Long weekend. Two glorious words that, in our world, mean two things. One, if you’ve got a serious kitchen project you’ve been itching to try (perhaps a that results in fall-apart juicy meat… ) now’s the time. And two, it also means you can spend all day and all night – and all of the NEXT several days and nights, for that matter, watching all the must-see shows on your list.
SBS On Demand is packed snugger than the Easter Bunny’s basket with films for food lovers, foodie travel shows and more. To help you narrow down your list, here are our picks of what’s streaming 24/7, and some suggestions for what delicious dish you might like to serve up to fuel your viewing.
The perfect bowl of noodles
is a gentle Japanese comedy that tells the story of a young widow – the Tampopo of the film’s title – who is struggling to make ends meet as she runs a noodle shop. When a truck driver, Goro, and his young sidekick, Gun, rescue her son, they are rewarded with a serve of noodles. Sadly, they are not very good noodles, and when Goro tells Tampopo the truth about her cooking, she enlists his help. The film follows their mission to create the perfect bowl of noodles. This is an enchanting ode to the joys of food in general – subplots wend in everything from a secret recipe for sausages to how to eat spaghetti – and to the deep appeal of a truly good ramen.
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- – a gastronomic delight from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, telling the tale of a semi-retired master chef and the weekly dinner with his three daughters
Eat it with
If you’ve got time, make the , which uses 44 cloves of garlic, most of it braised with pork belly until both are meltingly tender. You’ll need to start that one a day ahead, so if you want ramen in more of a rush, try , which can be in your bowl in 40 minutes.
The vampire slayer ramen express Source: Mandy Lee
Action all the way with Jackie Chan
If your aim actually IS to binge watch all day and all night and you’re starting to flag, throw some Jackie Chan in the mix. , which stars Chan as one of the owners of a fast food van in Barcelona, is fast and funny and as with any Chan movie, sprinkled liberally with impressive action, including one particularly good martial arts scene where Chan lines up against former pro kickboxing champ Benny Urquidez, who plays a local thug.
You might also like
- – a bit of a sharp left turn from the action-comedy of Jackie Chan, this actually is all about starting a food truck, from the SBS Small Business Secrets team.
Eat it with
You can get almost everything at a food truck these days, but America’s barbecue taco trucks were pioneers of the food truck movement, so we can’t go past that delicious fusion of spicy Korean barbecue and Mexican street food. Say hello to this .
Korean BBQ tacos Source: Supplied
Pizza and wine
That’s both our eating and drinking suggestion AND the shows we suggest you line it up with. is a great dive into the world of pizza. All of seasons 1 and 2 are currently available on On Demand and believe us when we say that after seeing host Frank Pinello eating everything from Chicago deep dish to pizza a taglio in Rome, you will want pizza. Lots of pizza. For wine lovers, there are two wine shows to choose from: and .
You might also like
- - Australian cheese expert Will Studd takes a look at some truly fascinating fromage, from ceremonial yak milk cheese to Turkish string cheese.
Eat it with
Make Frank Pinello’s and turn it into his or .
Frank Pinello's Grandma pizza Source: VICELAND / The Pizza Show / Farideh Sadeghin
Travel the world: we want to go there and we want to eat that…
If you’d like to use your long weekend to travel the world from your couch, you can tick off Italy with the and ; France with Rachel Khoo in ; many delicious parts of Asia, including , , and ; Canada with big, bold chef Matty Matheson in ; or the US, on a road trip with Pail Rankin and Nick Nairn on .
Or if you can’t make up your mind where you'd like to go, line up (who is eating everywhere from Fiji to Malaysia); (you can catch up on the Vietnamese and Chinese episodes that have screened so far on SBS On Demand, and then look out for Greek and Lebanese episodes to come on SBS Food, 3 pm weekdays); or (which goes from Bohemia to Berlin and Wales to Washington).
You might also like
- Stay closer to home and explore Australia in and with Justine Schofield, as she travels around Queensland and the Northern Territory, meeting everyone from producers to Indigenous tour guides.
Serve it with
A platter that also has a bit of everything: Rachel Khoo’s , which also features zucchini salad, eggplant tempura and baked beetroot.
Antipasto platter with baked brie Source: Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook Melbourne
Chill out
Ice-cream lovers, there’s a show just for you, but if you’ve trawled through all the shows listed in the you’ll have missed this one because it’s tucked away over in the documentaries. It’s called, unsurprisingly, , and it features third-generation ice-cream maker Isaac Lappert as he travels from city to city to sample everything from saffron-scented Persian ice-cream to a Chinatown ice cream cake.
You might also like
- – an episode of Food Porn, a show that is nothing to do with porn, and everything to do with investigating the food that sets social media on fire. In this episode, over-the-top shakes and a place famous for playful flavours.
Eat it with
The weather’s cooling down a tad, so hedge your bets: make the rum & raisin ice-cream ahead of time, and then if it looks like it’s going to be a cool one the night you’re sitting down to watch The Ice Cream Show, you can serve it up with the rich banana tarte tatin (recipe for both ).
Find hundreds of hours of food shows and more at , or visit to find out what's coming up on SBS, SBS VICELAND, NITV and SBS Food.
Banana tarte tatin with rum and raisin ice-cream Source: Lottie Hedley, The Great Australian Baking Book
