I simply could not not have a bowl of authentic Pho when I went to Cabramatta aka Vietnamese Town for the first time. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have the dilemma of choosing from the many Vietnamese restaurants because my brother had already v(i)et them all out (lol). Our first choice was still closed for the New Year so we went to the second best: Pho Tau Bay.
The menu:
Condiments like fish sauce, hot sauce, hoisin sauce and fresh red chilli are available on the table. Instead of water, you get served a free teapot of plain iced tea.
Although the broth is quite neutral, it is customisable to your liking. They mainly focus on the cuts of meat. Make sure to get to your rare slices of beef first as they will overcook as you let it sit in the hot broth. I loved the pieces of tendons and tripes. So gelatinous and bouncy and goes lovely with the broth. It adds beautiful and different textures to the dish.
My fave way to eat it is to put plenty of bean sprouts for the crunch, tear apart a few thai basil leaves, let a few slices of the fresh red chilli sit in the broth just to flavour it (but I won’t eat it) and squirt some fresh lime juice in there. my hot sauce/siracha will be on the side so I can dip my cuts of meat in there. That sounds awesome I just wanna have one right now!
This is definitely superior to the pho you might get in a food court.
Our next Cabramatta must-have was sugarcane juice, so that was our next stop. Coming from Mauritius which cultivates sugarcane on 72000 hectares of land and which is/was also one of the island’s main industries, it is quite unbelievable that I had never had sugarcane juice before. I used to drive past sugarcane fields virtually everyday!
The sugarcane juice was infused with kumquat so it had a lovely citrusy flavour and was very refreshing. Perfect for these hot summer days.
I was surprised to see that even a week and a half after Lunar New Year, it was still being celebrated!
It was a new experience for me as I saw things like rambutan and fresh blue crab for the first time in real life 🙂 I only had a chance to have a glimpse and I can’t wait for a proper visit there!
Wishing you a lovely week ahead 😉
