Good taste at Sangri-La from Down Under

Mehru Jaffer, The Jakarta Post, Contributor, Jakarta

Simon Beaumont, the 32-year-old executive chef of Jakarta's Shangri-La Hotel, is happy playing host these days at the Coffee Garden, where the buffet is an endless feast of mouth-watering Australian food.

The Melbourne native has put on the table a very generous helping of the all-time favorite Pavlova from a recipe that his grandmother is proud of.

Much controversy surrounds the name of this large, crisp cake covered in cream and fruits of the season.

Western Australians are convinced that it is named after the Russian dancer who toured the country at the beginning of the century. Others, meanwhile, insist that cook books published decades before the dancer visited Australia mention a delicacy by the very same name.

While still on deserts, the Lamingtons are there too.

Those pieces of light sponge cakes dipped in chocolate icing and coconut and named after a popular governor of Queensland.

The bakery next door to the Coffee Garden is selling Anzac biscuits. Made with rolled oats, coconut, flour, honey and butter, the biscuits were made famous by Australian soldiers on the battlefield during World War I.

"Australian food is special for its fusion and freshness," said Simon, who first developed a love for cooking while he was a teenager.

Unable to memorize poetry and tables in mathematics, Simon recalls that recipes were something that he rarely forgot.

To this day, he said he does not feel the need to write down a recipe. It was only natural, then, to let Simon remain in the kitchen instead of, say, a police station.

Simon belongs to that new generation of chefs who are famous for being boldly creative.

They are unafraid to mix and match the amazing range of local ingredients with French traditional and nouvelle cuisine, regional Italian styles or with food off tables from all over Asia. The result? The world is collectively salivating over Australian food today like never before.

Simon does not believe in garnishing or disguising his dishes with decorations. He says he likes to let the taste of each speak for itself.

Australian produce is so magical and the range of local ingredients so generous that there is no need to camouflage the original flavor, says Simon as he starts his tour from the barbecue area.

Here sizzle crocodile sausages along with lamb chops, emu sateys, kangaroo steaks, giant prawns, and balmain bugs.

Due to its wide variety of seafood, animals and tropical climate, a barbecue is an essential component of every Australian home. Simon point out that the healthiest way to eat meat is to put it on a barbecue, as it cooks without fat.

It was 200 years ago when the first Europeans arrived in Australia and introduced settled agriculture and grazing unlike the food gathering practice of the local population.

The first kangaroo was eaten within a month of being seen in 1770 by a member of Captain Cook's entourage.

Today, kangaroo meat with its slightly gamey, beefy taste is highly recommended by nutritionists for its low fat content.

Australians wasted many years imitating the kitchen back in England paying little attention to the exotic wild fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds used by the Aborigines for 40,000 years.

But the Anglo-Celtic society was enriched by the sudden arrival after the World War II of Europeans in large numbers and later by Asians, making the cuisine of the country as cosmopolitan and multicultural as its population.

Now Simon has succeeded in spreading out a fare as varied as possible from Sydney's rock oyster to Salmon from Tasmania.

While the main dishes are mouth-watering enough, it is the chutneys and sauces made from berry fruits, raisins, nuts and syrups along with fresh salad leaves and cheese, that seduce the taste as well as the sight most.

And, tucked away behind all the olives, breads and pumpkin scones, it might even be possible to peek at a bottle of vegemite, the vegetable extract spread without which many Australians find it impossible to survive.

The Australian Food Promotion continues until Feb. 3 at the Coffee Garden, Shangri-La hotel.