Food News

Boon Luck Farm in Byron Bay is hosting a knees-up this weekend

The Sunday afternoon event features Thai dishes cooked over fire-pits, local and out-of-town chefs and tours of the farm.

By Emma Breheny
Palisa Anderson at Boon Luck Farm
Boon Luck Farm, the property outside Byron Bay run by Palisa Anderson of the Chat Thai clan, is opening the gates this weekend for a shindig involving food, music, farm tours and top-name chefs. The festivities kick off in the late afternoon with the plan of attack being to nab a spot under the property's 300-year-old Moreton Bay fig tree before making a beeline for food prepared by the likes of Fleet's Josh Lewis and Luke Burgess of Garagistes fame.
"We've had so many large social gatherings of friends on the farm over the years and so many requests from people to come tour the farm that this seemed like a fun idea," says Anderson.
Paper Daisy's Ben Devlin will grill fish that's been rubbed with curry paste, pairing it with sea lettuce and bunya nuts while Adam James is making the journey from Tasmania's Rough Rice to add his ferments to the likes of kangaroo tail. Anderson herself will also be on the pans. She's slow-roasting Bangalow suckling pig and serving it with nahm jim jaew, som dtum and sticky rice.
Thai recipes, native ingredients and organic produce might read like odd bedfellows but, in fact, that's exactly what Boon Luck Farm is all about. Anderson's mother Amy Chanta established Sydney restaurant Chat Thai in 1989, grew it into the nine-business empire of restaurants, a café and a grocer that it is today and in 2016 took on Boon Luck Farm as a way to guarantee high-quality organic produce and hard-to-find ingredients (such as pea eggplants and finger limes) for her menus.
Those who make it to Boon-Mania will get the chance to learn more about Boon Luck through farm tours and conversations with the chefs who use the farm's produce in their restaurants.
If you're in the Byron area this Sunday and your plans don't involve an afternoon of eating and drinking on an organic farm, it's not too late to change that.
Boon-Mania, Sun 27 May, 3pm-6pm, Boon Luck Farm, 69 Foxs Ln, Tyagarah, NSW. Tickets: adults $80, children $40, 8-12 years, children under 8 years free, trybooking.com
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  • undefined: Emma Breheny