SUBURBAN LIFESTYLES

I love chicken curry, crayfish, dialectical gastronomy, avocado on toast, and my home suburb. It is not false nostalgia that makes me proud to be from Wembley. The experiences I had there were warm and welcoming and are even better in reflection. Nowhere was this clearer than in the food I shared with friends growing up.

I went to a truly multicultural school - Ethiopians, Filipinos, Anglos, Noongars, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysians, Lebanese, Zambians. It was majority white to be sure, but for the most part people got along and I always enjoyed my sport, my pop culture and my eating as a way to bring people together. You were just as likely to get a lamb chop for dinner at a friend’s place as you were to chow down on nasi goreng.

Some days, a group of us would ride bikes around Lake Herdsman watching the flocks of migrating birds and keeping a lookout for snakes on the path; other days we would head to the video game parlour to play Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Mario Cart. Between those two poles was where we truly felt at home, that was what it was to grow up in the suburbs, to be in between. We were not lost in the middle or angry or disappointed with our lot. To grow up there was a true pleasure. We could build bridges to the cities anywhere in the world and to the country on our doorstep. That, surely, is the hope of being a suburban person, to make a home of both while always embracing where you live now.

Since I was a child, Wembley has changed – the quarter acre blocks that were normal have been replaced by townhouses and duplexes, there are less tress, the low income housing down the end of my street has soared in value and priced people out, the light industrial area nearby has been demolished to become a new estate. This is a mixed blessing, but it is what it is. Wembley has changed from being middle class to resolutely blue chip, but it still is suburban by any definition.

The suburbs are a lifestyle. This is not only about class or race or gender alone, but a way of thinking about the world that brings those things together. Many of my sister’s friends have bought houses in Wembley and when I ask them why they like it, they say they moved there ‘for the lifestyle’. In particular, they like its closeness to the beach, the spaciousness of the houses, the possibility of doing renovations themselves. In short, they like it because it accommodates their aspirations and their dreams. Lifestyle is something we need to think about and care for, something that helps us consider consumption, the home, education, work, leisure, in short all the things that life has to offer. Part of that is food, what we buy and cook, what we grow ourselves, where we eat out for date night. In Wembley, you can buy great fresh produce and all kinds of ingredients, you can have a good veggie patch, and there are so many places to dine.

On one stretch there is an Indian restaurant, a vegan pantry, a patisserie, a small bar, an Australian burger place, a gourmet home meal take away, an old Italian cafe. Further up, there is a 24 hour supermarket, a cheese toastie stand, an American burger place, a Japanese café, a bakery chain, a pizza chain, a speciality biscuit shop, a woodfired pizza place, a traditional Chinese restaurant, a very good local pub. Around the corner, there is a small Vietnamese joint, a hipster pizza place, a fish and chip shop. In other words, it is close to being an average Australian suburb. Out of these options, I have enjoyed many an evening at Roy’Als Burgers pigging out on popcorn chicken and just as many knocking back house red at Monsterella Pizza. And they are important recent additions to the neighbourhood and keep the new arrivals happy. But neither of them are the culinary king of Wembley. That title belongs to the Wembley International Food Court. It stands head and shoulders above whatever else has been there from the time I was a kid.

The food court is an excellent concept. My reference points for it are the hawker centres of Singapore. When we were kids we would visit most years and it was always a trip that centred on food, with family a close second, not that you can ever separate the two. My aunt has written a food memoir, and even now, when we visit, the first question she asks is what do you want to eat just like the sister who lives in the next-door building. Singapore is as food obsessed as anywhere else I have been. And, it is blessed with fantastic eating from the joys of tropical fruits like mangosteen, rambutan, jackfruit, mango, papaya to noodle dishes that can be listed until your ears fall off including my favourites mee sium, char kway teow and curry laksa. Then there are chilli crabs, fish head curries, roti canai, chendol, ice kachang, fresh bean curd, nasi padang, yum cha, high tea, and, it turns out, I have found a very good chicken pot pie at a bakery in Upper Thompson.

One of my enduring memories of Singapore was the annual treat we were allowed as kids – we could pick a place to go for high tea and usually it was at one of the city’s leading hotels. I will always recall the view from the Stamford Rose, where you could see across to Indonesia from the 24^th floor. But, my favourite, like all good colonial boys, was the Raffles. We went there one New Year’s Day and it was a buffet. I could eat as much as I wanted, which to me was the greatest gift one could receive. I gorged on little sandwiches, curry puffs, spring rolls, jelly, trifle, chocolate cake. You name it, I ate it, and all washed down with a cup of the finest English Breakfast tea. So, this is what grown-ups did after they dropped us off at school everyday.

Singapore is still the gold standard for a wide selection of food, be that high tea buffet or shopping mall or the hawker centre. My aunts there both live on Shunfu Road and they have excellent hawkers at the bottom of their apartment block. I always put an advance order in for popiah (a kind of fresh spring roll) when I am coming through town. But it is not only the food that matters at the hawkers near them. At any given hour, on any given day, you will find residents spending time there, speaking with each other, reading the newspaper, creating community by simply being together. The hawker centre is a meeting place that brings people out from their apartments, and given the advancing age of many residents, it is a necessary space that helps people’s health and wellbeing. And this, I think, is what the Wembley Food Court aspires to be.

I will not pretend that the suburbs can be alienating, lonely and difficult places. Like the city and the country, they face their own challenges and for many people, especially elderly residents, they can be isolating. That is why public space matters more than ever, from the parks where you can walk your dog and chat to your neighbours to the community libraries that have book clubs to be part of to the food court in my childhood suburb. You see the importance of the food court on a Friday night. From five till ten it is packed to the gills, a crowd of newborns, toddlers, children, adolescents, adults, parents, grandparents eating food and talking about life, love, and the universe. This might seem unremarkable, but we have family friends who have been doing this for twenty years. To see that for what it is, which is about home, belonging, meaning allows us to understand what makes the food court the best place to be in Wembley.

It is also a great barometer for the food that is popular in middle Australia. At Wembley, every stall is Asian with one exception, a place called Paris Café that does a brisk trade in lamb shanks and crepes. There is Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Yum Cha, Malaysian, Indian. The man who runs the beverage stand is from Singapore. I do not want to take this as a sample, but it shows that we have changed since the mid-1980s when John Howard was speaking with fear and hatred about being swamped by Asians. If this is anything to go by, people are happy they can get a decent feed.

My favourite place at the food court is the Malaysian Hawker. I love it because they have seriously good noodles and with a plate of their prawn crackers I am in heaven. Each of their noodle dishes is a study in harmony and balance – heat, sourness, salt, umami, sweetness, spice. There are ingredients that stand out – the lap cheong in the kway teow, the fried bean curd puffs in the mee goreng, the fish balls in the laksa. It makes the mouth water simply thinking about it. The servings are generous and you only need two dishes to feed three people even as one of the great pleasures is having leftover noodles to reheat, or eat cold, sometime later.

When we go in a larger party, we will often splurge on yum cha. I have places I prefer in Chinatowns all around Australia, in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, but the Wembley food court is good enough. I love yum cha for the same reason I love hawker centres – they are perfect ways to bring people together, to create community through food, through passing one plate of dumplings to someone else, through dividing a char sui pao in half when there is only one left on the table. And then, of course, there is the food itself, which is sublime and broad enough to be inclusive for as many tastes as possible. I love the fat noodles, the steamed greens, the custard tarts. The way Australia has embraced yum cha gives me hope in the future. It says to me, that we like spending time with our friends and family, that we know how to build bigger tables so that we can share and enjoy it all together. It reflects to me that we are a tolerant and vibrant place that has good taste.

I have taken many friends to the food court and many of them are impressed and wish they had something similar growing up. It is always where I prefer to eat when I visit my parents, especially because you can bring your own drinks. We have taken gin and tonic in with us at five o’clock, had a bottle of red wine on a Tuesday, and shared a carton of beer with no threat of sanction when it suited us. You do not need a drink to enjoy a casual meal, but what I like about the Wembley food court is that it allows people to drink responsibly. You might get a little tipsy, and you see grandmas having a glass of sherry, but because the structure is familial and welcoming people know how to behave. I recall an elderly group of four sitting down with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot with crystal champagne coupes they had brought from home. They each had a $10 plate of noodles to themselves. That is, truly, a great lifestyle.