Bankstown: Life on the Streets

We (The Gang of Five: Rick (husband), Tineke (mum), Lee (aunty) and Jess (cousin)) arrived a little early for our Bankstown Bites: Tastes of Asia Discovery Tours, so after parking the car in our VIP reserved parking space (fortunately reserved, as everyone in Bankstown was trying to fit into the two free car spaces) we headed up the road for a pre-tour cup of coffee.

Walking up the shared traffic/pedestrian area, we saw police tape being wrapped around two picnic tables and blocking off the entrance to a couple of shops. On the way back to the start of the tour as we realised that one of these shops was the first stop on our itinerary, the forensic teams were now covering the picnic tables in fingerprinting dust and taking photos. Was this taste of gritty urban life Bankstown or Baltimore?

The taped-off crime scene

Once all the tour members arrived, Catherine, our leader relayed the sad story. A local well-known homeless man had died of a drug overdose last night and police were checking over the scene. Our tour would continue however and we were able to use the back entrance to the supermarket whilst the police finished up out the front.

I love back alleys and laneways behind the scenes, they allow you to see the “real” place, not necessarily the well-presented sanitised version. In this case, the back entrance took us through the storehouse of large boxes and wholesale bags of rice into a clean, well-stocked large Asian supermarket - The Best Value Supermarket.

Not the regular customer entrance.

Catherine – our enthusiastic, knowledgeable tour leader showed us some of her favourite items: One was Knorr chicken stock powder – a well-flavoured stock powder used in both Asian and European cooking. Japanese style bread crumbs, larger than regular dried bread crumbs are great when a recipe calls for fresh bread crumbs as they soak up lots of flavour while still retaining their shape. She showed us some different rice wines, most of which can only be used in cooking, but one can be drunk. Place prunes in the wine and heat gently, before drinking the warmed wine and then eating the prune. Excellent (apparently) as an aperitif. Tineke and I thought that this will definitely be one to try out for our Yum Cha whilst Camping experience (a subject of a later, January post).

Our tour guide showing the drinkable rice wine

We had a chance to wander the aisles and check out some of the different wares on offer and decided to put off any purchases until after the tour. The police having finished their business, we were able to leave by the front door, collecting our goodie bags (!) as we went.

What's not to love - 100% percent of new flavour AND a feeling of metroplis

An amazing array of fresh mushrooms

No idea what these "Beamcurd Knots" would taste like.

I don't know if the cool kids would eat these cookies

The Best Value Supermarket goodie bag

Our next port of call was the Nhu Y Juice Bar, a hole-in the wall style juice bar with a plethora of fresh fruit and some more well, interesting, ingredients on offer.



We were offered a smoothie or a “che lanh” (jelly drink), all The Gang of Five opting for the latter to find out what they actually were. We received foam cups filled with a milky looking liquid and some shaved ice and instructed to stir well before drinking.


As you can see stirring the drink yielded some interesting items, some of which we were unidentifiable to us and Catherine came over to help. In the sweet, coconutty flavoured liquid were: pearl barley, taro jelly, lychee, coconut jelly, soy beans, black “grass” jelly, dried long tam, dried prune, sago seeds and lentils. Oh, and seaweed. And yes, that is corn.

Some of the more interesting ingredients

I don’t know if I would have ever requested a drink like that, but I was glad I tried it. The different jellies, beans and fruit gave some interesting (not unpleasant) textures, and the lightness of the coconut milk and ice shavings made the drink not too heavy and very refreshing on a muggy day.

Onward to our next stop – another supermarket, this time the Lilly Lan Supermarket, located back up the street. We walked straight through the shop and out into the back alley, where white tents had been set up with trestle tables and hanging lanterns. We were about to have a demonstration and hands on try of rice paper rolls.

Our genial demonstrator - Duy

Rice paper rolls are a regular item in our house for dinner, so I didn’t think I would learn a whole lot. I was glad to be proven wrong. Duy (pronounced doo-ie) was our easy-going & informative demonstrator, apologising in advance for his shaky hands (side effect of a big night out) and allowing one of our tour to make a misshapen roll before showing us his way (in a nice way).

• Dipping the edges of the rice paper sheet in the bowl of hot water, and moving it rapidly through the water until it is wet and pliable, lay the sheet on the plate (Duy’s tip #1: don’t use paper plates, they will stick to the wet rice paper.)
• Lay the lettuce leaves, mint leaves and coriander leaves along the bottom third of the rice paper sheet. (Duy’s tip #2: don’t buy packets of rice paper sheets if they are cracking around the edges, they are old stock. Otherwise there’s not really any difference between different brands.)
• Lay some strips of thinly slice boiled pork IN FRONT (not on top as I would have done) of the lettuce. Then put some halved prawns, skin side down in front the pork.
• Sprinkle with crushed peanuts and add sliced chilli if desired.
• Turn in the sides of the sheet and then roll tightly, wrapping the last piece under.

The prawns looked pretty good under their rice paper wrapping and we fit a surprising amount of filling in the rolls. Dip in the sauce (hoi-sin, heated with a bit of garlic) and enjoy. And we did. There were enough filling ingredients to feed three times as many people so we did our best to get through a bit of it.

All hands on deck

Tineke showing off her finished product

Duy keeping an eye on Rick's rolling method

While we were eating, Catherine asked Duy to explain some of the lesser-known vegetables that are sold at the supermarket. Duy showed & told us the following:

• Use bok choy in stir-fries or salads – not in soup. Use pak choy in soup – it has a sweeter flavour and breaks down better.
• Mustard greens can be used in cooking, but are more commonly dried & preserved with sugar and chilli and then eaten, similar to Korean’s kim chee.
• Aramanth has pretty green & purple leaves, used in soup. Goes slimy when boiled – good for “cooling the body down”.
• Guava – eat when green & crunchy with salt & chilli. Good for “the morning after”. (This Duy’s starting to sound like a bit of a party animal.)
• Green mango is also good, mixed with sugar, fish sauce and chilli in salads.

Duy explained that Vietnamese people don’t like ripe fruit. They prefer it, as mentioned, green and crunchy. When fruit gets as ripe as a Westerner (ie me) might like it, a Vietnamese person will consider it over-ripe and not use it.

Duy also showed us:

• Taro – used in hot pots or steam boats. Also used to stuff pastries and sweetened in baking.
• Yam – purple flesh used in soup.
• Jacama – a fruit eaten cold, peeled & uncooked. A similar texture to apple or nashi, sweet & juicy.
• Bitter melon – deseed and stuff with minced pork, then boil in soup. Or cut and stir fry with egg.
• Loofah sponge – peel and deseed. Soft textured vegetable used in stir-fries or soups.
• Eggplant – small and white. Often pickled and then served with drinks.

That was the end of our impromptu, but fascinating fruit & vegetable lecture. Duy finished our visit by letting us know that the instructions for rice paper roll construction were in our goodie bags (!) as well as his mobile number & email (in case we got into trouble).

Our Lily Lan Supermarket goodie bag

We left, walking through the now crowded streets on to our next stop – the renowned An Restaurant for a bowl of pho.

To be continued….