Here are some more ideas for easy, good and most importantly, cheap eats in Sydney! Just continuing from the previous post for Part 1, I will discuss some more yummy options here in Australia’s most expensive city.
I will go back and discuss about one food option that I love from the Chinatown Night Market on Fridays. If you have read my previous posts, you may remember that I spent a good chunk of my teenage years in Japan, for six years in fact. I love Japanese food and adore what we could describe as “street” foods or fair/festival snacks. One of the best snacks for winter - for any season really - is steaming hot takoyaki.
Takoyaki is a cool Japanese word for what I would describe as a (cooked) hot pancake batter with pieces of sliced octopus, sometimes a bit of corn and some spring onions. I was in Kobe - a small city in the Kansai region just next door to Osaka, the country’s second largest city - and takoyaki can be found easily especially in the winter months. Whether there is a proper stall selling them or a man at the back of his mini truck, the quality is always consistent. With this at some background information, I got very excited and my eyes went shiny when I saw Japanese vendors busy away preparing takoyaki, in the middle of Sydney!
The line to order was very long. In fact, it’s never not long. People get very excited by the crowd and hype surrounding the booth, and of course the smoke and carries the aroma of these freshly made goodies. The original option would be the takoyaki with octopus, however you could go for other options which are also quite nice. For the picture below, I had the half and half option, whereby I got to enjoy half the balls in octopus and other half were mini crab legs. After this experience, I would recommend that you stick with the octopus, since the crab is quite small and the full flavours just weren’t there. You could already give it a try though!
One thing you’ll need other than money, is patience. As I mentioned, the line gets quite long and it could be quite a wait before you can place your order and pay. There’s unfortunately more waiting to it. They do make their products fresh, so you’ll need to wait a bit more to get your treasures. The stall is in the middle of Chinatown so it’s quite a big attraction, but with patience and perseverance, you’ll manage it. While this is not exactly a cheap eat, I consider it to be good for value for the quality you’re getting, in comparison to other (fake) ones you can order in a restaurant. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the stall, but if you look at my picture below of their open kitchen, you’ll immediately draw out where they are. Otherwise, just listen out for Japanese people shouting out things in Japanese with great enthusiasm!
I would like to also quickly throw in there "Dixon Food Court", which is opposite the takoyaki stand. It’s a food court very similar to that of Eating World, but a lot smaller with less choices. The main options are still there: Chinese, Japanese and Thai. They also sell drinks here so you don’t have to carry a bottle of water or a can of drink around. I would recommend the second stall on the left (as you get in from the main entrance) that goes by the name Phnon Phemn I think. They make Chinese-influenced cuisine with rice options and also a few noodle dishes. I really like this chicken dish of theirs. You could try to guess from the picture what name it would correspond to on the menu, as again I can’t recall. You get pieces of battered fried chicken, coated in a really good sweet and mildly spicy sauce. You also get a bit of vegetables under all of the chicken action to make you feel slightly healthier about the dish. You don’t get a soup like you would if you were to eat at Eating World though, but I think this dish is okay by itself for the price. Otherwise, this dish was probably less than $8. It’s a great deal for what you get. In terms of quality, quantity, and also the speed in which they cook, your dollars will go a long way here. By all means, do go out out my recommendations and try other places too! There’s a Chinese place at the corner that’s invested in a loud speaker to call out the order numbers to the customers. They make some good looking hot-plate-sizzling-food and a lot of people tend to order from them. All in all, they’re all attractive in their own way.
The next really delicious place I’d like to recommend is a Malaysian restaurant called “Petaling Street” towards Chinatown on 760 George Street. It’s just outside the road coming out from Market City and next to Subway and KFC. Petaling Street offers a wide range of Malaysian dishes, from rice to noodles to other really delicious snacks and side dishes. They also serve really nice Southeast Asian style drinks here, like Milo! I talked about how good Milo is in my post about Bangkok Airport food. Essentially it’s our (Southeast Asians) version of chocolate powder, but so much more tasty. Well they make that, but what I really like from here is there Nasi Lemak.
As you can see under this paragraph, you get a bit of everything. You get rice which is a bowl full with some fried onions on top as a garnish. Next to eat, you have a bowl of chicken rendang. They will serve this right next to the rice on the dish, but I always asked for my to be in a bowl so it doesn’t get messy. You then have sliced cucumbers at the top right corner, but unless you really need to eat them, I wouldn’t. Sadly, they're not fresh and you can tell by how dry they look, not very pleasant to eat. We then have some spicy chilli sauce, or commonly known as Sambal. Different places can make the samba really spicy, so if you're not into spicy food, I suggest you only take a tiny bit to taste first. Of course, half a boiled egg sits on top of that as well. What else.. Some peanuts and crispy little fish. The peanuts go really well with the dish and adds that extra dimension of texture to what basically is rice and curry. The fish also pairs really well with the whole dish and brings everything together. While in Sydney I also got to try out Nasi Lemak from Mamak and Papparoti. I would say that the one here at Petaling Street is a level below what you can get at Mamak and Papparoti, but then again this place is a lot more simple and a lot more casual, and the cuisine reflects that. If you really like Nasi Lemak like I do, I would give all three places a go. But which place is the cheapest? The winner goes to Petaling Street.
They go get quite busy and you can sometimes expect to be waited in a line. But not as long as Chat Thai or Mamak though. They also open until quite late, close to 11pm I think, but you better check out their Facebook page. So with another Japanese yakoyaki stall and the discovery of Malaysian Cuisine Petaling Street, you now have two more options to satisfy both your appetite and your wallet. Be adventurous and try out new options since the menu for both places may have changed depending on the time of the year. Here is the link to the Facebook page for Petaling Street (they have a few locations) for more information!
https://www.facebook.com/officialpetalingstreetsydney
Where to eat Sydney,
Sydney,
Australia
