot of driving holidays and so I really enjoy that now. My kids, not so much, but I’m like, ‘When I was young we had to play I Spy and you guys have got iPads watching movies for six hours, while I’m doing the driving. What is there not to like about this?’”
It’s time to give Liaw the right of reply to Yeow’s chaotic revelation. Is there anything he’d like to share? “Um …,” he pauses. “Oh … no. She can reveal stuff about me, but I’m not going there.” Perhaps, that’s what friends are for. ■
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