Luke Nguyen & Adriano Zumbo’s Noosa book launch…

I love a good book launch, and I think Luke Nguyen and Adriano Zumbo’s would have to be my favourite yet, their book’s Indochine and Zumbo recently launched at Berardo’s in Noosa.

Having been to a string of book launches of late, I was particularly looking forward to this one.  Apart from the promise of some definite eye candy, between Luke and Adriano and the food from their books, this launch was guaranteed to be something special.

And special it was;

Heart of palm watercress salad with char grilled salmon
Vietnamese herb chicken roulade with asparagus wok tossed with Asian mushrooms
Tanzanie chocolate vanilla meringue

Now I will need to elaborate a little bit on the food as it was indeed special.

I love Vietnamese food, and it has crept up to be amongst my top favourite cuisines and I think this is largely through the influence and impact that Luke has made through his books and TV show, Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam.  They are such fresh clean flavours, fragrant almost, and divine.  His salad of watercress and heart of palm combined with beautifully moist marinated salmon shards and topped with fresh herbs and fried shallots was the entree at the launch and prepared by Berardo’s talented chefs, it was nothing short of sensational.

The Vietnamese herb chicken roulade was equally amazing, the herb stuffing just beautiful.  It’s on page 231 of Luke’s book Indochine, try it – it’s delicious!

Then of course the grand finale by the master of the dessert.  OMG, OMG, OMG, words just don’t suffice.  Recreated by Eric from Le Relais Bressan in Flaxton – trust me, this was no easy feat.  The recipe read like and ikea construction manual.  I really want to have a crack at it just to see if I can pull it off.  The dessert was layers of divine decadence, it really is beyond words.

As for Luke and Adriano, they were such a fun and entertaining pair which made for a pleasurable afternoon and their books are just beautiful.  Great afternoon.

This post was written by Petra Frieser – Local Harvest

Author: Local Harvest