Canley Heights Food Crawl

Originally published 31 March 2014

Opening stops

Sometimes, you just need a little help.

Thang of Noodlies realised that he couldn’t comprehensively cover an entire suburb’s delicious offerings by himself. Though he’s never told me himself, I’m sure he was inspired by Marvel’s Avengers and knew he needed to  assemble a food blogging all star team to help him out.

Somehow, I snuck past their defences, clubbed the guy that was supposed to go in my place and got to enjoy the lovely Canley Heights strip.

Oh, before I launch into this envy-inducing blog; here’s the superhero team that was assembled:

Canley Heights is a suburb I have never set foot in prior to today.  According to the locals; Canley Heights is an offshoot of Cabramatta as Cabramatta lacks a night life.

Hey, who knew me and a suburb had that trait in common?

Anywho, Canley Heights was born as most people don’t like going to bed at 6PM. Restaurants and cafes sprung to life for locals to gallivant and socialise.

Vy Vy Garden Cafe

The Food Blogging Avengers got to sample five of the best local haunts and we started off with some coffee at Vy Vy’s.

Vy Vy Garden Cafe offers a hidden gem that only those in tune with Vietnamese cuisine are aware of.

Vietnamese cuisine is famous for a lot of things but one of its most underrated exports is its fantastic coffee.

More specifically, its drip coffee that is served in an awesome do-it-yourself fashion.

Fortunately for me, there was a demonstration as I would’ve somehow flooded the place.

Other than using fantastic coffee, the key to its incredible flavour is the implementation of condensed milk. Only a minimal amount is required but it adds an awesome creaminess and level of sweetness that I thoroughly enjoyed.

You can choose to have it either hot or cold and I opted for something cold because I’ve been burned so many times in the past.

Considering the fact that barely any of us had registered a full night’s sleep, giving us a caffeine hit to start things off was a master stroke. The fact that it was premium coffee was just pure gravy (even if I did get rejected by a little girl with a deadpan look usually reserved for one of my jokes).

We were on a strict time limit so we rushed to our next destination as soon as we sculled our coffee. This made me feel like an actor who had to attend multiple red carpet screenings even though there was no red carpet or any sort of movie nearby.

I just make weird analogies.

You know how I said most of  us hadn’t had a full night’s sleep? Well, I was the exception. I had actually gone to bed really early the previous night because I was extremely tired from an action packed Saturday consisting of watching Disney movies and discussing the intricacies of Frozen with my Niece.

I had also woken up really early so it felt like lunch time (it was about 11:00am) even though most people was thinking of it as breakfast time.

Well, this was unlike any breakfast I’ve ever had in my life.

Bau Truong

Bau Truong is a family run restaurant featuring franchises in Marrickville, Cabramatta and the one we had a chance to visit on Canley Vale Road.

The owner of the Marrickville franchise personally came out to break down every one of the dishes for us.

But first; food bloggers had to do what food bloggers do:

After earning a copious amount of attention from other diners, we proceeded to try and blend in by dining ourselves.

We started with some Ngheu Cuon (Try saying that three times really quickly).

Think of these as a remix to the ever-popular summer rolls. I had no idea what to expect when I sunk my teeth into them and was blown away by what hit me back. You’re not going to believe this but it was the first time I’ve ever had pippies for breakfast. The mixture of ingredients gave it a completely different vibe to the atypical rice paper role.

The fish sauce with added bass and dubstep was ingenious as well.

Sorry about the fuzzy quality, I was too entranced by how this dish looked.

This turned out to be my second favourite item of the day (I had a LOT of items). The key to this noodle dish was the soup. It was sweet; I’m not talking sweet like Candice Swanepoel; I’m talking sweet like candy minus the insulin shots afterwards. You could’ve bathed anything in that clear soup base and produced an awesome dish.

On top of all that, y0u add some killer prawn cakes and succulent pork?

So good.

You had the option of adding fermented beans, peanuts and chilli but I actually preferred it naked.

Heh.

Seriously, all this was for breakfast? I’m living in the wrong country, man.

Anywho, this was eaten KBBQ lettuce style. Translation: You take some of this delicious beef, wrap it up in lettuce and you’ve got an authentic Vietnamese burrito on your hands.

I wiped this out before all the other bloggers had even taken a bite. What can I say? I’m efficient.

Yo, I play fighting games so I can always appreciate a killer combo.

Bun bo hue is the classic hipster version of pho. The added spice to the soup base makes it a force to be reckoned with. The cold pork parcels were hand made by the owner’s mother in the morning prior to our arrival. We threw them into our bowls and let the parcels soak up some soup. The flavour components were just so good; the entire meal just had me thinking about how underrated Vietnamese cuisine is.

This was a completely unique dining experience and I enjoyed it immensely.

It’s so much more than just pho; pho real.

Here’s the TL:DR from the opening stops of the Canley Crawl:

– I’m an Avenger. Sup?

– Six of Sydney’s finest had the chance to indulge in some local Vietnamese cuisine in Canley Heights.

– I’m already kinda full at this point…and there are still three restaurants to go.

– Its ok though because I’m an avenger.

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Originally published 1 April 2014

Middle stops

We’re not done, not even close.

After a grand feast at Bau Truoung, we moved on to the next restaurant on our itinerary. Keep in mind that we were running a bit behind schedule and that we had barely begun to process our food.

This was going to be a tough day of trying to eat as much delicious food as possible.

….did I really just say that?

Diem Hen

Diem Hen (translation: meeting point) is one of the veteran restaurants on the Canley Heights strip. Its undergone quite a renovation since it first opened on the strip but the food has remained consistently excellent.

We had two dishes at Diem Hen…I know what you’re thinking ‘why do I sense dread coming from the normally jovial iFat?’

Why, I’ll explain right now my dear reader who has apparently undergone psychiatric training. Long story short: I was really full. I always watch shows like Masterchef and see the judges take tiny bites of the contestants’ dishes and smirk. What I didn’t understand was that they were pacing themselves as they knew how much food they would be consuming.

Me? I only have one pace and it’s Usain.

Whoa.

I was explicitly told that it was a sweet and sour soup beforehand but I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.

I’m Chinese, so I immediately thought of this as a hot pot style dish. I was expecting savoury goodness from the soup as it absorbed the fishy flavour. I also expected to self combust shortly afterwards due to the amount of kilojoules in my system at this point.

Once again, I was wrong.

This soup was so fresh like a mix CD from the 90s.

It was incredibly fragrant as well. At one point; I said that it would make a great cologne. This was one of many fishy comments I would make during the day.

The mixture of fruit/vegetables was completely unprecedented; I thought the dominant number two was celery but I was told otherwise. What looks like celery is actually elephant ear stem and it provided a lot of the sour punch that the soup packed.

It was just so good and served as a pseudo palette cleanser for all of us.

Thank Aquaman it cleansed my palette as there was more seafood goodness to be had:

Kate (aka foodiesagenda) predicted that this would be her favourite dish of the day due to the mere mention of caramel.

Me? My pants were threatening to burst open and send the button holding my fly together into the pot.

I nibbled on a little bit and didn’t really taste the caramel. It had obviously been caramellised which gave it the rich flavour you see in the photo above but I guess you don’t really want uber sweet fish unless it’s a Little Mermaid situation in which she’s sacrificing her voice so she can live on the land with you.

Told you my analogies  were weird.

Let’s crawl to the next place…

Huong Xua

Located next to the legendary Tan Viet Noodle House, Huong Xua is not your average Vietnamese restaurant.

Unbeknownst to me, most Vietnamese restaurants specialise in Southern Vietnamese style cooking. Huong Xua is one of the few that specialices on dishes that are more popular in the northern parts of Vietnam

I was extremely excited to sample everything they had on offer, but there was something that had me frothing at the mouth like a dog when you offer it Smackos.

Pho.

It was time for pho.

But first, some other dishes (aka food that is not pho):

For food that wasn’t pho, this was extremely good.

Unlike most restaurants, Huong Xua decided to forego the classic egg pastry that adds more security to the filling and opting for a thinner pastry that enhanced the filling.

I loved this tactic, it was like the guy that realised thin crust pizza was the way to go. The pasty shouldn’t be the star of the show, the filling should be. However, this pastry was no slouch. It provided a loud crunch and was an awesome spring roll. I actually had two and I was already way beyond big boned at this point.

 

Based upon the notes I took on the day, this is about the point in which I was half conscious and considering a juice detox.

Here are the unedited notes I took on this chicken dish on the day:

“The chicken was.”

Damn it, past Isaac.

Fortunately, my memory is still up to par. The easy comparison is to contrast this to Hainanese chicken. However, the two are only similar in appearance. Hainanese style chicken tends to be oilier where as Huong Xua’s variety was considerably less so. There was no flavoured rice to accompany this plate of poultry and no ginger/shallot concoction either.

The chicken was slightly tough but hey, I’m not the type of guy who talks smack about chicken. Chicken’s gotten me through a lot of hard times.

Now, the moment Isaac has been waiting for.

This picture does not do it justice.

Check out Milkteaxx’s Instagram to gauge the sheer size of this bowl.

That is a bowl containing 500g of noodles, 500g of meat and 500g of screw the Atkins diet.

My editor is insisting I keep this post under 2,500 words so I’m going to try and be as concise as possible. This pho is the business, man. The broth has all the usual herbs and pork bones that are boiled over a prolonged period. However, they add a bit of celery to give it a completely different feel.

Oh and the beef?

They stir fry it before throwing it into the bowl. At first, this just confused me because everything that happens in the kitchen kind of does. Upon tasting it? I felt like Isaac Newton when the apple fell on his head, that’s funny because I’m named Isaac and I made a realisation.

Before I forget, that bowl of goodness can be yours for FREE!

….if you manage to finish it under 11 minutes.

The record is six minutes and five seconds.

You can read about the record holder on Noodlie’s blog HERE.

Did I try it?

Nope, I didn’t.

Give me a year to train and I will get it done.

Pho real.

Here’s the TL; DR from the middle stops of the Food Blogging Avengers’ crawl:

– I’d deem her a little fishy if she refused to try the soup.

– Ditto if she didn’t try the caramelised fish.

– I’ve been dreaming about pho the past two nights.

– In fairness, I dream about pho quite often anyway

The final two stops are below!

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Originally published 3 April 2014

Final stops

As we were dragged away from Huong Xua, we realised we still had two restaurants to visit and no room in our stomachs for anything other than self pity.

I had the company of my food blogging all stars but even they were starting to show signs of wear. We had barely touched many of the dishes we were presented and the guilt was starting to weigh heavy, almost as heavy as our guts.

The only elixir to our dilemma was quickly decided upon.

More food!

Chi & Co

Chi & Co is off the main strip that houses most of Canley Heights’ restaurants. We were informed that Chi & Co would be presenting us with Vietnamese style tapas.

Yeah, I think I can make a little room in my stomach for that.

Chi & Co would not look out of place in Surry Hills or the city. In fact, that’s exactly what  our restaurant liaison told us as she was breaking down the philosophy behind Chi & Co.They intentionally brought a slice of Surry Hills into the suburbs to give the locals something a bit different from your cookie cutter (albeit delicious cookie cutter) traditional Vietnamese food.

Before we dug in to the food, Chi & Co’s bartenders decided to hydrate us. You know, since we had been walking so much and all (confession Every restaurant we went to could’ve called themselves neighbourinos without drawing any weird looks).

To all my new readers; I don’t drink. I have the drinking habits of a fourteen year old as I subsist on water, soda and energy drinks that have me bouncing off the walls like that fly you just can’t catch.

Funnily enough, three of my fellow Avengers were also unable to consume alcohol so we got mocktails instead.

My phone was on life support so I have absolutely no recollection about what was in these mocktails. All I remember is that I tried every one (sometimes when the owner wasn’t looking) and that they were all incredibly tasty.

Keep an eye out on my fellow Avengers (Noodlies, Foodies Agenda, Cooking Crusade, Milkteaxx, Insatiable Munchies and Jeroxie) for more detailed recounts. Come to me for the jokes.

Ok, let’s go tapas dancing.

Our first foray into Vietnamese tapas was a smash hit.

We actually spent quite a while drinking (responsibly of course) prior to the first dish’s arrival. Chi & Co were well aware of the fact that we needed a bit of a break. By the time these bad boys hit the table; all of us were ready to get back to the best job on the planet.

The betel leaf provided a crunch to go along with the tasty crab. It was just a great mouthful of delicious ingredients with high synergy. Great way to get the ball rolling.

Moving on.

Scallops seem so simple to prepare but making them right is still an art form. Overcook them and you get your chef’s hat torn off your head and thrown to the wolves, under cook them and your apron gets torn apart by the same wolves from the last joke.

Fortunately, none of the chefs in Chi & Co’s kitchen will be meeting Taylor Lautner any time soon. These scallops were cooked to perfection and were massive! I love scallops so once again, these were gone in a mouthful.

Final round of tapas:

You need to step your game up if you’re an Asian restaurant and you’re not offering some type of Ippudo/Momofuku inspired bun. These buns were very soft and encased a delightful pulled beef filling. One of the food blogging Avengers noted that this would’ve been bumped up another tier if the buns had been deep fried.

In fairness, most things are improved if you deep fry them and these were already pretty great.

You think we’re done?

Hell no:

Amazing.

I was so happy about these being non-alcoholic. It would’ve been like knowing a girl was into me but being unable to date her due to the fact that her tongue was made of beer.

It was one of the most unique desserts I had ever encountered. The concept is just genius, the tapioca balls embedded in the coconut custard just added a dynamic you can’t get elsewhere. The number of flavours at work made it feel like a culinary exhibition happening in your mouth.

I can’t wait until that exhibition is unveiled once again.

We actually spent quite a while in Chi & Co just getting to know each other. It was nice to just chill out and give our bellies a breather.

However, there was still one place to visit and it was a familiar one.

Holy Basil

I love Holy Basil. I’ve been going to the one in the city for years now and it was nice to end with something familiar. The one we went to was the original one and we even got to meet the owner.

Holy Basil’s menu has a tonne of depth and all the options are incredibly viable.

However, you just can’t go past its signature dessert:

This is the gold standard that I measure all desserts against.

It’s not even fair comparing it to other batter heavy fried ice cream concoctions, this is in a league of its own. The pastry encasing the ice cream is glorious. The ice cream is nice, creamy and well supported by all the rest of the cast (caramel, coconut and a strawberry because you’re worth it).

It’s not listed in the recipes you find online, but greatness is key to this dessert.

 

On that note, that’s all I have on the Canley Crawl of 2014.

I would like to thank Fairfield Council and Noodlies for the opportunity to participate in this unique dining experience. Shout outs to my food blogging superheroes for making the day one to remember. Oh and last but not least, big ups to my stomach for not blowing up.

Oh and you guys, reading three thousand words scribed by me cannot be a nice experience.

Sorry.

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