If you’ve lived in Australia and had access to a television, surely you would have seen the Australia Day lamb advertisements. But what is the Lambassador Mission?
Last year a group of highly esteemed chefs, restaurant owners, food consultants and stylists gathered in Australia to get a taste of the lamb that Australia is known for. This year, the gathering ran once again with thirteen members involved in the food and restaurant industry attending this event. After six days of learning and eating in Melbourne and Sydney, the Lambassadors return to Japan and run events at their own restaurants. I had the pleasure of attending one of their events, the Meat and Livestock Australia’s Chefs Event. The purpose for this event being to taste different styles of lamb dishes and discuss the promotion of Australian lamb to a Japanese market. One of the RACV City Club’s stunning private function rooms provided a unique and enjoyable atmosphere for discussion.
The night started off with some friendly discussion and introductions just outside the function room, with KIRIN’s new Megumi beer, canapes prepared by chefs Ikuei Arakane and Mark Normoyle (pictured below). Three different canapes were prepared, all featuring lamb, of course.
Each of the members, despite their varying occupations, participated due to their interest in bringing lamb to Japan. Hal Yamashita (pictured above), a CEO/executive chef who works with contemporary Japanese cuisine was among a number of the esteemed guests.
Other members included Japan-based International Business Manager, Andrew Cox from Meat & Livestock Australia, Representative Director, President of Indian Spice & Masala Company and Lambassador, Shankar Noguchi and Staff Editor at Shibata Publishing, Takayuki Takizawa. In the picture on the right, we have ramen creator Shono Tomoharu, along with President, J.S.A. Sommelier and Lambassador, Koji Azuma and Senior Editor of Cuisine Kingdom, Ichiro Erokumae who had joined to cover this year’s Lambassador event.
In this next photo we have Lambassadors Yukari Miyajima and Fumiko Ishikawa. Miyajima is also a chef who specialises in French cuisine and Ishikawa is a food consultant at Food Field Creative, Japan.
Stephen Baud and Peter Hunter from the State Government of Victoria’s Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources, were also present as Australian based export affliatess.
And finally, we have Kazu Mitsuhashi a business developer who is also from Meat & Livestock Australia, Jun Hasegawa of TRYBER attending to cover the event via Japan in Melbourne and on the far right, Moriaki Higashizawa, Toyo Meat’s Representative Director and President, who is also attending the Lambassador event for the second year in a row.
Following the friendly chat outside the function room, all the members took their respective seats and were greeted by chefs Normoyle and Arakane, who would later proceed to explain each course as they came out.
The dishes included in each course can be seen below (including one extra surprise dish), and each explanation from the chefs seemed to spark inspiration amongst the guests, with many speeches about the culinary industy, lamb and the future of Lambassadors were had.
Course one: Lamb shank, spring vegetable minestrone, macadamia pesto
Course two: Loin, cumin crust, lentil du puy, spiced tomato
Suprise course: Lamb tongue
Course three: Neck, cutlet, pumpkin gnocchi, sprout leaves
Fouth course: Carrot cake, whipped cheese, candied carrots, cinnamon ice cream
Chef Hal Yamashita and Mitsuhashi, in particular, made very impressionable speeches about it being an honour to enjoy lamb with members from this year, or any members from the previous year and the years to come. They spoke about it being a wonderful experience to be able to happily work together and collaborate to promote lamb in Japan and strengthen ties between Australia and Japan.
“One for all, all for one! Lambassador!”
