Thursday, April 5, 2012

Cereal Killer: Philipino brekkie out West

Let's be honest - cereal sucks.  This column documents my mission for tasty, weird and wonderful breakfast meals at home and around town.  It's the most important meal of the day, right?  

For me, an early work appointment in Blacktown means a chance to explore ethnic breakfast foods!  Blacktown is one of Sydney's most multicultural suburbs, and folks from the Phillipines are the highest represented.

Small print says: "Tired.  No time to cook.  Let us do the cooking for you.  Our touch.  The Pampanga's touch."

Enter Phillipine Take Away, an unassuming shopfront eatery opposite the station with just a couple of chairs to eat and go.  Philipino TV blares in the background and ladies in shower caps are already busy filling the bain-maries - and it's only 9:30am.

After convincing the ladies that I wasn't on my way to school and actually in the workforce, I managed to order some tiny sausages called Longansia with a side of rice and a bowl of soup called Sinigang that the ladies assure me is authentic Philipino cuisine.



Longanisa with rice and Sinigang ($8.00)


The sausages remind me of the Chinese lap cheong - sweet, fatty with a strong porky flavour.  It's accompanying sauce is cloyingly sweet, making the mound of rice all the more crucial.  The soup is brimming with hunks of beef, potatoes and chinese veg, with a strong sour flavour highly reminiscent of a Thai tom yum.  

As i chow down on brekkie and have a chat to the Philipino lady next to me waiting for takeaway noodles, i feel like i've taken a holiday to South East Asia - eating streetside, getting to know the locals and eating honest, homestyle food.  

Then i notice a posse of coppers approaching a trio of loitering youths.  A world-weary woman walks by, pointing an accusing finger at the Philipino TV and mumbles something absent-mindedly.  This is Blacktown, and i'll definitely be back.  


Phillipines Take Away
24 Main St
Blacktown
9672 4264

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