It turned out that the wacky celebrity chef Bobby Chinn was a more toned down person in real life.

A half Egyptian half Chinese, Bobby was born in New Zealand, schooled in England, trained in French cuisine, and runs a restaurant in Hanoi. But it was the culinary TV shows on Discovery Channel that turned him into an internationally-known chef.

We spoke to him during his latest visit to Singapore for Spikes Asia 2011 Advertising Festival , and we were shown a different side of him during our one-to-one. We asked and he reasoned the future of Asian cuisine and gave sound advice on how Singapore food could go global. However, a glimmer of his onstage persona broke free towards the end of the interview. Once, he spoke so quickly that he decided to punctuate his sentence with incomprehensible babble.

Where do you think Asian food stands along with the other international cuisines?

As far as technique and ideas are concerned, it still remains right there at the top. The Chinese has perfected cooking techniques thousands of years ago. Only they would take the duck, cut it underneath its wing pit, pull its intestines out from there, putting a hole on the side of the neck, blow air through it to separate the skin from the fat, blanching the skin, air drying it for a day and then roasting it therefore inventing a dish like Peking duck. That to me is magical. And there are thousands of dishes like that.

How important is it to be validated by western media?

I don’t need them to validate my culture. What validates it are my people. Editors are gonna say things like ‘Don’t write that article about Indonesian food, it’s all about Ethiopian now’. You are just going through those cycles. The bottom line is – it doesn’t matter where you are cooking, but as long as there are people liking it, then that’s what it is. The validation from a publication 6000 miles away doesn’t really mean as much.

Which Asian cuisine do you think will be the next to gain international fame?

I think Vietnamese cuisine already has, that’s why I moved there 15 years ago. After America lifted the embargo, business travel increased. People discovered the cuisine and they went back to their own country and say ‘let’s go eat Vietnamese food’. It went from being low end to higher end, which is totally legitimate because it’s healthy, easy to make, sophisticated in the use of ingredients, contrast and textures. It’s very modern and uniquely different from the rest of Southeast Asian cuisine. And the fact that Vietnam was a French colony makes a good story.

What about other Asian cuisines like Thai and Chinese? What made them tick?

The Thai government gave money to the people to set up restaurants all over the world so that they can sell more Thai products. Chinese food comes in bottles. You’ve got oyster sauce, soy sauce, bean paste, sesame oil, fermented soy bean, plum sauce and then you just mix them according to ratio and the food tastes good all over the world.

What can Singapore do to replicate their success?

How do I make Pepper Crab and Beef Rendang somewhere else? You gotto give people a sauce so that they can open, put a teaspoon and mix this sauce with that sauce. Basically showing them how to do it, so that someone can cook that food and duplicate it day in, day out in a restaurant.

Youself, Ming Tsai, Kylie Kwang and Poh Ling Yeow all have a Western background.

How important is that if you are an Asian who wants to become a food presenter?

I chatted with the BBC a long time ago. They liked me but they said that I sounded too American and it would be fantastic if I spoke British English, because English people don’t like American. I can speak British English, but it seems preposterous. If you think you’ll have to be famous in the West to be famous anywhere else, you are missing the plot. The plot is you want to be good at what you do. I was just being me, traveling with three guys with a camera, eating blah blah blah and then when it goes on television and became successful.

Did becoming a TV presenter change you?

A lot of my friends say I’m the same. I’m still Bobby to them. It’s the way I get treated by strangers that has changed. I went to a club the other night and this lady walked up to me and told me that I look much better on television. I said, “Thank you very much. You should see me in daylight, I look scarier.” You might say the most horrid things to me but I’m nice. But if I didn’t have a TV show, I might just wring your neck.

Editor’s note: Singapore pre-packed sauces for Black Pepper Crab and Beef Rendang, and even Coffee Ribs are readily available in the market. Singapore manufacturers can lay claim to having one of the biggest range of street food sauces in the world.