Dave Myers and Si King saddle up for a six-part BBC Two cookery tour that starts in Bangkok’s floating markets and ends in Hong Kong’s dai pai dong stalls. Between bites they trace how pad thai, katsu curry and pho slipped into British supermarket trolleys, filming inside home kitchens, monastery refectories and Seoul barbecue alleys where locals still cook grandmothers’ recipes over charcoal. The pair’s trademark bonhomie survives a near-crash on the road to Chiang Mai, a chilli-eating contest in Sichuan and a dawn fishing trip on the Mekong that yields the catfish for their evening curry. Each episode bookends a dish: they learn to pound Thai green papaya with a clay mortar, fold Hong Kong har gow so thin you can read newsprint through it, and simmer Vietnamese pho for twelve hours while swapping biker gossip with Hanoian chefs who remember Myers from his 2006 series. Directors shoot handheld to keep pace with the bikes, letting street noise and grill smoke fill the soundtrack rather than voice-over. The series aired once in early 2014 and vanished from the schedules, but clips of King teaching a monk to flip a Yorkshire pudding with chopsticks still circulate on food forums.
Production Details
BBC Two / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2014
Producer(s): Ceri Jones
Main Cast
Simon King as Himself
David Myers as Himself
