Bau Truong Marrickville

Bau Truong
185 Marrickville Road
Marrickville
NSW 2204
Ph : (02) 9569 4938

“Where did you hear about us?”

Bau Truong had only been open a few weeks, and we were here with Carrie. I’d actually read about this latest offshoot at Sydney blog Noodlies during my search for a Vietnamese restaurant to which to take her.

The Marrickville Bau Truong is all shiny surfaces and modern, with bold blue and red a dominating colour theme. Split between two levels (the bathrooms are on the upper level), there is an attractive semi-private area at the top for small groups.

There were three of us, and we were fairly hungry. The sheer size of the menu, which comes in three physical menus, will be daunting for those who have difficulties dealing with too much choice. We eventually narrowed it down to ten items.

BBQ Pork on Crackers ($10)

Marinated, with peanuts and shallots, with some rice noodles. Enjoyable, but the rice crackers had started to go a little soft in the middle.

Vietnamese Pancake ($15)

Bahn Xeo is not just one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes, but one of my favourite dishes, period. There’s just something marvellous about a large crunchy rice flour pancake bursting with filling. To skimp on the filling is a regrettable thing, and takes away much of the enjoyment. This one was passable in this regard and in terms of taste, but a greater generosity of meat, prawns and sprouts would have turned it into one that I’d travel back there to eat.

Sofra

Sofra
35-39 Auburn Rd
Auburn
NSW 2144
Ph : (02) 9649 9167

One day I woke up and realised that I had a 'need' to go to Auburn for an Adana kebab. I then realised that the time elapsed since my last visit to Auburn was embarrassingly long, and amounted to  something along the lines of two years.

No time for procrastination. Back to where I had my first Adana kebab – Auburn institution Sofra, for lunch.

Adana Plate ($11)

Named after the fifth largest city in Turkey, Adana kebabs are hand-minced lamb that is shaped around an iron skewer measuring 0.5cm thick, 3cm wide, and anywhere from 90 to 120cm long. The shaped meat is grilled on an open BBQ over charcoal.

The cooked kebab is served on top of flatbread, typically topped by onions, diced tomatoes, parsley, cumin and sumac. It can also be eaten wrapped in a roll.

What’s the appeal? Freshly charcoal grilled meat served with bread (itself lightly grilled) that tastes of the kebab’s juices. The bread is fabulous to eat on its own, even without meat. Sofra’s Adana is juicy, tender, slightly spicy, and even better with a squirt of lemon.

Sometimes, all you need is grilled meat that is full of flavour, good bread and sides.

The chicken kebab ($14) was served with the usual salad sides, and a Turkish pilaf and orzo. The serving was too large, so I helped out. The chicken was decently cooked and flavoursome, but a little on the salty side. The side of bread was virtually uneaten, as the rice was more than sufficient as an accompaniment.

There are plenty of similar cheap and cheerful kebab eateries in the Auburn area. Which is the best? I can't say, as I have only ever tried Sofra, but on this particular day, of the dozen odd that I walked past, this was the most popular.

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2042 Cafe

A large casual cafe and deli (though more the former than the latter) situated a few minutes past the Newtown train station, I ended up here as a part of my "Reuben phase". I'd read about a sandwich here which wasn't exactly a Reuben, but which was apparently still worth heading to Newtown for. 

Especially for those used to the smaller cafes in Sydney, 2042 is a large establishment, with sofas at the front, facing King St. Their menu is available on their website, and consists of a standard mix of breakfast items, half a dozen main sized salads, sandwiches, a compact dinner menu, and a kids' menu consisting of four items.

First up, Roasted pumpkin and haloumi salad with rocket, pine nuts and balsamic dressing ($15). A meal unto itself, generously portioned, and no skimping on any of the listed components or overuse of rocket at the expense of everything else.

Burgerfuel

Burgerfuel

172 King St

Newtown

Ph : (02) 9519 4700

Finding myself in Newtown one recent weekday around lunchtime, I remembered reading @GastroPorn tweeting about one of her favourite burgers at Burgerfuel. Well, I figured, why not?

Despite it not being on the regular menu, the Wagyu Burger seems to be permanently on the "Specials" menu, which makes me wonder why they don't simply add it to the former.

Maybe they think that would make it less "special"? Maybe they want to save on printing costs and don't want to print out new menus? Maybe because one day, it will be replaced as a "special"?  Maybe it is still going through a probationary period?

Then again, maybe I am the only one pondering this conundrum?

What ho! Burgerfuel have figured it out - 12 permanent combinations!

Wagyu Burger with Cheese ($12.90)

Described thus : "1/3lb ground Wagyu beef, melted swiss cheese, caramelised onion, horseradish sour cream, salad and relish", the one element I'd not been certain about was the horseradish sour cream, as I am not a huge horseradish fan.  Fortunately, the horseradish was not overwhelming but pleasant though it was, I'm more of a tomato sauce burger type of person.

Aided by generous servings of lettuce (though I'd wish that they'd been a little bit more interesting on the lettuce choice front), tomato and onions, the beef patty was juicy, the cheese decent and the burger itself of a good size, resulting in some degree of onions and the like oozing out during the consumption process, but not too much as to be messy and a struggle. 

This isn't the best burger I've had in Sydney, but the Wagyu Burger at Burgerfuel is nonetheless a good burger that I'd eat again, and it is worth having if you're in the area. It is without doubt a better burger than the one I have previous had at a cafe nearby to Burgerfuel whose name I'll not mention but it is on the other side of the road, down a bit, before the cinema. That burger was just dire.    

I've never thought of Angus beef as being an aspirational beef.

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Song Fang Khong Restaurant
7 Anzac Ave
Fairfield NSW 2165
Ph : (02) 9728 4552
Open 7 Days incl Public Holidays
Hours : 11.30am – 10.00pm

With memories of my trip to Laos in Dec/ Jan still fresh, I found myself craving some Laotian food. There isn’t much in the nature of variety in terms of Laotian food, and I didn’t want to go down the “Mod Lao” way of Pink Peppercorn so we found ourselves headed to Song Fang Khong Restaurant. What we didn’t realise though, was the amount of time it would take us to get there. An hour each way. Ack.

By the time we arrived, we were more than ready to eat.

Song Fang Khong is a self described “Authentic Lao & Thai” Restaurant. Now I can’t claim to have eaten even a tiny percentage of the whole gamut of Laotian food during my trip there, but this wasn’t really similar to what I had experienced in Vientiane or Luang Prabang. A small restaurant near the rather startling Fairfield RSL, it is a restaurant at its most basic, very much an informal neighbourhood restaurant with not much in the way of decor, though definitely with more thought put into decoration than the neighbouring Lao Village. It seems that Fairfield is a bit of a hub for Laotian restaurants, there are at least four of them there.

No sooner had we ordered from the menu, which had a median price of $7-8, than a plate of mint leaves, shredded cabbage and iceberg lettuce appeared.

First up came the Lao Papaya Salad ($7), a verson of Som Tum.

There are many variations of Som Tum, this one contained brined crabs (I only picked up legs) which were too hard (not crunchy) for me to eat, and was quite mild compared to the Thai ones in Campbell St for example. Less sour, less chilli, but enjoyable nonetheless.

What the Som Tum did go with was the sticky rice, a generous portion for a mere $3.


The steamed rice, which was $2, was equally generous in size. This photo doesn’t really reflect the size of the bowl terribly well.


Next up came the BBQ Ox Tongue ($7).

I hadn’t eaten ox tongue since I was a child, when I’d only ever eaten it braised in a lot of tomatoes, onions and the like. This ox tongue was better than the tongue of my childhood, and better still when dipped in the mild chilli sauce.

Tongue sauce on left, quail sauce on right.

The Crispy Marinated Herbed Quail ($9 for 2)......

........was impossible to eat with anything other than one’s fingers. I love quail, and this example was tender, juicy and with the citrusy kick of the sauce, a dish I wished that we’d ordered another serve of.

The final dish was the BBQ Pork Neck ($7.50)

What’s not to like about nicely BBQd meat? This tied with the quail as my personal favourite. I just didn’t find the ox tongue as flavoursome as the other two meat dishes.

The “Thai/ Lao” combination and some of the mixed nature of the food puzzled me, so I did the inevitable online searching. These have lead to a personal suspicion that a lot (if not all) of the Lao or Lao/ Thai restaurants in Fairfield are probably run by people originating from the Isan region.

There is no doubt that Song Fang Khong provides good value as a restaurant. There aren’t many places in Sydney which leave you satiated for so little in the way of money. I would like to go back and to try some of the other dishes (and also try Lao Village next door) but Fairfield is just too far out of my usual travel zone for anything other than a special visit. Were it nearer, I could see myself becoming a regular customer.

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