A decade ago, Neil Li decided to leave his home in Shanghai for Hobart - a move he considered at the time as bittersweet.
While he always wanted to immigrate to Australia, he was leaving behind the delicious food that his mother and grandmother prepared for him daily.
“I didn’t have anyone preparing dinner for me anymore, and I missed the delicious food so much.”
Arriving with a subclass 500 student visa, he quickly realised that he needed to learn to cook for himself.
He secured a job in a restaurant serving fried-noodles, where he began as a vegetable chopper and a kitchen hand.
He realised pretty soon that a career in cooking would be in his future. A year after arriving, Mr Li decided to drop out of university and he began studying cookery at TAFE.
“I started knowing nothing about cooking," he said. "It didn’t take long for me to realise that this is what I was interested in and that I kind of have a gift for it.”
His father Qiuhua Li recounted that although the primary reason for his son’s career change was his love of cooking, he said changes to Australia’s migration policies at that time contributed party to the decision.
Neil Li Source: Facebook: Neil Li
The change implemented by the Labor government at the time made it difficult for students studying business administration and accounting to obtain permanent residency after graduating.
But time has proven his decision to be a wise one. A decade after arriving, Mr Li’s colleagues who relocated to Australia from Shanghai in the same year had now all left.
Mr Li became the lucky one who managed to settle down in Tasmania as planned and doing a job he loved. He currently holds the position of chef de partie at the Wrest Point Hotel Casino in Hobart.
“I’m good at incorporating Chinese elements into western food, and that’s why my team beat other teams,” he said.
“Many of my dishes are out of other Australian chefs’ imagination, as well as their skills.”
How settling in regional Australia helped
Australia is set to introduce new regional work visas from November 16.
Two temporary visas, the Skilled Work Regional (subclass 491) Skilled Employer-Sponsored Regional visa (subclass 494) will offer thousands of places each year for the foreign skilled workers living and working in regional areas.
Regional Australia refers to all the towns, small cities and areas outside of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra.
Mr Li hoped that his experiences in building a career as a migrant living in Hobart, considered regional, would inspire others.
“When I was learning cookery, I worked in various Asian restaurants and learned a lot of basic concepts and dishes of Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine," he says.
"After graduation, I went to a western restaurant as planned. Fortunately, I got a job in The Henry Jones Art Hotel, one of most famous fine dining restaurants, where I learned a lot of knowledge of fine dining, and then I have been doing fine dining, fully integrated into the field.”
Qiuhua Li said of his son’s experience: “It doesn’t matter whether it’s big cities or regional areas. As long as you can do your favourite things, it is great.”
When talking about his success, Mr Li mentioned the support he received from his parents, who joined him in Tasmania.
Like many parents from China, they prefer to stay closer with their children after retirement.
Mr Li said he and his family were “very happy” with life in Australia. They all attend English classes twice a week because it helps them communicate with the locals.
“It feels great to learn a new language,” his parents said.
His parents have formed a deep love with the “beautiful nature” of Tasmania, and with the Australian way of life, which they said was full of the sense of rules and order.
Award winner
In September 2019 at the Sydney Fine Foods Restaurant Challenge, Mr Li won gold in the three-course luncheon category, bronze in the poultry live challenge and merit in the lamb live challenge.
The accolades were the first big awards Mr Li had won and he said it was a testament to the hours he’s put into perfecting his craft.
He spent more than 40 days preparing for the event, with 12 to 15 hours in the kitchen every day.
When he travelled to Sydney for the competition, he brought with him a number of big suitcases full of the raw materials. He said the experience was “exhausting” while being very rewarding.
“I think I can only live through this because I am passionate about my career,” he said.
Earlier this year, he and his team won the Battle of the Pacific restaurant challenge, with the main dish containing elements from his home country.
He used a piece of traditional pork belly, which was cut into a square in a western way, to serve together with another piece of pork fillet, marinated in a traditional Chinese fashion --with garlic, scallions, scallion oil and soy sauce.
The problem was, usually, it takes a night for these Chinese spices to set into the pork, but the team only had a 5-hour limit.
Neil Li's works Source: Neil Li
Mr Li bypassed this issue by using a vacuum bag to compress the spices to hurry the marinating process.
“What I want to do now is to make Chinese food look like western food, with the commonly used Chinese food materials, and draw lessons from western food.”
Here are the dishes Mr Li presented at the Sydney Fine Foods Restaurant Challenge:
Entrée
Tasmania cold smoked salmon and salmon mousse cucumber roll
“It used the double impact of the western treatment of salmon and the combination of Japanese-style mustard sauce.”
Main Course
Neil Li's works Source: Neil Li
Beef fillet with spice crumb and beef short rib braised in caramelised onion master stock
“The two beef flavours that are often found in Chinese food are presented in a western way, with two western sauces and mashed potatoes to achieve: colour, glutinous, seasoning, taste, balance in all aspects.”
Dessert
Neil Li's works Source: Neil Li
Matcha tea and Chinese red curd cheesecake
Osmanthus flower is a classic fragrant flower be used in Chinese desserts and tea.
“This dessert is a recombination of ingredients from popular desserts in China and integrated with molecular cuisine technology.”
Neil Li's works Source: Neil Li
