REVIEW: Ngon Vietnamese Street Food

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015

There are three food courts in Chinatown, each of them worth visiting repeatedly, exploring every restaurant and familiarising yourself with as many of the dishes on offer as possible. It’s pretty hard to go wrong, but if you wanna ensure rightness, here is a simple Chinatown food court hierarchy to use as a guide: Sussex Centre > Eating World > Dixon House. Disagree? Fight me. 9pm tonight outside the Paddy’s Markets. Loser has to eat at the Westfield food court for a month. Enjoy your Snag Stand.

The most recent addition to Sussex Centre’s stalls, already home to 10/10 eateries like Happy Chef and Ikkyu, is Ngon Vietnamese Street Food, a clean neon Vietnamese affair that’s next door to another clean neon Vietnamese affair. On the menu are some 40 lunch options, a grab bag of someone who’s recently visited Vietnam listing as many of the great meals they had while they were there in 30 seconds. While there’s a lot of familiarity on the menu (bowls of vermicelli, banh mi, rice paper rolls), there’s also a Hanoi specialty on there, one I’ve not seen on a Sydney Viet menu before: bun cha hanoi.

Bun cha is a collection of bowls – one filled with noodles, one with herbs, another some sauce – but the star of the bowl show is one filled with grilled patties of ground pork, swimming in a warm and sweet broth. You mix some cold noodles into the broth, throw a few herbs in, add some chili, eat it all together and make a huge mess. It’s super fun and super delicious, and Ngon’s take on the dish is great value but lacking in the flavour department. The broth is sweet and strange, but the pork patties are lacking the taste of charcoal that they’re cooked over traditionally, Ngon opting to grill them over gas instead. A pile of grilled pork would improve with that same charcoal kick, and the usual varied collection of Vietnamese herbs is a few mint leaves and grated carrot. Still, it’s a fun lunch, and hopefully the start of more Vietnamese joints adding the dish to the menu.

Where
Shop F6, Sussex Centre Food Court, 401 Sussex St, Haymarket

When
Mon-Sun, 12pm-8pm

How much
$9.80

I made my friend eat the level 7 spicy tom yum noodles at Do Dee Paidang

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

Everyone’s got that one mate who likes it hot. The one who empties the entire container of complimentary chillies into their bowl of pho and asks every staff member at a Mexican Restaurant “no seriously, what’s the spiciest hot sauce you’ve got?”. My one mate is Owie. I once emptied an entire bottle of cayenne pepper onto a sandwich I made him and he didn’t even notice the heat. I took him to Chairman Mao in Kensington, ordered the dishes that would put me in a coma and all I got was an acknowledgement, a raised eyebrow as he told me “yeah, it’s pretty spicy” before eating all the food on the table.

Do Dee Paidang, a small Thai noodle joint in Chinatown, has quickly reached a cult status for its small bowls of tom yum, which are filled with an aromatic broth, chewy rice noodles, various meats and fried egg noodles. The soups are graded from 0 – 7 on the heat scale, with each number representing the number of dried chilli scoops added to your broth. 0 is called ‘Do Dee Nursery’. Add one scoop of chilli and it’s already hot enough to warrant the name ‘Do Dee Monster’. I made it to level 3, and that bowl of ‘Do Dee Lava’ almost destroyed me. I could taste the chilli in my ears.

Level 7, containing seven scoops of dried chillies, is affectionately called ‘Do Dee Super Nova’. There was no fucking way I was going to eat a bowl of noodles named after a dead star, but I knew just the asshole who I could convince to eat it for me.

I talked it up a bit and as we looked at the menu Owie had a little bit of fear in him. “Maybe I should try a level 5 first?” he asked me. Level 5? What did I look like? Concrete Playground? This is Two-motherfucking-Thousand, motherfucker! I ordered two bowls of soup, immediately blowing the food budget offered by publications such as ours. I ordered Owie that level 7 Super Nova and got a Do Dee Nursery on the side, so Owie could try the soup in its unadulterated state (not because I’m a huge pussy).

The first spoonfuls of every spice level of tom yum are fantastic, a great mix of textures and taste. Event the first few spoonfuls of the Super Nova are ok, the other flavours allowed to exist before the chilli works its magic on your tastebuds. After 20 seconds Owie gives me that nod of acknowledgment he gave me at Chairman Mao. “Yeah, it’s pretty spicy”, but he keeps slurping away, stopping at the halfway mark to wipe the beads of sweat from his brow before taking his jacket off on what is supposedly the coldest day in Sydney’s last two decades.

I get my phone ready to record his failure but he persists, and within a minute he’s eaten all but a small pool of broth. “Drink it!” I yell, pushing the boundaries of our friendship. He does, leaving a mostly empty bowl, save for a few flecks of bright red fire powder. I give Owie a round of applause, the kind you only hear from white guys in Thai restaurants, and he stares into space. “That’s gonna burn tomorrow morning” he tells me, and I realise what a perfect epitaph that would be.

Where
9/37 Ultimo Rd, Haymarket

When
Mon-Sun 11am-1am

How much
$6.90 a bowl

Contact
02 8065 3827

SHOP: A.P.C. Sydney

apc

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

In the same week that ABC announced they would close all 50 of their retail stores around Australia, A.P.C. opened their first retail store in Sydney. Is the A.P.C. store a suitable replacement for ABC? Are high end, military inspired fashions as good as a DVD box set of Father Ted? Instead of buying your grandparents a Dr Karl book for Christmas this year, can’t you just get them a $250 pair of jeans instead?

If you can afford it, why not? There’s genuinely not a bad item in this sleek boutique, so long as you overlook those kinda suss hats. A.P.C. play it smart and minimal, so there’s nothing garish on the racks (except those pricetags AM I RIGHT? Just kidding they’re very reasonable considering the quality of the garments).

Those legends at Incu, once the only place in Sydney with a decent collection of A.P.C. goods, are behind this new store, and they’ve stocked the beautiful wooden shelves with A.P.C.’s finest jeans, jumpers, sunnies, handbags, dresses, jackets, coats, shoes, candles and of course, those A.P.C. x Aesop ‘post-poo drops‘. All class.

Where
406 Crown St, Surry Hills

When
Mon-Sun 10am-6pm

Contact
02 9380 2010

 

READ: Highlights from 500 issues of Two Thousand

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I first subscribed to Two Thousand in 2007. An old Hotmail account contains every issue since 74 onwards, and although hosting changes have ensured those old issues are a mess of mostly broken links and missing images, you can still tell that each issue is full of reviews and recommendations from young writers who love Sydney.

The editor of that 74th issue was Nadia Saccardo, who is just one of the hundreds of Two Thousand contributors who were passionate about not just the city that they live in, but about getting others to be as passionate as they were. With every new editorial team came a slight change in tone (I hope my last year here can be fondly remembered as the era with the most dick jokes), but the drive was always the same: let the readers know about the coolest stuff happening in Sydney that week.

I got in touch with a few of the writers and editors who’ve contributed to the newsletter over the last decade to bring up some their highlights while they spent every week writing about the parts of Sydney that they were most passionate about each week.


Nadia Saccardo

The thing I loved about 2T through and through was that it was a platform to positively support people who were working hard to make Sydney more interesting and a nicer place to be. We had a lot of fun making the newsletter and website but always took that side of things super seriously.

Alex Vitlin

There were the times we got lost in a carpark looking for Alaska Projects; or woke up locked in a bar after sampling too much of its cocktail list; or when Bethany mused or Aniqa enthused; or when Cleo became the canniest food writer around; and every time Wilfred, our creative node, added a wing to his inner library of pop culture; and Hayley went from Bandits to Berlin. And everyone else found, just, all this goodness.

Two Thousand purported to be about the city but it was really about the people; just a legion of people who lived here forcefully wanting to do all these great things. And they appeared every week. It was hard to get to everyone, and it was a privilege, of sorts, that we couldn’t. Well done Sydney. Don’t stop doing that.

Hayley Morgan

I just know I’m about to leave out some pretty important stories we made. In my mind one editorial meeting melts into the next, especially since we are real journalists and decided we’d hold them at The Crix or The Hollywood. It’s a shared feeling though, that the best bit about working at The Thousands is that you get to share desks and email chains with the smartest people in Australia. So my favourite stories are the ones where I got to hang out, outside the office, with my wing lady Cleo Braithwaite. Snooping around the Design Files Open House with her was a lol – you really had to be there. Driving out to Orchard Hills/Tuscany to eat from a family’s backyard restaurant and squeal about their animals and fresh air was THE BEST too. Cheering from the sidelines when Golden Age Cinema & Bar opened is something I still brag about. But trying to convince all of Sydney to shave a Wu Tang logo into the back of their head is by far my greatest contribution to the internet.

Wilfred Brandt

I’m very lucky to have worked with so many talented people at a really fun job. It was exciting to hear all their great ideas and read their awesome writing each week (both within the Sydney office, and from the other cities). It was also really fun emailing something you wrote to someone else in the office for proofreading and waiting to hear them laugh at something stupid you wrote, or an inside joke. Cleo Braithwaite and I had a running competition to fit in puns each week… Scoops were great too, we got in the habit of eating a new place for lunch or dinner every work day (people were always surprised to learn we were all pretty much part-time). As READ editor I was deliriously happy I could email some random publisher in Spain, Lithuania, or L.A. and get free stuff. And it was really fun riding my bike across town to check out a place and write about it, giving terrific new, independent bars, restaurants, shops, festivals, clothing labels, breweries (etc) positive reviews and hearing that customers came pouring in afterwards.

I’m going to be totally narcissistic and talk about things I wrote which I am proud of. It was great to interview people I had always revered, such as John Waters and Cat Power. Other favourite articles: The Nut Shop Factory Outlet (Darren Knight was very pleased with my shout out to his gallery), the Clothing Optional Ice Cream Boat, Mark Drew’s Chronic Youth, the Teen Witch review I co-wrote with Hayley Morgan, and the Prince Tribute Show – fuck knows why about that last one. Maybe because man, that tone; writing in that tone every week was a pleasure, like texting your smart, hip, funny best friend, where you can be as romantic or cynical or cluey or stupid as you want.

Cleo Braithwaite

One of the incredible things about working on Two Thousand was the sheer scope of things that you could feasibly call ‘work’. Video of a kitten in a top hat to watch? Sure, that’s just researching COOL/FOOL links. Therefore work. Sitting with mates in the park on a sunny winter day, eating hot toast and glittery Space Jam? Yeah that’s work too. Eating yourself stupid in a little chunk of Tuscany out near Penrith? . Work, obviously. Getting Marys to put their secret fried chicken recipe down on paper? Delicious, crispy golden fried work. Even making a Joffrey Baratheon voodoo doll somehow fell under the generously-girthed umbrella that is work at Two Thousand.

Claire Finneran

Working for Two Thousand is really great.

Sometimes we get Arnotts biscuits inexplicably delivered in a cute branded carry bag. The best kind of press release is an edible press release as they say in the biz(cuit), but… why? Did we ever write about them in the past? Were they one of our first ever EATDRINKS? Did someone gush favourably over a new Tim Tam range?

I’m not complaining, right before Thursday deadline I’ll guiltlessly eat a whole box of Chicken Crimpy shapes and love every second of it. How great is that flavour dust residue that lies at the bottom of the foil bag, oh man, second only to the Barbecue shape red-finger coat- classic! I like to pre-lick and then get as much flavour stuck to my phalanges as possible. But, the mystery remains, a past editor must have dipped their hand into this bottomless cookie jar and started the supply. I wish I could ask them. I also wish I could show Arnotts how much I appreciate everything they’ve done for me. One day.


I might not use that old Hotmail account anymore, but after almost ten years I’m still subscribed to Two Thousand, and will continue to be after I’m deemed not cool enough to say what’s cool each week (which is actually tomorrow, so good riddance!). Here’s to 500 more issues of smoked mortadellaice cream pairingssmoking areascommemorative platesgross craft beers and fucking burgers. Here’s to Sydney.

REVIEW: Hartsyard’s ‘Fried Chicken & Friends’

harts

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

One of life’s true miracles, fried chicken is readily available in most parts of Sydney at most times of the day. You could throw a handful of flour at a drumstick in a deep fryer and it would still taste pretty good, but genuinely great fried chicken takes time, and every fried chicken fan will tell you that the chicken they fry at Newtown’s Hartsyard is genuinely great.

Fried Chicken & Friends is the first cookbook by the couple behind Hartsyard – relocated New Yorker Gregory Llewellyn and Naomi Hart, who opened an American restaurant at the peak of Sydney’s obsession with faux diner food but rose above the hype and delivered a menu that included American classics cleverly tweaked to reflect their Sydney setting.

While they could’ve just called this book Fried Chicken, the Friends include recipes for sweet potato pies, fried oyster po’ boys and poutine, plus a palate balancing selection of pickles and salads, an insane dessert section and some cocktails to wash it all down with.

hart2

As for the fried chicken recipe? It takes up the first 20 pages of the book, takes three days and requires a vacuum sealer. Like a lot of the recipes in Fried Chicken & Friends, it’s incredible to have it written out in front of you but it’s more likely to make you book a table at Hartsyard than it is inspire you to actually cook it. Some things are best left to the experts.

Who
Hartsyard’s Gregory Llewellyn and Naomi Hart

Where
Out now through Murdoch Books

How much
$49.99

REVIEW: El Shaddai, Merrylands

ELS

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

African food is a bit of an anomaly in Sydney – a scattering of restaurants in the Western Suburbs without a “best African food in Sydney” Buzzfeed article to help you navigate them. Sydney’s growing African scene has meant the emergence of more specific restaurants. Offering more varied and regionally specific menus, instead of the all encompassing “African cuisine” representing the many dishes of the second biggest continent in the world. The main street in Merrylands has seen a few businesses open in the last few years, turning one end of Merrylands Rd into a haven for hair extensions and awesome food.

El Shaddai specialises in West African cuisine – you can tell this when you walk in due to the smell of ginger and hot spices, plus the Nigerian dancehall videos showing on the TV. It looks like a humble takeaway joint from the outside – and those looking for humble takeaway food will find cheap fish and chips on the menu – but the rest of the fare is proper sit down knife and fork stuff.

There’s an abundance of stewed meats, charcoal chicken and an intriguing dish called ‘kan kan kan’, but the pride of El Shaddai is their jollof rice with fried tilapia. Jollof rice is red with tomato, vaguely spicy and completely ignored when beneath a colossal fish, fried whole with crackly skin. On the side is a spicy onion relish that makes the white flesh of the tilapia taste even better. Also on the plate: a by-the-numbers garden salad topped with intricate swirls of pink mayo dressing. The perfect salad to cover with fish bones.

ELS2

The unassuming neon sign out the front of El Shaddai is not one that you’d associate with a $30 fish dinner, but the kitchen delivers, making you promise to return to try the rest of the menu and find out whatever the hell kan kan kan is.

Where
130 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands

When
Mon-Sat 12-8:45pm, Sun 2-8:45pm

How much
Mains from $15

REVIEW: Aaboll Cafe, Merrylands

Originally published on TwoThousand in 2015.

African food is a bit of an anomaly in Sydney – a scattering of restaurants in the Western Suburbs without a “best African food in Sydney” Buzzfeed article to help you navigate them. Sydney’s growing African scene has meant the emergence of more specific restaurants. Offering more varied and regionally specific menus, instead of the all encompassing “African cuisine” representing the many dishes of the second biggest continent in the world. The main street in Merrylands has seen a few businesses open in the last few years, turning one end of Merrylands Rd into a haven for hair extensions and awesome food.

aaboll2

El Shaddai specialises in West African cuisine – you can tell this when you walk in due to the smell of ginger and hot spices, plus the Nigerian dancehall videos showing on the TV. It looks like a humble takeaway joint from the outside – and those looking for humble takeaway food will find cheap fish and chips on the menu – but the rest of the fare is proper sit down knife and fork stuff.

aaboll3

There’s an abundance of stewed meats, charcoal chicken and an intriguing dish called ‘kan kan kan’, but the pride of El Shaddai is their jollof rice with fried tilapia. Jollof rice is red with tomato, vaguely spicy and completely ignored when beneath a colossal fish, fried whole with crackly skin. On the side is a spicy onion relish that makes the white flesh of the tilapia taste even better. Also on the plate: a by-the-numbers garden salad topped with intricate swirls of pink mayo dressing. The perfect salad to cover with fish bones.

The unassuming neon sign out the front of El Shaddai is not one that you’d associate with a $30 fish dinner, but the kitchen delivers, making you promise to return to try the rest of the menu and find out whatever the hell kan kan kan is.

Where
140 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands

When
Mon-Wed 7am-8:30pm, Thu-Fri 7am-9:30pm, Sat 10am-9:30pm, Sun 2-8:30pm

Contact
02 8840 9076

Jean Grey #2

jean

Written by Dennis Hopeless / Drawn by Victor Ibanez

After a disappointing first issue that didn’t suggest anything new or fun was going to happen to one of Marvel’s oldest characters in her first solo series, issue 2 ramps up the excitement levels to the point that it feels like an entirely different book – a book written by the same Dennis Hopeless who gave us the wonderful Spider-Woman series which wrapped up at the start of the year.

After sensing that the Phoenix Force is on its way to find her, Jean Grey gets in touch (via Cerebro, naturally) with every previous Phoenix host she can find – which includes established characters like Colossus, newer ones like Quentin Quire and “oh yeah she’s still around!” characters like Hope. Hopeless handles the different interactions  Jean has with each of her fellow mutants deftly, and artist Victor Ibanez clearly had a ball drawing each of them, especially during their chaotic fight with the Reavers. Jean Grey #2 feels like a more genuine celebration of X-Men history than both X-Men Gold and Blue have tried to be since their launch.

Kamandi Challenge #5

kamandi

Written by Bill Willingham / Drawn by Ivan Reis

DC are celebrating the 100th birthday of comics legend Jack Kirby this year by having some of their top creators compete in the Kamandi Challenge. Each issue sees a different writer/art team work on one chapter in the life of Kirby creation Kamandi, the last boy on earth, ending their issue on a cliffhanger that must be solved by the next creative team. It’s been patchy so far, maintaining a sense of fun overall that pays homage to Kirby nicely but rarely offering anything that memorable. That all changes with this phenomenal fifth issue, written by Fables scribe Bill Willingham with art by Ivan Reis – a genuinely top tier creative team.

Willingham ups the stakes for Kamandi almost immediately in this quick moving adventure that feels more packed with development than all the issues prior to this one combined. We meet pirate dogs (literal dogs – Kamandi is a boy surrounded by anthropomorphic animals at all times), lemur mad scientists and a Sherlock Holmes-esque lion detective who almost steals the show – were it not for an incredible, genuinely shocking cliffhanger at the end. I don’t envy the next creative team who have to get Kamandi out of this one. Provided they do, and the Kamandi Challenge finishes as planned at the end of the year, fingers crossed we get more Kamandi adventures from Willingham and Reis, because this was fantastic.

James Bond: Service

Written by Kieron Gillen / Drawn by Antonio Fuso

It’s possible to be a James Bond fan even if you haven’t enjoyed one of his movies in a good 20 years. Warren Ellis made it especially easy last year when he wrote a 12 issue run featuring the character, a genuine surprise from Dynamite comics which saw Ellis modernise the M16 characters from Ian Fleming’s 1950s novels, ignoring the flashiness of the movies and getting to the heart of the character. This was a sharper, more brutal take on 007 – perfectly paired with cold, precise art from Jason Masters.

Since then Dynamite has given us shorter James Bond runs by Andy Diggle and Benjamin Percy but neither have lived up to Warren Ellis’s stint. This week’s new one shot James Bond: Service sees writer Kieron Gillen build nicely on that run, while adding his own signature wit and a risky story that mirrors the current American politic climate. In the most 2017 Bond story ever, America’s new Secretary of State rudely understates the value of Britain before a visit, upsetting one nationalist enough to plan an assassination attempt, which M16 plans to stop.

This well paced one and done story features a rarity for James Bond – having to hunt down a would be assassin who’s British for once – but there’s enough appearances from M16 staple characters to keep the feeling of familiarity. Gillen’s Bond is razor sharp, but there’s a warmth to Gillen’s writing that stops the book from ever feeling as brutal as Ellis’s run did.

Although Antonio Fuso draws a few dodgy faces in the opening, exposition heavy pages, as soon as the action kicks in he’s in his element, keeping the book moving forward as fast a good thriller should. Dynamite should consider releasing more Bond one shots like this, especially if they all get covers as gloriously phallic as this one, drawn by frequent Gillen collaborator Jamie McKelvie.