As part of Powerhouse Lane, the Powerhouse Museum commissioned fbi.radio's Snack Time team, led by presenters and food enthusiasts Ann Ding and Shivika Gupta, to conduct an interview series with Marjorie Tenchavez, founder of award-winning social enterprise Welcome Merchant, alongside renowned local food vendors Sydney Cebu Lechon, Sangee’s Kitchen, Yummy Yummy Knafeh, and Taste of Sierra Leone.
Will Mahusay
Sydney Cebu Lechon has been a family affair for more than three decades. In the 1990s, as a high-schooler, Will Mahusay would watch his father Fred brine and prepare whole suckling pigs to be roasted over charcoal. The work was intense, physical and technical; Mahusay found himself intrigued, but not enough to entice him away from his teenage freedom just yet.
As an adult, Mahusay became his father’s apprentice. He spent four years learning the ins and outs of finetuning heat and height in his father’s custom-built charcoal oven to achieve the perfect lechon: juicy, yielding roast meat and glassy crispy skin. He calls it an absolute “umami bomb”.
Mahusay, who will be serving his lechon at Powerhouse Lane alongside Lugaw Queen and offering attendees a taste of a range of Filipino street food staples, feels it’s the sheer diversity of Parramatta that makes the festival such a delight and hopes to see it continue for many years to come.
Mohammed Zarqa
“Come see me, and come see my smile!” Mohammed Zarqa says – and naturally, he’s smiling as he says it.
Zarqa’s Yummy Yummy Knafeh is a multisensory affair. You might first smell the heady fragrance of ghee, golden kataifi and syrup wafting from his stall, or hear Zarqa’s trademark “yummy, yummy” call ringing out across the way; then you’ll see his beaming face, framed by a keffiyeh; and finally, you’ll experience his Palestinian Nabulsi knafeh, full of molten Australian-made Akkawi cheese and topped with pistachios.
Zarqa believes strongly in the power of food to unite us; fuelled by a deep-rooted love of food that started with the nourishing, hearty Palestinian dishes his mother raised him on such as maqluba, he sees food as a way to bring friends, family and loves together.
At Powerhouse Lane, you’ll find him selling his knafeh (of course) as well as Palestinian coffee made on hot sand, which isn’t difficult to learn how to make, he says – “if you’re smart.”
Marjorie Tenchavez
Welcome Merchant is a social enterprise which platforms entrepreneurs and artists from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. We interview Marjorie Tenchavez, the founder of Welcome Merchant, who has curated an exciting lineup of food vendors for Powerhouse Lane where you can come and try delicious dishes from a range of cuisines.
Listen to Marjorie share her story of how she came to found the social enterprise and what invaluable opportunities she’s helped create. At the very core of the project is a nuanced understanding of the numerous barriers that people from refugee communities face when navigating the journey of setting up a business, and the work that is needed to help combat this.
Alongside the online directory, Welcome Merchant has facilitated and hosted countless events in Sydney and Melbourne. This includes cooking demonstrations, pop-up restaurant events, and helping the vendors connect and collaborate with some of the most loved, exciting places to eat in Australia.
Sangee
Sangee is a chef and founder of Sangee’s Kitchen, a food stall specialising in Malaysian street food. After moving to Australia in 2018, she was inspired by childhood memories of watching and learning to cook from her father to go on to set up Sangee’s Kitchen in 2021. As a curry chef, her father taught her how to make a variety of dishes which formed the basis of her culinary prowess.
Sangee is passionate about sharing the unique blend of multicultural food characteristic of Malaysian cuisine. Listen to Sangee take us on a tantalising journey from nasi lemak to curry laksa. To top it off, in a nod to her Indian roots, Sangee will be serving pani puri, a popular Indian street food dish, at her Powerhouse Lane stall. This will be paired with Malaysian favourites such as satay skewers.
Sangee’s Kitchen will offer Powerhouse Lane an unmissable pop of Malaysian Indian flavours.
Kadiatu Bangoura
Like countless much-loved restaurants around the world, Taste of Sierra Leone is very much a family run affair. Kadiatu, her twin sister, aunt and mum came together to fill a gap in the culinary map of Sydney after they noticed a lack of Sierra Leonean representation. Kadiatu joins us in this interview to give us a fascinating look into the cuisine of one of West Africa’s smallest countries.
Inspired by rich memories of a lifetime of cooking for loved ones and the comforting meals shared with a community of friends and family during celebrations such as Eid, Kadiatu hopes that visitors to her Powerhouse Lane stall will walk away with a similarly joyful and delicious eating experience.
In this interview Kadiatu talks us through the diversity of West African vegetables and stews and assures us that her aunt and mum make the best jollof rice in Sydney.
Powerhouse Lane is a celebration of the culinary and musical landscape of Western Sydney presented across four incredible nights on George Street in Parramatta. These vendors are showcased at Powerhouse Lane from Wednesday, 23rd to Saturday, 26th October, during the Parramatta Lanes festival.
Powerhouse collaborated with the City of Parramatta Council to present Powerhouse Lane as a highlight of the epic 4-day free street festival, Parramatta Lanes. A key event in Sydney’s cultural calendar, this major street festival transformed the Parramatta CBD.
Powerhouse Lane is proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with City of Parramatta Council and Powerhouse.
Powerhouse is a proud sponsor of fbi.radio
Artwork commission by @yeetheeast and @andysfrnds
Words by Shivika Gupta, Ann Ding