Patrick Lam, the baker behind Patrick's Gold Star Bakery in Tauranga, last night took out his fifth Supreme Pie Award since 2003. He has won 56 other awards in the competition. We spoke to Patrick in 2012 about how he went from nine years in a Vietnamese camp to master pie maker.

Khu Hoac Lam's first business was run from within the barbed wire fences of the Thu Doc refugee camp in South Vietnam. Even as a child, his tastebuds were acute. He was 14 years old, a refugee from the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and very good at making strong, black, sweet Vietnamese coffee.

"My father ran the small coffee cart for the other refugees, it was very small but it was a business, " he says. In 1975, Lam was five years old. The Khmer Rouge - a radical communist regime that would eventually claim 1.7 million Cambodian lives - was advancing on Phnom Penh. Lam's parents decided to abandon their home and escape with their three children to Vietnam. He remembers feeling scared; and joining thousands of refugees fleeing for their lives, worn out from years of civil war and deprivation. "Everyone was pushing, pushing and very desperate, " he says, more than 35 years later.

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The Lam family walked for days. They had nothing to eat and the corpses of those too old or too sick to make the journey littered the roadside. Lamstill thinks of that walk - the last memories he has of his home country.

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Supplied The winning bacon and egg pie.

The Lam family spent nine years in refugee camps in Vietnam. His parents, who used to sell children's clothes in the central market, had no work and the children no formal education. For 10 years, the only schooling Lam received was some rudimentary English and basic lessons from his fellow refugees. The family of five lived in a one- room shack and the Red Cross provided basic meals of rice and vegetables. It was a life defined by poverty, and the interminable wait to be accepted as a legitimate refugee by a host country.

"We had no direction, we had no future, " says Lam. "We didn't know what would happen tomorrow, so I had no dreams."

Lam has come a long way from the coffee cart in Thu Doc. After 15 years in New Zealand he proudly calls himself a Kiwi, and in 2003 changed his name to Patrick Lam (after winning an award for making the best pie in New Zealand, he discovered people found Khu Hoac too difficult to pronounce - bad for business).

Bakels NZ The best pies of 2016 have been announced and the winner is a bacon and egg pie from Tauranga.

Patrick Lam has three children, four successful bakeries (Gold Star Patrick's Pies in Tauranga and Rotorua), and has won best pie in New Zealand four times (another win this week making it five) - an unmatched feat in the competition's history. John Campbell calls him the "Pie King of New Zealand" and if he could find reliable staff, he would open more bakeries.

"He just loves pies, " says Naomi Ludlow, 17, who has worked in his Bethlehem bakery for two years. "He will do anything to make them perfect."

Lam first tasted a New Zealand pie in 1997. He was visiting his brother-in-law and was curious about the national snack. The pie was mince and cheese, and it remains his favourite today. But he never imagined that five years later he would make his own version that would be voted the best pie in New Zealand in the Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Award competition.

Phil Doyle Patrick Lam at his bakery in Tauranga.

"Because a Cambodian was winning, it lifted everybody's game, " says Kevin Marshall, one of the event organisers. Eighty per cent of the bakers who take part in the competition are Asian, and 50 per cent of the winners are Asian too. Marshall says New Zealand has a "multicultural baking society", and thinks the influx of Asian bakers has been good for pies and the overall competition. "When Patrick won in 2003 he gave a lot of the other Asian bakers confidence to take part and since then they have dominated the competition. He puts so much effort into his flavours and seasonings and is always working to come up with something new and creative. Pies are not a junk food - they are an art."

Lam thinks bakeries have become popular with Asian migrants in the last 10 years because there are few employment options for people with limited English skills, and bakeries often function well as a family business. Three members of Lam's extended family run bakeries in New Zealand, and have won top awards in the Bakels competition.

When Lam moved to New Zealand in 1997, he had no experience in bakeries - in fact he would hardly ever cook. He had been working in a juice factory in Cabramatta, Sydney, for the previous decade, and almost on a whim decided to set up a lunch bar. He was getting on, and knew if he didn't take a chance on something soon his life would slip by. There is a strong streak of daring in Patrick Lam, which makes him talk of his achievements - and the risks he took - lightly.

"I've always been confident, even as a child in the refugee camp, " he says. "Whatever I try to do, I always do my best."

His brother-in-law gave him two weeks' training in baking, and then he bought a small shop in Auckland. The lunch bar didn't make much money, soLam and his wife Lynn sold it, moved to Rotorua and bought a bakery - Lam out back experimenting with his new interest in pies, and Lynn serving in the shop.

"The pies we made at the beginning are the same as the ones we make now, " says Lam. "The pastry is a bit better but the filling is exactly the same."

Lam and his wife work 12-13 hours a day, seven days a week. He admits to being a perfectionist, and struggles to hand over control of his pies to his staff. He knows the reputation his pies have built up over the last 15 years is too good to risk.

"I would like to open more bakeries, but I can't be everywhere all the time. And it's important I am around to keep the standards up: I have worked very hard for this business and if the quality would be compromised by opening more bakeries, I won't do it."

Lam starts thinking of a new pie to create for the competition about three months before judging day. The event is held in July in Auckland and the pie bakers submit must be on sale in their bakeries a month before the competition. "It's incredibly hard work, " says Lam. "I get all the bakers from my other stores to come to Bethlehem and we work all through the night to cook the right pie. We usually bake about 400 pies to get the right one for the competition."

Lam's creamy bacon, mushroom and cheese pie has twice been awarded best pie in New Zealand. The filling for the pie is made two days in advance of being sold in store, and is a model of quality ingredients and careful preparation.

Lam begins the pie by cooking a filling of sliced mushrooms, cream, milk, chicken stock and spices. It is set aside for a day to allow the flavours to develop. Then the pastry is rolled (thicker for the base and sides, thin and light on top). The base of the pie is layered with a generous serving of the mushroom filling, followed by a slice of bacon. Next comes more mushroom filling and finally a heap of minced bacon and some cheese. The result is one of the best-selling pies in store.

Lam is continually experimenting with new flavours, trying his concoctions on his staff and occasionally special customers. At night he and his family usually eat Chinese or Cambodian food, though he eats a pie every day at morning tea with his staff. Although he was 27 before he tasted a New Zealand pie, they have become the greatest passion of his working life.

"The first time we won I didn't believe it, " he says, grinning at the memory.

"We are part of Asian people and how can you win other people's tradition? But we are proud of ourselves and winning just makes you want to try even harder. But I think I have to work harder because I came from nothing, I came from zero dollars. I think only in New Zealand could you achieve this."