Hairy Bikers reveal the next big food fad Korean Fried Chicken

Geordie cooks are off on a new adventure to celebrate 10 years on TV.

The Hairy Bikers have revealed they owe their fame and fortune to Scotland. Dave Myers and buddy Si King are back this week for a new series, The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure. It comes as they celebrate 10 years at the top.

And they’ve been telling just how it happened in their own inimitable style.

I’ve interviewed the duo several times since their earliest days on the box. It’s like being the umpire at a tennis match as they serve and volley responses back and forth, jumping in to smash a winner at the end of their mate’s anecdote.

What you see on the telly with Dave and Si is exactly what you get. Natural, funny and blooming hard to keep a track of as they both chip in!

The pair met in a pub, crew members on Robson Green’s version of Catherine Cookson’s The Gambling Man.

“We got on like a house on fire right away, even though he sold me a really terrible motorbike,” laughs Dave (that should probably be ‘Disco Dave’ after his stonking turn on Strictly).

“He came up to my place in Huntly to pick it up and we became good mates by cooking, really. The first time we did a Thai-style roasted leg of pork, with Southern Comfort flamb bananas for pudding.

“I’ve still got a picture of us with flames in the kitchen. Somebody said at the time: ‘You two should be on the telly’.”

Si’s love of all things north of the border is just as clear as his mucker’s.

“We absolutely adore the place. If it hadn’t have been for Scotland, the Hairy Bikers wouldn’t have existed. We spent so much time on our bikes all over Scotland. My 13-year-old, Dylan, won’t go anywhere else.

“I say it’ll be raining and he says: ‘Dad, we live in Northumberland where we’ve only got two seasons, nine months of winter and three months of bad weather.”

Dave’s memories include happy days at the Fishermen’s Mission at Lochinver.

“We got fed up of eating trout we’d caught so we’d take them round the back, gut them and the ladies would give us egg and chips in exchange.”

The larger than life duo have become one of the BBC’s hottest successes, and they’ve come a long way from the first series in Portugal.

It had taken years of talks and scraping money together to start filming in 2004.

“I was so nervous when it went out, I went to see my sister in Italy,” confesses 47-year-old dad-of-three Si.

“Dave and I watched the show, had a party and I flew out the next day. We had no big expectations but it got 3.4 million viewers

“One critic said it wasn’t so much a breath of fresh air as ‘Who blew the bloody doors off?’”

The pair are now on their 15th series and have had 12 cookbooks published.

“It still seems absurd,” admits Dave, 56. “If you’d said that’d be the case I’d have thought we’d be living the life of Riley in the Bahamas. Sadly not.”

They’ve both got a nice lifestyle, though, Geordie Si in his home territory and Dave in Barrow-in-Furness.

Their fans will be delighted to see the pair back with their Asian Adventure.

It includes a day spent at a Sumo school where the wrestlers gorge on 20,000 calories a day to bulk up.

“I’ve never been anywhere like Thailand for being completely food obsessed,” says Si.

“And I’m sure the next big thing will be Korean Fried Chicken, it’s unbelievable.”

The pair’s affection for one another is clear. Si hails Dave as a “good, open, honest man” and Dave says, quite simply, they just get on.

Do they really?

“We do,” insists Dave. “But we did have a blazing row on the very first episode of the first series.

“I don’t like olive oil in mayonnaise and it all kicked off. I remember the producer thinking it had all fallen apart before it had even got off the ground. It was just us two big Marys cracking on about mayonnaise.”

Could there be another 10 years?

“Give over I’m only 47,” laughs Si. “There’ll definitely be another 10 years. God knows what we’ll be doing but I’ll still be riding motorcycles.”

The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure, BBC 2, Thursday, 8pm.