Kid in the kitchen

MANILA, Philippines – A kitchen is hardly the place you’d want a child to linger. There are lots of things that can be potentially dangerous — even for supposedly knowledgeable adults.

Estie Kung, all spunk and all of eight years, is proving that she’s okay being among stoves, knives and the cutting board. In fact, the Los Angeles-based girl is in her element in the kitchen. No kidding.

On A+E Networks’ Lifetime channel, Estie gets to prove this as she leads a bunch of “up-and-coming child cooking wunderkinds” Dylan (11), Emmalee (12), Cloyce (13) and Holden (14) against executive-level chefs who were presumably cooking long before these kids’ parents ever met. In a release, Lifetime describes each episode as being “made up of three rounds of cooking set to test the competitors’ abilities and mastery in the kitchen, from making sausages from scratch to preparing the perfect omelet.”

During a recent stop in Manila in a multi-country swing to promote Man vs. Child: Chef Showdown, Estie, accompanied by her doting mother Laura, spoke to The Philippine STAR in an exclusive interview.

Estie related that she, like the rest of her competitors, had to audition to get on the show. She whipped up a unique dish of tuna rice puffs. She related, “We only had a teeny tiny bit of ingredients since we did this last minute. There’s this little thing wherein you tape all the ingredients you have, and a dish pops up. We got tuna rice puffs! It tasted good!”

The bubbly Estie insisted that being the youngest in the show didn’t bother her one bit. In fact, she considers it an advantage. “I think they underestimate me,” Estie observed. “But I like to poof-poof and I get a crazy dish. Oops! (They’d think) ‘I just put a chicken bone on my plate and she did a bazooka.’” Even if the girl explained it, well, like an eight-year-old would, there’s a wealth of innate talent and imagination — not to mention passion — that shows she knows what she’s doing.

Young as she is, Estie draws inspiration from anywhere she can get it. “Sometimes it relates to me being Asian trying to make Asian food,” said the half-Chinese prodigy. “If I have to cook something with edible flower things, I think of times when I’ve seen flowers or maybe had edible flowers. And then maybe I can use caviar. Maybe I went to a place and saw a bunch of flowers in a field; maybe I could have made food based on that.”

Mommy Laura admitted to being nervous about Estie’s inclination to anything culinary. “I was afraid of knives, for sure, (so) she didn’t really use a sharp knife until the show. I made her do the cutting with either a table knife or a little paring knife, (until) people told me that’s actually more dangerous than the big chef’s knife,” she said.

“It actually is ‘cause it’s really sharp at the edges,” agreed Estie. “But I actually had little kid cooking class so I was like, boom, was like (makes sounds). I was kind of fine.”

Laura reckons that Estie must have formed an interest in fine food because she and her husband would take her along for dates in swanky restaurants and establishments. “At first I thought, ‘Oh no! Bringing a kid to a nice restaurant!’ And then I thought she wouldn’t even enjoy it; (that it would be) such a waste of money. But she would try anything, and her palate started to develop. She was like, ‘Oh, this is so much better than McDonald’s or whatever.’ She got more interested in cooking as she got more interested in food, and tried different things like other chefs were doing.”

Understandably, Estie dreams of owning and running her own restaurant one day. What would the concept be? “I’m not quite sure yet, but maybe I’ll cook a lot of food. I was thinking all-you-can-eat, but I’m kind of like changing my mind now. I think like a tasting menu like maybe a different menu every week like what Chef Ludo (Lefebvre, French celebrity chef and restaurateur) does at his restaurant.

“I actually know this recipe for a drink that has rainbow layers. That’s going to be on the kid’s menu,” she shared excitedly. “The kid’s menu will be happy and imaginative. And maybe the adult menu can be kind of like everything! Like a bunch of like caviar, steak, maybe some foie gras, a lot of filet mignon. It’s going to be awesome!”

If Hollywood comes a-knocking at her door, Estie will most gladly welcome the opportunity. “I kind of want to have my own talk show,” she admitted with a wide grin. Like perhaps, instead of Ellen, Estie?

Still, even if the future is wide open to anything and everything little Miss Estie Kung wants to do, she is clear about her vision of having her own restaurant. “Oh, I’m not going to let go of my restaurant dream. Restaurant first!” she declared.

Man Vs. Child: Chef Showdown airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m., with a primetime replay at 10 p.m. on Lifetime.