‘Three dollars, three dollars!’ The elderly woman in trousers, long-sleeved shirt and nón lá – the conical Vietnamese hat used against the sun or rain – locks eyes with me from the vantage point of her upturned milk crate on a busy Cabramatta street. The question is not whether I’ll buy a punnet of chopped lemongrass from her but how many.
Behind the woman, John Street – Cabramatta’s main commercial and retail thoroughfare – thrums to the rhythm of Saturday morning shoppers. It could be Saigon or Hanoi, where a troupe holding up a snake-like puppet swaying to the tune of beating drums and grocery, jewellery and linen shops keep company with pop-up ladies selling pot plants and herbs from the footpath.
Yet I am in south-western Sydney where Cabramatta – ‘a tasty water grub’ in the language of the original Cabrogal inhabitants – is situated. And while it’s more than an hour’s drive from my home, I love coming here. But I didn’t always.
Settled by Europeans in the late eighteenth century, Cabramatta began attracting Southeast Asian migrants from the mid-20th century. A Vietnamese contingent arrived during the 1960s and 1970s and, at one-third of the population, remains the dominant cohort alongside smaller groups from Cambodia, China, Thailand and Laos.
I remember disembarking at Cabramatta station with my husband and four friends in the mid-1990s, almost stumbling over a young man slumped on the platform. We skulked our way to Freedom Plaza, gazed briefly at the Lion Gate and then bolted into the BKK shopping centre for a lunch of beef done seven ways. The bull’s testicles were as confronting to my sensibilities as the dealers, addicts and gangs lurking in the shadows.
Though I stayed away during the time it took for Cabramatta to shed its shadowy reputation, I’ve been a regular visitor since it blossomed into the welcoming, multicultural melting pot of smells, sights, sounds and tastes of today. And while Freedom Plaza and John Street are still landmarks, it’s in the laneways and alleys – places I’d previously avoided for fear of stumbling upon syringes – where some of the jewels of Cabramatta’s crown can be found.
We eat lunch at a Cambodian place which takes its address from John Street but is up the quiet end of Belvedere Arcade, a pedestrianised strip lined with eateries. Conceived in a Thai refugee camp in the early 1990s, this is one of the few owner-operated Cambodian restaurants in Cabramatta.
In my quiet suburb, I’d grumble about the noise ricocheting off tiled walls and floors from shouty waiters, scratchy music and a temper-tantrum-throwing toddler, yet I’m strangely tolerant of it in a setting where everyone is having a good time.
I reach for the chilli from a bank of condiments that separates us from the next group of diners and ladle a small amount into my dish of sliced beef, onion, tiny curls of tripe, noodles and bean sprouts floating in broth. As the heat inhabits my sinuses, I make a mental note to buy a jar for our pantry.
I’d have finished my soup except that I need room for dessert. Our next port of call, a gelato shop on John Street, takes inspiration from Asian flavours such as dragon fruit, longan and durian. A pink-aproned young server hands me a wooden tasting paddle with sweetcorn at one end and a combination of soursop and tamarind at the other. We share a scoop of each under the filtered shade of a Robinia, watching the pop-up herb ladies rake in trade from passing punters.
As the gelato shop doesn’t have durian ice cream today, I’ll get some elsewhere to take home. The Thai variety of this large spiky fruit, whose smell of rotten eggs belies a caramel flavour, is commonly found in Australia. A shop near the Lion Gate with the fruit as its namesake imports its Malaysian cousin, a more pungent type, to make their ice cream – yet all that is academic as I gaze upon the establishment’s green shutters pulled firmly to the ground.
A few metres along, we turn into a nameless laneway bookended by a fabric shop at one end and a barbecue spot at the other. A window display of glistening roast and barbecue pork, duck and chicken beckons while a young woman inside the front door takes orders – cash only – before passing them to a left-handed man chopping away on a wooden block.
I wander over to an adjacent open door where pig carcasses await cooking in large stainless steel tubs and strike up a conversation with a man who has the proprietorial air of a business owner. The meat is cooked for one to two hours, he says, and is best eaten on the day. We order half a barbecue duck – it’s softer than the smoked version – which the left-hander severs into bite-sized portions.
We stop off for fresh coriander on Dutton Lane at a fruit shop – which serves the rear of John Street. At the next table is what looks like broccolini with the colour of cauliflower; a young man says it’s a cross between the two, then instructs me on how to prepare it. I gather up a few stalks to try at home.
Diagonally opposite is the rear entrance of an Asian supermarket. It’s single-file in the aisles where we pick up hoisin sauce, spring roll wrappers and a jar of that sinus-clearing chilli. While we’re at it, I suggest we check the freezer. Sure enough, there’s a tub of durian ice cream inside.
As we exit through the front entrance, I’m ready to do lemongrass business.
‘Four for ten dollars!’
There are still two punnets in our freezer from the last visit, but the power of commerce is king here and I can always give some to friends.
‘I’ll take four!’
