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Tom Kerridge and Cherry Healey celebrate our favourite takeaways. Tom travels the country to find out what makes the best Chinese takeaway and the trade secrets behind it.

We are a nation in love with takeaways, spending six billion pounds on them every year. But did you know Chinese food is currently our favourite? We eat an incredible eight million meals a week.

This week, Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge travels the country to find out what makes the best Chinese takeaway and the trade secrets behind it, while Cherry Healey explores the fascinating stories that shaped our communities as well as our palates. She discovers how the home washing machine kick-started the takeaway and how Billy Butlin introduced Chinese food to the masses for the first time.

Then, three of the nation's award-winning Chinese takeaways are invited to compete in a contest in the heart of London's China Town. Each is passionate about their own style of cooking, but they all have very different ideas about what makes the best Chinese dishes. For one, it is the classic recipes we are familiar with here in the UK, handed down through three generations, for another it is a fusion of styles from across Asia, and for the third, it is traditional Chinese home cooking using exotic ingredients. Each believes their version of the takeaway is the best but it is down to Tom and his expert judge, writer and chef Ching He-Huang, to decide a winner.

58 minutes

Clip

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:01

    Cults

    Bumper

  • 00:01

    Django Django

    Shake and Tremble

  • 00:02

    Caro Emerald

    That Man

  • 00:10

    The New Dave Pike Set

    Mathar

  • 00:10

    Glenn Miller & Ray Eberle

    On a Little Street in Singapore

  • 00:14

    Gabrielle Aplin

    Sweet Nothing

  • 00:19

    Paloma Faith

    Upside Down

  • 00:25

    Pete Lockett & Joji Hirota

    Korvai On Chennais Sandy Shore

  • 00:29

    The Valentines

    Lily Maebelle

  • 00:29

    Link Wray & His Raymen

    Rumble

  • 00:32

    The Hollies

    Lucille

  • 00:32

    The Specials

    Ghost Town

  • 00:33

    Raury

    Crystal Express

  • 00:38

    The Ramrods

    (Ghost) Riders In The Sky

  • 00:39

    Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

    Big John Special

  • 00:41

    Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five

    Begin The Beguine

  • 00:42

    CeeLo Green

    Forget You

  • 00:46

    Noah and the Whale

    Mary

  • 00:49

    Joji Hirota

    Hokkai

  • 00:56

    Eliza and the Bear

    Light It Up

  • 00:57

    Biffy Clyro

    Many Of Horror

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Kerridge
Presenter Cherry Healey
Judge Ching-He Huang
Executive Producer Dominique Walker
Series Producer Jo Bishop
Production Manager Lucy Austin
Production Company Twenty Twenty TV

Broadcasts