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Elizabeth Chong shares her most-loved food and places to eat, from her home for breakfast to wineries for lunch and Chinese restaurants for dinner.
Breakfast time
"I usually eat breakfast at home," Chong tells SBS Food. "I'll have homemade muesli…my daughter makes it really well! I'll have that with fresh fruit, and some good sourdough bread. Or I'll have Vegemite on toast.
"Or I'll order a ham toastie or some pastries when I'm out for breakfast and spending a bit of time with friends," she shares.
It's the kind of food that takes us back to our roots.
While a simple breakfast starts off her usual day, Chong says that she likes preparing a more elaborate congee (juk in Cantonese) when her family comes to visit.
"It's a Chinese breakfast that I always do when relatives come over from interstate. It's nice because you get to bond over it. I'll have chicken stock and dried, salty little things like peanuts and dried bean curd…It's the kind of food that takes us back to our roots."
Adam's meatball congee from The Cook Up Source: Adam Liaw
Outside Melbourne
Chong likes eating out during the day, and she will typically venture outside of Melbourne and into the wineries of country Victoria.
"A special winery that stands out is one in the Mornington Peninsula: ," she says. "I just adore that place. They have fantastic food and wine. It's informal, but the ambiance is professional and slick at the same time. It's friendly and warm.
"I'm very familiar with that part of Victoria because we used to have a lot of holidays down there when we were kids."
Chinese restaurants
The Chinese restaurants close to Chong's heart are establishments she has frequented for a long time.
"There's on Celestial Avenue [in Melbourne], which is a place that I would go to with my children when they were young, and I'm talking around 50 years ago. It's one of the few restaurants that started early in Chinatown and is still standing."
It's still a family place, but the owners have changed hands. "They have homestyle food like steamed fish and, congee as well. They also have more traditional Chinese stuff that you don't get in other restaurants, such as bittermelon."
When she wants to eat out closer to home, she usually visits in Melbourne's inner city suburb of Richmond.
For more "serious" Chinese eats, Chong recommends , a gem in the Queen Victoria Building, and and , places so familiar to her that the owners have become her good friends.
RECIPE BY ELIZABETH CHONG
Elizabeth Chong's sieu mai
Chinese focus
While dining out is always a treat, Chong says that she still does and always will cook at home. And her focus will always be on Chinese cuisine.
I still love making home dishes that I grew up with.
"I still love making home dishes that I grew up with, like the beautiful, simple soups my mother used to make, or lovely steamed egg dishes of my childhood."
The dishes of her childhood continue to be at the centre, in and out of the kitchen.
"What I've always wanted was to make Australia more aware of what Chinese cuisine is. My life's work is all about re-education, that it is not all cheap and cheerful as people perceive it to be.
Sieu mai by Elizabeth Chong on The Cook Up Source: Kitti Gould
"Chinese food is one of the top cuisines in the world, and learning about it and living it has exacerbated my and my family's love of and respect for food."
