Fun food that’s streets ahead of the competition
“Street food is the type of food that everyone loves to eat, from rich people to poor people, to just all types of people, especially in Asia,” says the well-travelled chef. “You can go to this dingy street shack selling some noodles, say in Thailand or Vietnam, and you will see not only the working-class people eating there but also you will see a Mercedes rock up and (the driver) order a takeaway. I think that’s why people have such a connection with street food, it’s that everyone loves it.”
Closer to home, Cabramatta and Fairfield are favourite destinations for the Ms. Gs and Mr Wong chef.
“I always make a trip out there at least once a month, not to just eat at one place, to eat at five or six places, depending on what dishes they are known for,” he says.
Be it crispy-skin chicken, roll-your-own sugar cane prawns, Korean fresh fruit shakes or adding “textural things to go into your jelly”, Hong is always on the lookout for the next taste sensation.
“I’ve been going to Bankstown a lot recently too, for Vietnamese pho and pancakes and rice paper rolls, they’ve got realy good banh mi. Bankstown’s really legit,” he says.
“There is also this really good place called Huong Xua (in Cabramatta and also Canley Vale) and they have bun rieu, a Vietnamese tomato, crab and snail noodle soup. I love Battambang (Khmer restaurant in Cabramatta) too. Cambodian noodle soup is my favourite!” says Hong who picks Laotion as the next hit street food.
“No one has really tapped into Lao food yet. I think that’s the next big thing. People really love Isaan (northern) Thai, that funky feremented fish flavour, but Lao is more hectic than that,” he says.
“I’ve been eating Lao for over 25 years. My mum’s been taking me to Fairfield to eat it, even before I tried Thai food. I think that’s the next sort of thing that people should tap into.”
One of the dishes on his hit list is a raw beef laab with bible tripe (so-called because it looks like the pages of a book), green papaya salad with heaps of chilli.
“That’s super delicious,” he says. “They also have this green papaya salad made with fermented crab, and this fried rice which they make into rice balls. The fry it up and serve it with pork sausage, it’s super delicious, too.”
HITTING THE STREETS
LAOS was one of the destinations MasterChef’s Gary Mehigan visited for his new Network Ten TV series.
“I’ll pretty much try anything. I’m a chef so I get a kick out of trying new flavours and new textures. My go-to, like a lot of foodies, when I go to new places is the markets or streets and see what’s going on,” he says.
“There is nothing worse than innoculating yourself in a big five-star hotel and not seeing anything. A lot of the street food, you know straight away, it’s clean, it’s healthy, it’s cooked on the spot.”
In India his pick is pav bhaji, a vegetable curry served with a soft bread roll, among the vast array of street food on offer.
“You get a lot of it in the streets of India,” he says. “It’s been cooked right in front of you, and it’s lot of vegetarian food, so I don’t stress about it too much.”
British cook, author and TV presenter Ainsley Harriott stepped away from the studio too with his new Street Food TV series on SBS.
“One of the reasons it was out of my comfort zone is because for years I was studio based,” he says. “Going out on to the streets, it’s back to reality, back to the rawness of life.
“I turned up I went to the market like the locals, I bought the food, and then I cooked it and quite often we didn’t even have a venue where we were going to cook.
“We’d walk along the street and say can we cook in your restaurant or café and they would say ‘alright’, pay them some money, they thought we’d stay half an hour, three and a half hours (of filming) later they’d say, ‘Get out of my f...... restaurant,’’ he says rolling with laughter.
“It was exciting. We were starting early, we were finishing late, we were just discovering and that was the excitement about it.
“Usually I want to put my bum on the beach. I want to know what I am eating. I don’t want to go there and risk getting sick and there is that feeling of street food as a bit, kind of something quite raw about it, it looks like there is something quite unhygienic about it. The reality is, it’s not, they have such a quick turnover to it, it’s probably the best food that you can eat.”
While cautious travellers miss out if they don’t eat street food, Harriott says he didn’t appreciate all dishes offered in his travels, — shark fermented in its own urine in Reykjavik, Iceland, in particular.
“The street food you can get now is not necessarily on the streets,” Harriott says during our photo shoot at Boon Cafe and Jaern Grocer (425 Pitt St, Haymarket, 9281 2114, booncafe.com).
“It’s easy going, you are sitting down, quite a lot of it is shared food which is great because people are picking up and sharing things and I like the idea that you can meet six strangers and you can sit down and you are all eating. That, in itself, gives you a feeling there is something very ‘street’, very natural about it. There is an energy about it and I like that.”
FUNKY FERMENTS
Hong says the biggest trend in high-end restaurants is fermentation, a technique common in Asian street food, and he offers housemade kimchi at Ms. G in Potts Point as an example.
“I love all types of funky and fermented things,” he says, adding that it’s a natural transition for street food, or elements of it, to seep into mainstream restaurant menus.
“Last year there was a lot of cooking over charcoal and cooking over naked flame and that’s going back to our caveman roots and that what fermenation is too,” he says. “Rather than using new modern techniques we are going back to techniques we used to make food last longer.
“A couple of years ago pickling was all the rage. This year, it’s all about fermentation.”
FOOD THRILLSEEKERS
Mehigan says you can piece together people’s lives watching food hawkers in action.
“I was in Hanoi, watching this woman making banh xeo which is like those soft rice rolls. She is putting this batter over these silk screens and you can just imagine that this is intergenerational, this is something that has been handed down.
“They have been making this one things not just by their family, but by their mothers, their grandmothers. So of course I cross the road and eat that, and it’s this wonderful thing that I eat that is so much better than I have ever had before.
“I don’t have a problem eating snail soup by the roadside, it’s all part of the experience,” he says. “I’m not there to confront myself and eat the most whackiest things as a traveller, I am not going to eat a tarantula if I don’t really want to eat it. But if I genuinely think I’ll try those crickets, I’ll try those wasp larvae or those little sausages because they look delicious, then I’ll give it a try and if I don’t like it, I’ll throw it away, away from the stallholder’s glaring eyes.
“Australians are food thrillseekers, the proof is in the pudding. We love food carts and trucks and pop-ups like no other time in history,” he says. “We are after the next hit, how spicy, how soupy, how delicious can it be, how gooey, how fried how crispy. They are the sorts of things we are after.”
Dan Hong hosts a Vietnamese-style street food masterclass at Sydney Good Food & Wine Show, August 7-9. Gary Mehigan is also be appearing. Go to goodfoodshow.com.au for details. Mehigan’s Far Flung series airs on Network Ten, Saturdays, at 6pm; Ainsley Harriott’s Street Food begins on SBS, this Thursday at 8.30pm.
THE HIT LIST
Battambang, Khmer
Try the crispy chicken, dry Phnom Penh noodles or fried pork intestines.
14–16/70 John St, Cabramatta, 9754 2120
Huong Xua, Vietnamese
While most people take on the mega pho challenge, follow Dan Hong’s suggestion and go for tomato, crab and snail noodle soup.
4/217-219 Canley Vale Rd, Canley Heights, 8764 4117; 54 John St, Cabramatta, 9755 0388
Daily Delicious Bakery, Vietnamese
Possibly the cheapest banh mi thit — aka a pork roll filled with pate, processed pork and pickled vegetables — in Sydney at $2.50.
28/193 Railway Pde, Cabramatta, 9727 7997
Mamak, Malayasian
Once you make your way to the front of the line, dip into Mamak for signature roti canai served with two curry dips and a spicy sambal sauce.
15 Goulburn St, Haymarket, 9211 1668, Shop P9, 1-5 Railway St, Chatswood, 9411 4411; mamak.com.au
Al Aseel, Middle Eastern
What’s not to love when the it’s food on sticks and balls of crispy deep-fried falafel, scoffed single handed at this Middle Eastern institution.
Lakemba, Greenacre, Surry Hills, Penrith, Wollongong; alaseel.com.au
Waterman’s lobster, American
What do you get when your cross a sweet hotdog-style bun with a tasty crustacean and chillli fries? Find out here.
5/29-31 Orwell St, Potts Point, 9380 2558; watermanslobsterco.com
Ryo’s, Japanese
The sound of slurping umami rich ramen inside can be heard by those queuing up on the outside of this tiny shopfront.
125 Falcon St, Crows Nest, 9955 0225
Mr Bing Gourmet Wrapz, Chinese
The jian bing is a silky Chinese crepe which can be filled with anything from braised beef or sweet pork floss and crushed crackers to marinated pork.
20 City Rd, Chippendale, 0450 741 716
Zeus Street Greek, Greek
Uncle ‘Tzimmy’ Classic - pork or chicken - with tomato, tzatziki, onion, paprika and chips, wrapped in pita is the signature street eat here.
187-189 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne, 9181 4646, and soon to open in Dulwich Hill, followed by Cronulla, Newcastle and Rosebery; zeusstreetgreek.com.au
Food trucks
While Sydney’s food truck trend may have taken a little time to get into gear, there are now plenty of options, from yum cha to crepes.
sydneyfoodtrucks.com.au
House of Pumpkin, Korean
End on a sweet note with a shaved ice dessert served in a glass measuring jug that is slathered in coconut milk, strawberries, tinned mango and kiwifruit.
10 Albert Rd, Strathfield NSW, 9746 8001
Source: The Daily Telegraph, Grant Jones, 4th August 2015
Originally published as: Fun food that’s streets ahead of the competition
