 Hi, I'm Luke Nguyen. Now to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Australia and Vietnam's diplomatic relations I'll be embarking on a culinary journey through Vietnam. I'll be meeting up with inspiring Australians Eating delicious regional Vietnamese foods, and I'll also be cooking with some premium Australian prodges I'm in the central highlands of Dalat surrounded by beautiful rolling green hills a Magical mist and it's so romantic here because the weather is perfect. It's always quite chilly now I'm here to try the incredible Delicious street food of the lat but above all I'm here to sample all the fresh herbs vegetables and all the wonderful colorful flowers that are always in blue So the food of the lat is a great marriage of flames from the north the center and the south This is a great example. This is But the Dalat version and we're at put more and this is essential for Boon bar now. It's a great mixture of a corner dry chili Lemon grass always good English. They're gonna cook this down for around three hours So a beautiful pace the shrimp paste and chubby paste gives it really great. Oh mommy Oh my gosh, look at that. There's beef in here. Oh lovely color And the noodles are very special bean sprout mint spearmint brulee leaf shredded cabbage Shredded lettuce. Oh smells so good now with every bowl of wooden ball You have to have some chili so this chili has fish sauce in it as well the set they I'm gonna put extra set they in That spiciness the lemongrass throw that in a squeeze of lime goes in That bean sprout the lettuce the mint the cabbage Now if you look here the noodles are very very unique. It's a round rice noodle You see that it's almost like a rice noodle spaghetti same shape pork loafers Well, like a meatloaf is called chalo and it's got congealed pigs blood. Look at this mmm Quite meaty delicious gamey flavor mix that all up and it's all about the broth Oh He's right. It's not as spicy It's a lot lighter incredibly aromatic absolutely delicious and but hey, right now So good so delicious wooden bobbin of that lap you have to come and try mmm Oh, wow look at that pork on the bone. I've got everything in his bowl Oh The meat is slow cooked so incredibly tender and texture Mmm, look at that big thing dig that in there and attack it anywhere you can mmm Very good Now when you interlap you have to try this dish It's banh mi sil mai and it's lovely pork balls That's been slowly cooked in a lovely broth as well Really crispy to get straight out of the oven so crunchy some mayonnaise in there or that part of that using cucumber Coriander lots of fresh herbs the pickled carrot and all the cold cuts the chalo salt pepper Everything's in this thing the wonderful meatballs in here the sil mai which are lovely soft texture Not too hard and she's also got a really long piece of pork skin in there as well. Look at this Deliciousness. It's a big get with all the cold cuts. We've got pork floss in there now. This is what I call a banh mi of the lap Wow, absolutely delicious Tandoor too good Wow Now it's every chef's dream to be in the lap because the herbs and vegetables and fruit are so fresh so vibrant and colorful I mean Straight from the farm. Look at that color Beautiful green purple color get some of that. I think this will make for a really good fresh Canapé or starter $20,000 a dollar or so unbelievable Such a bug. Thank you I'm here to meet fellow Australians Lindo Hugo and Amanda Connellison who sold their house in Brisbane and used all of their savings to set up Ola an organic and sustainable farm in the central highlands of vietnam Ladies, how are you? Oh, look, it's so great to see you. Welcome to Ola and Della. Welcome Absolutely stunning here. So Ola tell us about the name What it means is that if we're going to achieve this great huge task of providing clean food against You know the impacts of climate change. We all are in this together. I love that We are all in it together. That's fantastic Tell us more about what you guys do here and the the Ola story The objective or the mission of Ola is to provide clean safe food I was acutely aware of how pesticides are applied. They move in the environment They end up in food supply chains and then they end up in bodies. That's right So what we wanted to do was to create food in very small spaces, but very very intensively What do you love about vietnam and why did you choose vietnam to to pursue this project? It's very unfortunate But vietnam and all of the southeast asian countries have very very high rates of pesticide and juice cancer Because the pest pressure is so huge to actually do something meaningful and impactful and use my australian Sydney university phd, right? I wanted to come here and so I wanted to create clean food amazing This vertical method. I mean, how does it all work? And how is it different? So the obvious is that it's different because it's vertical So that means we can make a lot of vegetable really fast in very small spaces sustainable The most important difference is that the inside of this pod is an australian rock, right? And that australian rock that rock held thousands of times more microbes than anything else Even compost or even the best organic substances. Wow. And so that is what gives everything its disease resistance So we've got bok choy here. You can just eat it straight from the Yeah, yeah, definitely. There you go. And no pesticides. I can just eat it. Just eat it straight from the farm. Oh This is the hero. Yeah, I mean at these smell amazing. Look at the vibrant colors. It's a citrus marigold So they smell a little bit different than the normal marigolds, but it's just a beautiful fragrance Can I pick some? Can we pick some together? Absolutely. And look at these lovely women here part of your team Are they from Dalat lindu? We have a really strong ethnic minority population here. We provide clean Jobs clean employment social insurance, etc for all of our people, you know, our people come to work They know that they work in a clean environment. They never are exposed to serious chemical They don't work sitting in the fields in the mud and yeah I mean, they're standing up. They're not like, you know, crouching over right in the mud all day. Yeah, that's really important Linda look at this one Always stunning beautiful vibrant color. I mean, can I eat this? Of course you can No chemicals smells divine. No chemicals Great so sweet. Oh, that's the best strawberry I've had in Vietnam. That is delicious We're celebrating Vietnam and Australia. So I've got some some wonderful salmon It's beautiful, right from Australia and I'm going to combine it with some beautiful smoked salmon row as well from Victoria Yarra Valley But the hero apart from you two The hero is the ola edible flowers here So to start off if you can squeeze around a couple of tablespoons of lime in there They cut them to squeeze it and lindu can you please pluck each pedal nicely around there for me? Right dice some red shallots up. I'm practically making a spicy salmon tata Beautiful. Yeah, just a little bit of garlic little bit of shallots. I've got some coriander stems are going to put in as well That is what you love about living in Vietnam. Love the food. Yep. I love the culture. Yes people are so happy and so relaxed and very friendly and especially in Delape Yeah, very very friendly. This is so lovely. They also share the Australian love of beer as well Yes So you have you have a lot of like after work beers in the afternoon like a Friday afternoon Yes, so you've been here for seven years. Are you do you live in Delape as well? We lived up here We we've moved around so we're in Saigon then we went to we came up here and then we went back to Saigon and then we realized that You know, Amanda's just so talented and so fantastic at managing the farms. Yes And we're now going through a really fantastic growth stage So we really needed to be here. So I've got some prula leaf here. I'm going to throw that in as well. So beautiful fragrance in there finely sliced a little bit of this Salmon fish sauce into your bowl. I reckon only around one little tablespoon like that. So throw that in there. Perfect So let's put a dash of Soy in as well And I'm going to finely slice this and we're going to dice it. Oh Look at the color Now I know the lovely ladies here From the ethnic minorities from Delape. They've learned so much from you ladies. What have you learned from them? Resilience. Yep culture as well from them How to be happy how to be happy how to be content appreciation appreciation They're so wonderful Now lindall all has won so many different amazing awards Can you tell me more about them? We have a really big focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation But then there's another thing in that we realize already the world realizes that greenhouse gas or climate change is already past a tipping point So how are we going to help these people to adapt to climate change now? I'm going to put in Some tin tin is basically rice powder and it's been ground up toasted You want to sprinkle some of that on there some sesame seeds do you little Now I'm going to put a little bit of dressing in that you made lime fish sauce dash of soy and that sriracha chili sauce hot sauce Look at that all the Vietnamese flavors are in there Okay Amanda, let's see Oh Well done, you know that balance. Thank you We're gonna prepare this dish for all of your team for their hard work. We've got the nasturtium leaves One there now while she's doing that I'm gonna arrange This salmon right just on top of these leaves here. There's a nice little, you know, one bite canapes right Victorian smoked salmon. Oh All right, I've even got some beautiful caviar spoons here on top of the salmon Now the final pieces of this I just want to put the lovely flower petals on top Now this is why a lot of restaurants use your products because look at it. This is fine dining It is fine dining at all our farm Now guys, what's the future of Aula? What's next for you? Our next evolution of the technology is growing down in the lowlands So near the Mekong Delta. Oh, wow. Okay. That's an incredible achievement technically But in terms of impact the Mekong Delta is one of the top three most impacted places in the world in terms of climate change Incredible. Wow. I love the story all the team. Thank you again so much for all your wonderful work for Vietnam Let's dig into this colorful vibrant plate. Thank you Luke. Cheers. Yeah Mmm. Is it good? Lovely. Enjoy that. Oh, your Vietnamese is very good. All right, let's dig in Mmm. Oh, there's a pop of flavor. Oh beautiful. Oh, that's so colorful Such fresh and colorful produce organically grown by incredibly inspiring people I've had so much fun with Amanda, Lindel and their great team At Aula, they grow pure clean produce that not only tastes good But is also good for the environment and the Vietnamese people Now right on the steps here right in front of the Delat market in the central market We have these wonderful ladies serving my favorite dishes of Delat, banh chang nuong So shrimp goes on. She's gonna crack an egg right on top. Look at that. How far she is some spring onion She just mixes it up Now you can make this at home on your barbecue on a grill or even a non-stick pan Well, she's so fast So we have dried beef jerky Some mayonnaise some fried shallots as well and some chili Vietnamese pizza. Oh, it's gonna be really nice and crispy. So she folds it up Look at that nicely brown on the outside 20,000 dong just under a dollar. Thank you. Thank you. Look at that. Oh nice and hot Super crunchy So much flavor in here from the dried shrimp the eggs the mayonnaise and the chili Really really crispy as well rice paper so versatile in Vietnam I can use it to wrap my vegetables and meat in there I can use it on the grill Banh chang nuong delicious Now after I finish my snack, I'm gonna have my sweet dessert the ho nom which is a silken tofu. Oh Come on you. Oh now look at this This is the ho nom which is silken tofu Will wobbly beautiful texture and that's served with a ginger syrup a hot ginger syrup Oh that just melted in your mouth and it just slides down so Gracefully I can eat two cups of this. I love finishing the night finishing the evening With a lovely dough hole no the lap. Oh I love that I love the weather. I love the friendly people Absolutely delicious food. It's about a great time here I'm always blown away with the amount of fresh produce and delectable food offerings that are available here in da lab With delicious vietnamese dishes from all regions of the country In my next episode, I'll be traveling to the beautiful southern islands of vietnam