This post took me the better part of a record breaking THREE HOURS…OMG! Can you see now why I’ve been so slow posting up my great Australian adventure?? I leave for New York in a few weeks time, so I need to get my Sydney postings out fast – promise I’ll be faster than what I have been doing thus far!

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We woke up fairly early on our first day in Sydney….Well, 8ish that is. We were meeting Zona & Lee at 10 for dim sum, but I wanted to head towards Woolworths for some water. It’s so bizzare – if there was somewhere I remember so vividly in Sydney, it was the Woolworths’ at Town Hall. I remember the most bizzare things, don’t I? So we hopped there for some water (89 cents for a two litre – can’t go wrong!) and then back again for Slurpees at my local 7-11. What is fantastic about the Base is definately the central location. It was just utterly fantastic. 3 mins walk to the Town Hall Station which brings you to anywhere you want, really (direct train to Bondi Junction). Being so close to Town hall also allows easy access to shopping arcades like the Galeries Victoria ect. It’s also quite walkable to other points of interest as well, about 30 mins or less to Circular Quay or Darling Harbour.

We walked towards Chinatown (Haymarket) for breakfast as none of us had eaten yet. They took us to East Ocean for dim sum – which incidentally, I had included in my Awesome Guide to Sydney! Woo! When we got there, it was still fairly quiet, with only a few tables occupied. It was unbelieveable that by the time we left, patrons were literally lining out on the streets awaiting a table! How weird – but I guess by then it WAS lunch time.

We ordered simple dim sum staples of char xiu bao, har gao, siu mai and bacon’s favourite – deep fried prawn parcels. Speaking of bacon – it’s just so funny when people that I either met through my blog or speak to mostly online (including dreybee) refer to bacon as ‘BACON’ like its his real name. Tee hee hee. Love it. I much rather be Mrs. Bacon. Ooo…bacon…nom nom. Back to our breakfast…..It was a right shame that we were unable to order much – as we had planned to have lunch after breakfast. Well, not IMMEDIATELY – but fairly soon after breakfast, after all it does take us some time to get to our next destination. Heehee.

Breakfast complete, it was then time to start heading to our next destination. It was a little out of town (to say the least) and it was somewhere that left to my own devices I would have never made it there. We drove, and we drove, and we drove some more. Out in the suburbs we went…and then further. OMG. By the time we got there, we must’ve spent nearly one and a half hour in the car! I wouldn’t say this was part of Sydney..well, not the part of Sydney that is synonymous with the Opera House and such anyway. And it was actually quite great to go off the beaten path….WELL OFF actually.

Cabramatta is actually 30 KM away from Sydney, and can easily be confused as being displaced somewhere in Hanoi. It was extremely strange – in comparision, chinatowns around the world seemed very western. This is where the Vietnam war generation settled a few decades ago, and everywhere you turn in Cabra (och, I picked up the local slang) signs in Vietnamese are aplenty. You can also find signs of all other SE Asians cultures here as well, including Thai & Cambodian.

The entrance to Freedom Plaza (central Cabra) via the Friendship Arch.

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Although the population is primarily Vietnamese, cultures from all around the South East Asian region is catered for. I saw loads of traditional chinese bridal stores, stores selling prayers paraphenelia and market stores selling delicious durians (hee hee hee) and all sorts of familiar flavours. An over-saturated maket of sugar cane juice and lovely bubble tea can also be found about one in every three stores. From bakeries the lovely smell of asian pastries and buns wafted out…really bringing me back to Malaysia’s Chinatown area. Sigh… There are also loads of grocery stores selling all sorts under the sun – I purchased a bento box and a one-egg tamagoyaki pan in a dusty chinese grocery store….which incidentally, also sold a made-in-malaysia cake mix of a brand that I’ve never heard before…

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Hee hee. If you’re Malaysian, you would recognize the brand in another context – PONDAN means gay…and with Malaysia being a ‘Muslim’ country, you would also know that this brand would NEVER see the day of light in its country of origin – homosexuality is actually illegal in Malaysia.

It was also another typically scorching day in Sydney, with temperatures rising up to the 30s. I can only say ‘lovely’ for so long….soon it was time to seek shelter in a restaurant. I, as usual, was hankering for a good ole bowl of pho…so Zona went around looking for the restaurant that she had been to before. We found it right at the entrance to Freedom Plaza – unfortunately it was closed for renovations. KJ recommended a Vietnamese restaurant (amongst the 1000 in the area) which I had not written down when I realise how far it actually was from the city (equating to the unlikeliness of me hiking it so far on the rail and having no idea where I’m going)….but somehow the name came to me then,so off we went looking for this famed restaurant.

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It was the queues outside the doors that gave it away. This is Tan Viet Noodle house, an unassuming restaurant amongst loads of other similar looking eateries. We joined the queue with half a dozen others – always go to the restaurant where there’s a queue! It was fairly quick – we were seated after about 10 -15 minutes. Inside it was chock block filled with vietnamese families chowing down their sunday lunch – the signs are definately good! We were quickly presented with a thin menu – they don’t do alot in the restaurant, that’s for sure! But what they do, they do it WELL

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The red scrolls hanging from the ceiling hints that this restaurant is probably run by vietnamese-chinese….not to mention the name TAN is a dead giveaway.

We looked around, unashamedly staring at plated of other patrons. Mostly chicken, but there were also a smattering of orders of other items in the menu. The signature menu item was the Mi Ga Don – which is Crispy-skin chicken, egg noodles garnished with fresh lettuce, coriander, and shallots and other condiments. There is a choice of starch available – either egg noodles in soup or dressed in a little sauce. Basically, it is the chicken that makes the dish. Yum.

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Condiments of nuoc cham, salt & pepper and a pileful of fresh beansprouts.

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Lee laughing at the crazy Malaysians arranging the food for *grace* before digging in. Instead of saying grace before a meal, Malaysians concentrate on arranging plates and taking a picture of their food .

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I had the broken tomato rice with a side of the crispy-skin chicken. Utterly delicious…the skin was super crispy, the chicken was well-seasoned and tender. The tomato rice was deliciously savory and tasty….and goes very well indeed with nuoc cham (standard sauce of sugar, lemon, chillies & fish sauce) and the amazing texture of the crispy chicken. A small serving of pickles and light chicken stock soup on the side just tied the whole dish together. It was delicious.

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Bacon had the Bo Kho – Vietnamese beef stew. Made with cubes of beef and tendon, this was slowly stewed with carrots and potatoes. It went terribly well with the dry egg noodles on the side. Vietnamese cuisine remains one of my favourite food of all time because of the liberal use of fresh herbs in their cooking as edible garnishes…and fresh beansprouts. The flavours of dried spices (star anise, cinnamon ect) combined with liberal squeezes of lemon and usage of sriracha sauce and fish sauce is heavenly, and unlike anything else in the world. Nom nom….

It was definately the reprive we needed from the hot sweltering sun. I’m glad we ended up there, so much so that I didn’t even mind not being able to order my beloved pho. The chicken was definately unforgettable…and even the Bo Kho was the best that I’ve ever had. I had a side of iced vietnamese coffee…again, it was lovely and authentic as expected. A word of warning for those who are a wimp with coffee – never try vietnamese coffee if you don’t like your coffee extra, extra strong! The beans are roasted in marg, extracting the flavours and aromas in an incredible way that normal roasted beans could never achieve.

After lunch, we walked around some more, looking at wonderfully weird shops. Bacon wanted beer, but we were actually unable to find and bars around – shocks and horrors! We settled for Coke (and more bubble tea for me – I was definately in bubble tea heaven) in a bustling food court. I love it how Australians love their food courts – unlike here in the UK, the food courts are not crammed full of american fast food chains, local cooks actually own and run their stalls selling home cooked food. Yums. No, don’t worry, I am not actually going to eat some more! However, being a weird and wonderful food court, we spotted an unusual menu item….I’ve circled it in red:

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Hmm. Do you think it’s a ‘Sunday’ special? Or maybe it’s to help guide you to the Pearly gates? Heehee. Either way, weird english is well and alive Down Under ! Love it! OMG, I just realised next to the Bible salad is a paw paw salad – were any bears hurt in the making of the salad? No, I’m not batting an eyelid on the chicken feet salad – because as a proud Chinese girl I am not afraid to admit that the chinese do love their chicken feet .

We eventually headed back to Sydney, well and truly satisfied in our tummies.With the weather being so perfect, Lee kindly offered to stop for a schooner or two in Balmain before heading over the Anzac bridge over to Sydney. Obviously bacon jumped at the opportunity, so they took us to some of their fave bars near their old neighbourhood in Balmain…again, not an ordinary trip for the regular tourist; but this was what I loved the most during this trip, seeing Sydney through the eyes of locals rather than just concentrating on Darling Harbour and the Opera House.

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This was the first bar we went to – the Exchange hotel in Balmain

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I thought of Skipps when I took this picture. 30 degrees outside, 0 degrees inside. Definately a sight for sore eyes

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Bacon marvelling at beer. Actually, the sight of any beer makes him grin like a cheshire cat. He interrogated Lee on Australian beers and promptly made it his mission to try out every single one recommended by Lee. And because they were served in schooners rather than the regular english pint, it was easier to get more in and not fall over in drunkeness.

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Good, huh?

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We also popped by the bar opposite, dickies bar, where they had a lovely massive beer garden up back. I was still trying to digest my lunch and could not have another drink, but the boys continued with their beers

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Another bar, another tap. I love this one.

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It was soon sunset, and we decided it was probably the right time to head back to Sydney. The last of our plans for the day was the mahoosive Sydney Chinese New Year Parade – as luck would have it, I celebrated the whole of Chinese New Year in Australia…of all places. It was also the first time in my life I actually had the full 15 days of Chinese New Year off. It was customary in the old days for chinese people to actually take the whole 15 days off (abit like taking the weeks of Christmas off) , but those were back in the days where holidays at any other point of the year was unfanthomable…I doubt taking the full 15 days is customary now, even in China. The Chinese New Year parade was one of the highlights in Sydney’s annual diary (I missed mardi gras by ONE NIGHT) and I think an excellent homage to the large Chinese population in Sydney.

Heading back to Sydney, I was most excited to actually be on the ANZAC bridge, with its signature two soilders on either side of the entrance of the bridge coming from Balmain – one Australian and another New Zelander ( for some reason I typed in Canadian!!). The bridge brought us to Prymont – where the famous Sydney Fish Market stands to the right of the bridge.

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Sorry about the horizontal lines – I took this in the car. But isn’t it lovely, sunset over the ANZAC bridge?

We parked up near Darling Harbour and walked about 30 mins towards Haymarket, where all the action is. For some reason we thought it was a good idea to get some food in us (I was seriously still full after lunch, but at the mention of food my eyes still lights up!), but nearly everywhere in Haymarket was pretty full of tourists and locals alike who came out in full force for the parade. So we popped up to one of the food courts in Haymarket (I don’t remember which one) and had our pick.

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I chose Laksa…thought seeing that I’m in Australia, might as well. Funnily enough, for me, growing up in Penang, laksa always meant thick rice noodles in a tamarind broth made with spanish mackerel and topped with sliced cucumber, mint and shrimp paste. However, the Laksa that most people in the world know is actually curry laksa…rice sticks in a creamy curry broth with dried tofu cubes, pig’s bloood, beansprouts and a variation of chicken/prawn/fishball. And that seemed to be the unofficial national dish of Australia – its literally everywhere and everyone knows what a good Laksa is! I guess in many ways its like chicken tikka masala here in the UK.

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It was creamier than what I was used to, and I had to add more chilli paste to it to ensure that it passes my spicy test – the main reasons I hate thai food in the UK is dumbing down of spices to cater to local palate, and the same is true with this bowl of laksa. However, everything else was pretty good, and definately beat the wimpy laksa imitation that wagamama serves up in their chains. I have no idea why people think that what wagamama serves up even half resembles the original dish.

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By the time dinner was done *burp* (bacon had sweet and sour chicken with rice in case you’re wondering about the lack of a picture – I know, like wtf right?) the parade had already started on the roads! We parked ourselves in a spot, although Lee being like 10 feet tall had the best view of us all, we had pretty good views too from down below. Now, I’ve been to the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco, and count that one of the most impressive parade I’ve ever seen in my life, but Sydney just absoltuely threw me away. From rollerskating dim sums (my fave) to about 100 dragon dances and 200 lion dances, it was simply amazing. The variety of participants was astounding, from local schools to the TVB (the international TV channels for the chinese diaspora) man and local kung fu schools, the mayor and even the Sydney Wildlife Council (they paraded to the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ – cute, seeing that it was the year of the Tiger ) participating, I really, REALLY loved this. It just brings together Sydney as a multicultural melting pot in a harmonious manner. I am ever so glad to be lucky enough to be in town at the same time as the parade.

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Here are some pictures of the night…

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By the time it finished at 11, we were all dead tired from all that walking, standing and eating. We had been to China, Vietnam, Australia and then back to China. It was most defiantely time to say our goodbyes, especially since our tour guides had to work the next day! We can’t thank them enough for spending their Sunday with us – otherwise we would had just hung around the city (like most tourists) and not been exposed to what Sydney is REALLY all about. Throughout the week they unveiled more of Sydney to us and made us feel that we really belonged in Sydney, even though we were only short-term tourists….so stay tuned!!

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Contacts

East Ocean Restaurant

http://www.eastocean.com.au

1/421-429 Sussex St
Haymarket NSW 2000, Australia
(02) 9212 4198

Tan Viet Noodle House
100 John St
Cabramatta, 2166

Exchange Hotel

http://www.exchangehotel.com.au

94 Beattie Street
Cnr Beattie & Mullens Street
Balmain NSW 2041

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