Sticky Mango, Bourdain Day, & The Burnt Chef Project

‘If it’s good enough for Barack Obama, it’s good enough for me’, said I under my breath as I attacked my Bon Cha with chopsticks.

It was the second dish from a sharing tribute menu designed by the chef Peter Lloyd and his Sticky Mango team to honour and celebrate the late chef Anthony Bourdain on ‘Bourdain Day’.

With his TV shows, Anthony Bourdain took gastronomes on journeys of food discovery to faraway places, including South East Asia, where he, in his own words, ‘Fell in love with the East, deeply and hopelessly.’

Sticky Mango owner chef Peter Lloyd, who shared on and off-screen moments with Anthony on a chef tour and at the World Street Food Congress in Singapore and Manila, creates modern interpretations of South East Asian cuisine inspired by his travels through Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Bourdain Day Tribute Menu took me on a sensational journey around South East Asia and my taste buds didn’t know what had hit them.

There was Thai Green Papaya Salad (with roasted peanuts, chilli lime and fish sauce), Vietnamese Bon Cha (noodle broth, pork balls, Nuoc Mam), Malayasian Char Kwey Teow (rice noodles, cockles, duck egg), Chaing Mai’s ‘Nose to Tail’ (pigs brains – barbecued in banana leaf, crispy pig’s tail and the famous Chiang Mai Sausage), Singaporian Crab Bee Hoon and Indonesian Beef Rendang with jasmine rice.

Every tasting menu has a sweet happy ending and this one was of course called Mango Sticky Rice. The classic version is a combination of sweet sticky rice, mango and condensed milk.

If you seek an upgraded, modern twist to Mango Sticky Rice, ask for chef Peter Lloyd’s own signature version. It’s a beautiful, lighter version of the original, with Indonesian black rice, mango, mango sorbet with a coconut and vanilla sauce and it’s marvellously presented too. Absolutely worth the extra calories. You heard me.

Apart from celebrating Anthony Bourdain’s passion for Southeast Asian food by eating this flavoursome sharing menu, each menu sold will contribute to a worthwhile cause, The Burnt Chef Project.

Launched in May 2019, The Burnt Chef Project was set up with the sole purpose of eradicating mental health stigma within the hospitality industry.

For more information visit https://www.stickymango.co.uk

Zuzana Ritchie

Since moving to London in her twenties, Zuzana accidentally developed something of a multiple personality career disorder: From radio broadcasting days at BBC World Service to the world of magazines at the former IPC Media publishing house. After leaving the corporate world behind, she could be found at the photo shoots as a make-up artist or in the recording studios as voice-over artist. These days she uses her make-up artist background to talk and write mostly about her favourite subject: Beauty. Her other favourite subjects are gender equality, every colour ever invented, portrait artists, photography, Marvel, red wine and the importance of humour.

View all posts