V Rating: Super V
Where: 94b John Street, Cabramatta.
When: 7 Days: 9am - 7.30pm.
Tel: (02) 9727 5116.
Price: Entree: $3.00- $5.00. Mains: $6.00 - $8.70.

Cabramatta was the location for our excursion today to celebrate my 35^th birthday. As the centre of Sydney’s Vietnamese community, Cabramatta offers food and shopping possibilities which are unmatched.

The prevailing ethic is one of vibrant entrepeneurship – best summed up by the epithet on the gates to the city as you enter the pedestrian precinct: To be renovative and integrate.

Once regarded as a honeypot for drug addicts, polite Sydneysiders tend to still avoid Cabramatta – but to do so is really to miss out on one of Sydney’s best kept secrets.

It is likewise with the restaurant An Lac on John Street, Cabramatta’s main shopping strip. One of at least three nearby Vietnamese vegetarian restaurants, I think we’ve eaten there every time we’ve taken the trip to Cabramatta over the last few years.

An Lac is a simple family restaurant of the wholly authentic Vietnamese kind. The first thing to notice is that each table is set with condiments and cutlery, kitchen-style. While most of the clients are local Vietnamese folk, the menu makes concessions to the occasional English-speaking guest with the inclusion of English names for the dishes and short descriptions of each of the ingredients. Jasmine tea is provided as a courtesy to guests in thermoses which sit on each table.

We chose the stuffed tofu with chinese white cabbage in a brown savoury sauce, the imitation roast chicken with dried lily flower black fungus and our favourite for the afternoon, vermicelli with chopped-up spring rolls, cucumber, bean sprouts, mint and a traditional sweet vinegarette. Each dish was beautifully done – but the vermicelli was truly exceptional.

Halfway through the meal I pondered aloud whether this was the best vegetarian restaurant in Sydney. There is no doubt that it is a strong Super V.

The whole meal came to $21.70, which left plenty of money for the shopping trip – among Cabramatta’s dynamic blend of fruit, flower, clothing and bric-a-brac shops jammed closely together in the tight arcades that come off John Street.

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