Banh Cuon Ba Oanh, Marrickville

Never had banh cuon? You need to. These silky rice noodle rolls are a traditional Vietnamese breakfast staple, usually cooked at little roadside stalls as swarms of scooters zoom past. The newly opened Banh Cuon Ba Oanh is about as close as Sydneysiders can get to the real deal. That includes a tiny kitchen cloaked in clouds of steam and squishy tables with ankle-high stools (no joke) that will test your flexibility.

The proof is in the banh cuon and Ba Oanh delivers - expect thin layers of house-fermented rice batter expertly ladled and steamed until soft and silky. Peer into the open kitchen and you’ll likely find Ba Oanh herself, family matriarch and restaurant mascot, in amongst the action.


Ba Oanh in the kitchen making her famous banh cuon


Banh cuon cha que $11
Steamed rice noodle rolls with cinnamon pork

Order the classic version ($11) of this Northern Vietnamese dish and your rice noodles will be rolled with a rubble of pork mince and flecks of crunchy black fungus mushroom. Dunk them in the sweet and salty nuoc cham fish sauce dressing and savour alongside slices of cha que (a pale baked pork sausage seasoned with cinnamon), soft herbs and deep-fried shallots.


Banh cuon thit nuong $11
Steamed rice noodle rolls with grilled pork

Alternatives include plain rice noodle rolls served with grilled pork ($11) or a soft set organic egg ($4).


Banh cuon truong $4
Steamed rice noodle rolls with egg


Banh cha quat $11
Grilled pork with vermicelli and salad

Bring a handful of mates and you could easily order everything on the one-page menu. Continue the nood-fest with bun cha quat ($11), cold vermicelli noodles eaten with grilled pork, salad, pickles and nuoc cham, or hit up the sticky rice combos.


Xoi trang hay xoi xeo ga chay bo $11
Yellow bean sticky rice with free range chicken

It involves glutinous rice either cooked plain or mixed with yellow beans and boosted with your choice of poached free range chicken or sweet braised pork with pork floss ($11 each).


Xoi trang hay xoi vang thit heo kho $11
Yellow bean sticky rice with braised pork, pork floss, onion and cucumber salad


Chao $11
Free range chicken congee with fried bread and pork floss

Free range chicken congee, a restorative rice porridge ($11) rounds out the menu. It’s a terrific version, savoury soul-reviving heartiness amped up with pork mince, pork floss, fresh shallots and crunchy slices of deep fried savoury donuts. Vietnamese locals are already loving this cheap eat addition to Marrickville. We reckon you will too.


Vintage metal chairs






Banh Cuon Ba Oanh
343 Illawarra Road, Marrickville Sydney
Tel: +61 (02)

Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday 8am-3pm; 5pm-7.30pm

This article first appeared in Time Out Sydney. Read this article online or read more of my Time Out Sydney reviews.


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Cafe Nho, Bankstown

Remember those mini tubs of creme caramel your Mum would buy you from the supermarket fridges? The ones with the plastic tabs you’d have to break off the bottom so the custard would slide out? You’ll get a flashback to childhood with the Vietnamese version, banh flan. It’s all about that sensation of slowly savouring chilled custard - sitting in a lake of caramel sauce of course - made even colder with a blizzard of chipped ice scattered across the top. Take that, tropical humidity.


Vietnamese creme caramel $6.90

At Cafe Nho, they kick things up a notch by adding a crown of red rubies. They’re those addictive nubbins of water chestnut jellies tinted red so they look like giant pomegranate seeds. Or rubies. Put it all together and you’ve got a multi-textured dessert of silky custard, bitter caramel and the refreshing crunch of water chestnuts encased in chewy tapioca jelly.

You’ll find a constant crowd of families, teens and couples at this Bankstown cafe, spilling across the footpath out the front or hidden in the booths at the back. Everyone has a drink or dessert in front of them. The constant whir of blenders doesn’t faze anyone.


Watermelon, lychee and strawberry frappe $6

Here you can design your own fruit juice, smoothie or frappe from a rainbow of tropical choices. We’re talking dragon fruit, soursop, jackfruit and, you guessed it, durian. And even though you keep forgetting that avocado is a fruit, the folks here haven’t. If you can’t make up your mind, pick a preset combo from the menu, like mango, coconut and whipped cream or watermelon, lychee and strawberry.


Pomelo rind, white seaweed and beans $6.90


Smashed durian $10

Otherwise the dessert menu revolves mostly around shaved iced concoctions. The shaved ice with candied pomelo rind and snow fungus will cool you right down, or get that ice blitzed up with smashed durian. They’re not stingy with the durian either. The crowd favourite is probably the homemade jelly combination, a parfait glass filled with grass jelly, basil seeds, red rubies, shaved ice and coconut milk.


Cafe sua da iced white coffee $4

Looking for a turbo-charged pick-me-up? Get the Vietnamese coffee. It’s super strong and just as sweet. Most locals have it with condensed milk and poured over ice but you can pull out all the stops and get it blended with Oreos, Tim Tams, Bounty or Snickers.






Cafe Nho
64 Bankstown City Plaza, Bankstown Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9709 6820

Opening hours
Daily 7am-6pm

This article first appeared in Time Out Sydney. Read this article online or read more of my Time Out Sydney reviews.

Mam Mam, Bankstown

Sydney might be awash with Vietnamese restaurants but finding traditional dishes from Hanoi, in the country’s north, is more difficult. That’s where recently opened Mam Mam in Bankstown comes in. This stylish arcade café is already a hit with locals. Don’t know your bun cha from your bun nam? Don’t worry, the slick full-page menu photos will eliminate any guesswork.



Bún chả Hanoi smoky grilled pork meatball vermicelli salad $13

If you’re going to order anything from the menu, make it the bún chả, a Hanoi classic of grilled pork meatballs and pork slices with vermicelli noodles and salad. You can even watch your pork sizzle on the barbecue through the front window. Pick up your jaw from the ground when your feast arrives, spread out on a gigantic woven platter. Place a little bit of everything in your bowl, drench it with the salty sweet soup and savour the smoky char of pork against soft noodles, crunchy pickled vegetables and fresh herbs.


Bún đậu mắm tôm fried tofu noodle salad $13

Want to level up? Try the bún đậu mắm tôm, a similar bún chả set-up that substitutes the grilled pork with poached pork slices, fried tofu puffs and pork intestines. The accompanying sauce made from fermented shrimp paste packs a fishy punch, in the best possible way. You’ve been warned.


Bún mắm spicy and sour soup $14.50

Bún mắm ($14.50) is a spicy and sour soup holding a jackpot of plump prawns, tender squid, pork belly and thick chewy noodles. Transfer the side plate of shredded banana flower, cabbage and bean sprouts into the soup and then head on down to flavour town. There’s a key ingredient behind the soup’s addictively pungent umami earthiness: fermented fish paste. Don’t be afraid. It’s just an echo versus a punch in the face but it’s definitely there.


Shredded banana flower, cabbage and sprout accompaniments for the bún mắm

Nem rán Hanoi-style pork and prawn spring rolls $7

Have we saved the best until last? You bet. You need an order of the nem rán – that’s the North Vietnamese version of spring rolls – wrapped up in rice paper sheets (the same ones used for your favourite rice paper rolls) and deep-fried until golden. They’re super crunchy with just a hint of chewiness. Order them as an entrée ($7) and wrap them up in lettuce with pickles or have them as a side to vermicelli noodles and herbs ($13).


Iced white coffee $4 and iced tea $1








Mam Mam
1/313 Chapel Road South, Bankstown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02 9709 5662

Opening hours
Daily 10am-9pm


This article first appeared in Time Out Sydney. Read this article online or read more of my Time Out Sydney reviews.

Ms G's, Potts Point

The humble Aussie jaffle. Two bits of bread sandwiched together to create a pocket for molten cheesy goodness. And then Dan Hong comes along and stuffs it with Korean Army stew. It's as though he's on a one man crusade to bring budae jigae to the masses.

But you know what? It works. This Korean American hybrid, a stew (jigae) invented from army (budae) rations during the Korean war, combines noodles with kimchi, gochujang pepper paste, Spam and American cheese. It's spicy, salty, carby cheesy goodness - just the kind of thing you want in a toasted pocket.

At Ms G's this jaffle will set you back $18 but surely that's quality kransky and mortadella buried in there amongst the ramyum noodles and mozzarella. And it's the kind of tongue-in-cheek quirkiness you can expect at Ms G's, a mash-up of all things Asian in the middle of Potts Point.


Burrata with strange flavour sesame sauce, chilli oil, spinach and peanuts $22

Take cheese for instance. Burrata is the last thing you'd expect to find in a Chinese restaurant but here it's freaking out every Nonna with the addition of crushed Sichuan peppercorns, sesame seeds, rice vinegar and peanuts. Guaiwei strange flavour sauce is straight outta Sichuan province, more commonly used with cold chicken, but oddly complementary against the cold creamy lusciousness of mozzarella filled with cream. It's a ballsy move (ahaha) and it works.


Ms G's falafel, green tomato salsa and black garlic aioli $4.50 each

In contrast, Ms G's take on falafel is much less exciting, not that there's anything amiss with the chickpea patties, but its topping of green tomato salsa and black garlic aioli seems to veer off the modern Asian path, even with the inclusion of black garlic.


Vietnamese steak tartare with prawn crackers $21

While some dishes change on the menu, others will always remain. And with good reason. The Vietnamese steak tartare is too good to ever remove, a hybrid between steak tartare and the Vietnamese bo tai chanh rare beef salad. Those thick crunchy prawn crackers are the perfect carriage for seasoned chopped beef, a glossy egg yolk and a mountain of deep fried shallots.


Mini banh mi with chicken katsu and spicy fish katsu $7.50 each

Mini banh mi are about as far removed from your Cabramatta favourite as you can get, but that includes the juiciness of both the chicken and fish fillets, each coated in panko crumbs and deep fried to an expert crunch.


Cheeseburger spring rolls $6 each

Cheeseburger spring rolls are always a winner. It's that sharpness of dill pickles against the tomato sauce, beef mince and cheese that make these so ridiculously addictive.


Fried sweetcorn, dashi brown butter, parsley and furikake $18

Fried sweetcorn involves some serious knifework with each corn cob split into four quarters straight through the core. Butter and cheese on corn is a no-brainer but the addition of dashi and furikake, the seaweed seasoning usually used for sushi rice, lifts the umami intensity to a plate-licking eleven.


Masala fried rice $24
with spiced chicken, curry leaf, crispy skin and garlic chilli toppping

The fried rice tends to change styles regularly. When we visited it was masala, a big hit of curry flavours with prized smithereens of chicken crackling and a bucketload of fried garlic.


Crispy fried chicken wings with tom yum mayonnaise $17

We've almost finished our second round of cocktails by the time the crispy fried chicken wings arrive. These are so crunchy I could weep, except I'm too busy dunking these brittle skinned mid-wings (and yes, they're ALL mid-wings) into a tub of tom yum mayonnaise.


Salt and vinegar eggplant tempura $17

And because you can never have too much fried, we finish with salt and vinegar eggplant tempura. These have only a light spray of vinegar on them, but the batter is insanely good. You'd hear the shatter of someone munching on these from the other side of the (noisy) dining room. The eggplant is perfectly squidgy in the middle too.


Hongo Bongo $16
Strawberry granita, yoghurt mousse, mochi, watermelon and Calpis sorbet

There are four desserts to choose from, including the calorific overload that is Stoner's Delight Part 3 - doughnut ice cream, crispy bacon, peanut and pretzel brittle, Mars bar brownie, potato chips, deep fried Nutella and more - but we go for the lightest one, the Hongo Bongo.

There are strong similarities between this dessert and the previous Namira's Dream, named after Dan's daughter. The Hongo Bongo swaps out fresh strawberries, lychee tapioca and mascarpone mousse for fresh watermelon, mochi and yoghurt mousse. The strawberry granita and the Calpis sorbet features in both.

It's just the palate cleanser you want to finish on, and the mix of textures and temperatures creates different combinations with every spoonful.

Why's it called Hong Bongo? I suspect it has something to do with this...

Hongo bongo

A post shared by Andrew Levins (@levdawg) on Feb 4, 2016 at 8:49pm PST

If you missed the full episode of Mitch Orr's Chef's Night Out on Munchies you can catch it here.






Ms G's
155 Victoria Street, Potts Point, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9240 3000

Opening hours
Monday to Thursday 5pm-12 midnight
Friday 12pm-3pm and 6pm-11pm
Saturday 12pm-11pm
Sunday 1pm-9pm


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