Vietnamese food, especially in Australia is
known for two things, taste and value. I remember, when growing up,
being amazed at how many ingredients go into a typical Vietnamese dish
and how much time it takes to cook a good meal. A bowl of pho involves
cooking beef bones for hours and adding a bewildering number of spices
including coriander seeds, star anise, cumin, fennel seeds, black
peppercorns, garlic – and they are just the spices I recognise. The
depth of richness in the soup also comes from salt, ginger and of course
fish sauce. And more is added to the pho at the table: bean sprouts,
chilli, basil and hoi-sin sauce. Next time you order a $10 bowl of pho,
take a minute to appreciate all the effort.
And it’s the same with a banh mi thit
(Vietnamese pork roll) over 10 ingredients including three types of
meat, pate, mayo, pickles, chilli wrapped in a crusty, crunchy long
roll. While a chicken and avocado sandwich might set you back $8, you
can get a pork roll for as little as $3 and it’s not just in the
Vietnamese hubs like Cabramatta, Marrickville and Bankstown - a very
decent pork roll can be had for $3 in Penrith! Pork rolls are the
un-sung heroes of fast food, perhaps the original subway! Pork roll shops
are spreading all across Sydney - next time you pop off to your local
hot bread shop, check to see if there’s a counter in the corner. A tip,
if I may: avoid it if there’s sliced lettuce anywhere in the vicinity!
Earlier
this year, I undertook a stomach churning search for Sydney’s best pork
roll – a crazy chomping frenzy stretching from Hurstville to Penrith and
in between. At the end of the six weeks, I announced the winner of Sydney’s best pork roll.
Since
that time, it seems like more and more pork roll places have popped
up. One of the more recent is an all-out assault on Sydney’s CBD, with
the Pork Roll shop in Sydney’s George Street diagonally across from
World Square. A tiny frontage that is just enough for two pork roll
making counters, early on it was only an amazing $3.50 for a pork, roll but within
months that had gone up to $3.95 – which is still pretty amazing value.
Noodlies
finally got the chance to give it a test drive and I’m very, very
pleasantly surprised. It’s the best Vietnamese pork roll I’ve had in
the city; crispy roll with an lovely ‘just right’ colour – not under
cooked or over-cooked, all the ingredients are there, all pretty
authentic – no skipping corners, there’s even pickled carrots, spring
onions and sliced chilli – two types of condiments too, soy and salt and
pepper. A few minor, and they're very, very minor observations: firstly, it
could have done with a tad more pate and mayo which would have made it
more creamy, the meat had a slightly strong five spice after-taste (fine
for me, but may not be to everyone’s taste) and finally the soy sauce
was a little light. But please, readers, these are very minor issues in
an otherwise excellent pork roll that’s under $4k. Oh, +1000 likes for
the crunchy roll!
If
you want to read more about Vietnamese pork rolls get the current
edition of SBS Feast Magazine for my full page ‘break-down’.
Details:
Pork roll (that’s the only name on the shop)
627 George St, Sydney
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Adriene