I’ve never been to Student Biryani, but I can tell you right now that it does the best biryani in Sydney. Ok technically that’s a bit of a half-truth; I may have never been to Student Biryani in person, but I’ve sure eaten it plenty of times. An old co-worker of mine used to occasionally organise biryani days at work, where he would order entire buckets from Student Biryani for us to feast on. And everyone who has ever tasted it agrees that it is the best they’ve ever had.
Until I moved to Sydney, I was never keen on falafel. In Melbourne, they were more often than not an afterthought, thrown onto the side of the obligatory vegetarian platter. Even at restaurants that specialised in falafel, they were never quite as delicious as the ones I’ve become used to in Sydney. These days however, the thought of a bit of fried chickpea gets me rather excited. So when news emerged of Jimmy’s Falafel, where the chef apparently spent 3 months perfecting his special falafel mix (which unusually, is a combination of fava beans and chickpeas, rather than one or the other), I was there and ready to be delighted.
It’s been literally yonks since I’ve had a good Middle Eastern meal, and as I’m only a few weeks away from moving out of Sydney’s southern suburbs – one of the best locations for no-frills Lebanese food in the city – I was keen to use that time to check out some of the more popular restaurants in the area. And if you prowl a little around the internet, you’ll see that Al Yasmin is a name that comes up frequently on the best-of lists. Having expected a cramped, fluorescent-lit space, the reality came as a pleasant surprise. Not only is the space brightly lit, clean, and spacious, it even had some rather pretty paintings of desert scenes hung along…
Call me naïve, but when I first moved to Sydney, I was astounded by how much everything cost. Having grown up in Melbourne, where things already don’t exactly come cheap, I scoffed at everyone who lamented at the cost of living in Sydney. After all, how much worse than Melbourne can it really be? As it turns out, quite a bit. Not only was rent mind-bogglingly expensive, the food was also markedly dearer. What started as a joke between Chris and I that one Sydney dollar is worth one-and-a-half Melbourne dollars became woefully true – we did indeed find that if we multiplied the cost of what we think a meal should be in Melbourne by 1.5, we ended up…
The best restaurants are those that you stumble upon, and that is exactly how I came to know about Cairo Takeaway. I was wandering through Newtown a few months ago after dinner, when I spotted an ancient-looking pot through a non-descript door, filled with falafel floating in golden oil. Naturally my interest was piqued, and a quick peek inside revealed a cosy, homely restaurant that seems to specialise in Middle-Eastern food, if the falafel vat and counter of fresh salads and pickles were to be believed.
When it comes to food, the premise of ‘the more authentically ethnic, the better’ has never yet led me astray. Frankly, nothing excites me more than walking into a suburb and seeing a bunch of family-run, hole-in-the-wall ethnic eateries. So when I got out of the car in Lakemba and saw all the grocers and bakeries selling food I had never even heard of, I knew that I was in for some seriously good food at Jasmin Lebanese Restaurant.