Across the road from the train station at Lakemba is a small cafe that specialises in Indian breakfast dishes, serving them all day. It's a brief menu, crisp edged dosa, fried wada (or vada), puffy poori with chickpea curry and a weekend khichiri special. This is Indian in and out breakfast, scoop with the bread or fingers and get on with your day.
A simple looking dish of slow cooked rice, mustard seeds and spices, but the flavours are a complex whirl of happiness. Deep fried veggie patties and a couple of battered and fried green chillies. Crisp roll of plantain and a spoonful each of coconut crispy and tamarind chutney. Khichiri, khichuri, khichdi, whatever your preferred version, it is mostly the same basic base of rice and split yellow lentils cooked in ghee with spices.
We have a thingy thing for Vietnamese crab soups, and this is one of our all time faves: banh da cua - soft crab mince with brown rice noodle ($15). Clear broth and brown noodles, which are kinda like wholemeal fettucine - nice chew and a nice change to your standard rice noodles, fish balls, greens, betel leaf rolls, a pool of crab mince that really flavours the soup, and some lucky dip bits of fried pork belly. In short: a killer broth and lots of fun bits. Awesome.
We are big fans of the ramen at Ramen Zundo, the broth with a mix of dried bonito is one of our favourites. But what if you took the broth out and just left all the goodies and the flavour base? Abura soba (also known as mazesoba) originated as a soupless ramen where the noodles are coated in oil and the tare flavour base is left at the bottom of the bowl to stir through the soba noodles.
There are three versions at Ramen Zundo, original, spicy and one with a dried bonito blend. Each version has chopped softly cooked pork, bamboo pieces, soft cooked egg and lots of chopped spring onions. The gyokai (dried bonito blend) version not only has a fish flavoured sauce at the bottom of the bowl, it has a generous amount of ground bonito powder sprinkled over the top of the bowl.
This Heshela Samay Baji Set ($19) has a mix of flavours and textures we have only encountered in the exotic Nepalese region of Rockdale. There are familar flavours of curries, egg and a roti thingy, but also some eye-popping wow moments from the sour pickle flavours, the squished Rice Bubble texture of the baji and the tooth-threatening hard crunch of what we think is called Haku Mushya, Google says they are black soybeans - they are like chomping on barely cooked popcorn kernels.
Sussex Centre appears to have weathered the closures in Chinatown better than other areas (Dixon House, still sad). It is quiet on a Wednesday lunchtime and some stalls are closed until the evening, bonus though is getting a table. At Kwan Noodle Bar it's all go and we are in the mood for a noodle soup.
There's a number of combos available for your soup choice but it's soft bone pork we are after, a cut of meat that gives you melting soft meat off slowly cooked bones that are more like cartilage. The soft nature of the 'bone' means that give a crunch that won't crush that expensive dental work, it gives to some pressure and a happy amount of textural oomph. Our choice of thin egg noodles, a couple of huge hunks of soft-to-the-bite radish, half a bum nut and additional toppings of chopped shallot and chilli make a bigger lunch than we anticipated. The broth is dark with just a touch of star anise in the aroma.
Khao Kang Maruay is a Thai E-San (north eastern Thailand) resto that was one of the last places we dined in before the June lockdown and takeaway only rules in Sydney. It had only just opened on Ultimo Road with offers of small bowls of soup, a takeaway bain-marie-of-love and loads of stuff on sticks. So coming back this week, it's just like picking up where we left off many months ago.
We are big fans of a small bowl of soup, something to tide you over or fill a smaller space in your stomach. There's three different soups on offer here for $6.90 for a small size and $12.90 for a larger bowl. This version is the Sukhotai, a lighter style broth with slices of fish cake, fish balls, quail eggs, roast pork and your choice of noodles (we went thin egg over the more usual rice noodles). With build your own soup adventure fixings at the ready, you can add in as much fish sauce, vinegar, sugar or chilli as you please.
