Eating in Sydney's South-West: Cabra-battered dog
This is the first instalment of 'Eating in Sydney's South-West', in which I outline places to eat that are genuinely good, and aren't just tourist traps - medicore, overrated meals, as reflected in their absurd prices.
In this part, I'm going to go through places to eat in Cabramatta, which you've no doubt heard about as the former heroin capital of Australia, now the food capital of New South Wales. Cabramatta has a huge range of food, and you can pretty much find anything here (as long as it's Asian). I'm going to go through a few things that you should eat if you ever find yourself hungry here.
I grew up in Cabramatta and I remember that -- nope, okay, you don't care, you're just hungry and (relatively) poor, so I'll just shut up and get to the food.
HOW MUCH: $9 for chicken, beef or tofu, $11 for seafood
WHERE: Savann Restaurant, opposite the Post Office on Hugh Street
WORDS: If there were a person whose biological parents were the most beautiful people in the world, and then a wizard appeared and magically transformed that person into sauce, they would turn into Savann's peanut sauce. The sauce is so amazing that you'd think that your tastebuds died and went to heaven - the sauce is just sweet enough, and very rich that you'll inadvertently moan "MMMM!" as you slurp it up. The noodles are consistently perfect, neither so firm that you have to chew and chew and chew and chew and chew, nor so soft and sloppy that you feel like you're eating a ghost. The beef and chicken are always juicy. I have never been let down by how tasty and filling this is, and I'm told that the vegan Pad Thai (without eggs and meat) is very good as well.
DANGER!!! While the Pad Thai from Savann is the best I've had, I would not recommend many of the other dishes as standalone meals. The ox-tongue, for example, can be flavourless and dry, and the fried quail quite ordinary. If you do want to try the other dishes, though, you'd be better off dining with 3-5 friends so that you can order however many dishes and split the cost, paying $10-15 each, which is quite cheap considering how full you will be.
WHAT: Sweet sweet sandwiches
WHERE: Simply Delicious, opposite the train station
WORDS: I know I said that you can have any food that you'd like in Cabramatta as long as it's Asian, but this is an exception. Simply Delicious is a family-owned deli with an impressive range of cured meats, cheeses, and antipasto available to put into your sandwich. The sandwiches in question are huge and can contain just about whatever you'd like, with an unlimited selection of meats and salads for the flat rate of $5. I'm not sure what the bread is, but it is very good.Â
I can't recommend anything because I always ask the lovely Serbian girl behind the counter if she could make me a 'surprise sandwich', a question to which she responds, with a smile, "Sure thing," and stands there for a while, deliberating which combination of meats and cheeses to put together, before making an incredibly tasty and filling sandwich.
DANGER!!! For some reason, the sandwiches tend to get very greasy, which takes away the crunchiness of the bread crust (which I love), and makes your hands feel really, really gross as they clutch at the now-transparent paper bag. The best way to avoid this is to wolf it down as quickly as possible.Â
WHAT: Com Do Ga Chien Gion (Fried chicken with tomato rice) - but also just about any other Vietnamese meal that is not pho
WHERE: Tuong Lai, just off John Street on Belvedere Arcade
WORDS: Tuong Lai means 'future' in Vietnamese, something you would never associate with the elderly Vietnamese owners and unintentional minimalism of the interiors of the restaurant. The walls are bare, save for the large menus in Vietnamese, Chinese, and English (there aren't any printed ones), and the tables just large enough for your meal and a drink.
The message is clear: it's all about the food. You will often find the restaurant packed, because its meals are of similar quality to that of the upscale Thanh Binh, but without the stupid prices that only wasteful people would pay.
The Com Do Ca Chien Gion here is an outstanding dish, not just from the menu, but from all of Cabramatta. Whereas the chicken in all other restaurants is deep-fried, here it is baked or barbequed, resulting in an extraordinary taste that I can't begin to pinpoint. Just trust me when I say that it is great.
DANGER!!! Don't be fooled by the seedy-looking interior. I haven't gotten food poisoning from this place yet, so it should be fine for you. I had a hard time picking between the com tam, banh canh suong, cha gio, and com ga chien gio, so I just chose the most unique dish they had. But if you can, definitely come back and try the others. They are just as good.
WHAT: Pork rolls (Banh Mi Thit)
WHERE: The arcade opposite Belvedere Arcade
WORDS: The fresh bread makes this all worth it. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and completely delightful throughout. My biggest concern with pork rolls in Cabramatta is the large amount of butter they put on the roll, which can often leave you feeling sick, or guilty, or both. This isn't an issue at...well I don't know the name of this place, but it's the only bakery in an arcade.
There is usually a line, but don't stray to other bakeries. Viet Hoa, a bakery that has been in operation for a long time further down John Street, pre-makes their pork rolls, and sells these stale rolls for $4, even though they are smaller.
DANGER!!! Don't pay too much attention to which hands are used to collect customers' money and which hands are used to prepare your bread roll. As it goes, ignorance is bliss.
WHAT: Salt and pepper fish
HOW MUCH: Market price + $5 - I got Salt and Pepper Snapper for $20
WHERE: The fish market and food-selling place opposite end of the arcade where Viet Hoa is on John Street
WORDS: Although this is a guide to cheap food, if you ever did want to splurge, this is probably the best place for it. Choose your fish at the market, get it cleaned and gutted, and then take it to the shop opposite to get it fried in salt-and-pepper batter for an extra $5. Fresh fish is delicious!
DANGER!!! To get the most out of your money, choose a fresh fish. You can determine how fresh it is by looking at the fish's cold, literally dead-eyed stare: a greater degree of cloudiness indicates that the fish has been out for longer, so avoid these. The fish, once fried, will be given to you in an aluminium tray covered with cling wrap, and will get soggy if you don't eat it as soon as you can.
So there it is. A starter's guide to cheap eats in Cabramatta.