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Vietnamese Banana Sticky Rice Cake
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http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/food/sydney-taste/the-10-best-dishes-in-cabramatta-we-show-you-where-and-what-to-eat/news-story/799f3c6871b7eb8784a4c709a2260b96
The 10: we show you where, and what to eat
IT’S early afternoon on a Sunday in Cabramatta and the streets are alive. Everywhere, from the gates of Cabramatta on Arthur St to the long strip of John St, families are jostling for foot space.
Restaurant after restaurant is full to capacity, with lines flowing out the doors.
Ladies at banh mi outlets make roll after roll. Vendors selling rice paper rolls on upturned milk crates do a roaring trade to passers-by.
Elderly men open trolleys filled with fragrant herbs to sell in bunches. Small children, old ladies and tourists vie for a position on the footpath alongside a vibrant throng of Cabramatta locals, many of Vietnamese-Australian origin.
“This is Cabramatta’s moment,” says Thang Ngo, looking around proudly at his neighbourhood. “Three-bedroom houses on good blocks now sell here for more than $1 million. The restaurants are beginning to open after 7pm. I’m very proud of this place.”
It’s a far cry from the way Cabramatta was 15 to 20 years ago when the drug lords ruled over terrified locals and the streets by night were deserted. A NSW parliamentary inquiry that began in 2000, followed by concerted police operations to clean up Cabramatta and increase their presence in the notorious suburb, has seen one of the state’s scariest areas turned into a major tourist attraction.
Fairfield City Council figures from 2013 show food tourism is now worth more than $275,000 to the area, with day trippers on average spending more than $110 each while there.
“It has taken about a decade for the word to filter through about what Cabramatta is like now,” says Thang, who as a then-Fairfield councillor, was instrumental in pushing for the parliamentary inquiry.
“But now young people I know who are not from here have never even heard of what it was like back then. It used to be that everyone wanted to move out of here because it was unsafe. Now, everyone wants to move back.”
Restaurateur Chi Vu Giang, 38, from Pho Tau Bay, a pho restaurant started in 1978 by his mother, Pham Thi Nhu, who is still working in the kitchen during our visit, agrees we may right be at peak Cabramatta.
“Cabramatta is getting bigger and bigger with more tourists,” Chi says, while monitoring the throng lined up out the front of his full restaurant. “We have people coming from out of town, from the mountains, from North Sydney, from the Southern Highlands. They come to experience the Asian thing. It’s great.”
Thang, who runs the food blog Noodlies, says the suburb is on the cusp of becoming something different, with the older generation of migrants who opened restaurants and businesses in the 1980s gradually being replaced by their children, and newcomers.
“It is great here at the moment, because you can still find the older generation working in their restaurants,” he says. “Most of them have been here for 30 years and survived the bad years. They know the way things are done, they have the old recipes and know the old ways. That will change over the next 10 years. So now is probably the best time to come to Cabramatta.”
Thang’s tips on the best dishes to eat in “Cabra”.
1. PHO BO
Pho Tau Bay (12/117 John St, enter via Hill St, 9726 4583)
There’s more or less no menu at this legendary pho house recently reopened after renovation. But from a range of pho that includes chicken and spicy pork, Thang’s pick is pho bo, beef soup with tendon, tripe, brisket and noodles served with fresh mint and bean shoots. The stock cooks for six hours and is gloriously fragrant and complex.
2. BANH MI THIT and 3. BANH BAO
Viet Hoa (48 John St, 9728 7198)
Known locally as the “24-hour bread shop”, this powerhouse bakery does outstanding banh mi (crispy bread rolls filled with pate, Vietnamese devon, pickled carrot, slices of cucumber, fresh coriander, rolled pork belly and “banh mi sauce”) for $4. Also try the newly introduced Viet-style banh bao — steamed buns stuffed with mince and treasures including quail egg and sausage.
4. BANH HOI CA
An Lac (94B John St, 9727 5116)
This dish at this all-vegan restaurant is amazing. Roll-your-own rice paper rolls come with an oblong of “mock fish” ($18) made from tofu and seaweed. The “fish” tastes and feels so like fish it’s hard to believe it’s not real. After you compose your rolls, the eating is delicious.
5. COM TAM SUON BI CHA
Tuong Lai (3 Belvedere Arcade, 9727 2650)
Translated as “broken rice with pork chop” this dish brings back memories for Thang. “Most places don’t use ‘broken rice’ any more, because it’s more expensive than whole rice,” he says. “But it really gives the old taste.”
The $10 dish at this 30-year-old venue is a masterpiece of understated simplicity served on a cheery plastic plate. Here the rice is covered with a salad pickled carrot, shallot, cucumber, a slice of frittata and a pile of noodles with sliced pork skin. A marinated, pan-fried pork chop is on top, and add an egg for extra protein.
6. VEGETARIAN FEAST
Vinh Nghiem Pagoda (177 John St, 9723 3383)
Once a month the Buddhist monks and volunteers at this temple hidden behind a regular suburban house prepare a beautiful (free) vegetarian feast. Call ahead for dates.
7. BO NE
Cafe De Palm (117A John St, no phone)
This place is as close to the cafes of contemporary Vietnam as you might get in Sydney. Thang goes for bo ne ($12), a platter of marinated sizzling beef that’s as good to eat as it is simple.
8. GAR DON
Tan Viet (100 John St, 9727 6853)
“I’m here pretty often,” says Thang. “The interesting thing about around here is that you have to be really good to create a niche.”
That’s exactly what Tan Viet has done with its crispy chicken and noodle dish ($13), which he says is probably Cabramatta’s most famous dish after pho. Interestingly, Tan Viet has lately started opening until 9pm after years of closing at sundown.
9. COFFEE
The Usual Cafe (8/46 Hill St, 9728 4171)
Second-generation Cabramatta couple Jenny Ngo, 26, and Corey Nguyen, 27, in December opened Cabra’s first hipster cafe, serving Single O coffee and contemporary dishes such as buttermilk hot cakes with blueberry compote. Jenny says the couple felt it was time the area had a cool local cafe, and the reception from locals has been warm.
“Sometimes the younger generation around here is still afraid to open, but we wanted to show that it’s not a dangerous place,” she says. “We took a risk. We didn’t know if it was going to work but it has.”
10. HU TIEU NAM VANG
Dong Son (44 Park Rd, 9724 4551)
This unassuming Cambodian-Chinese venue offers variations on regional dishes. Thang’s breakfast favourite is hu tieu nam vang, a soup of pork products including heart, liver and congealed blood in a light stock also filled with noodles.
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