Cityrail adventures 1 (well kind of)– Cabramatta

On Cityrail adventures: I have put together a list of all rail stations within 50km of my house and using a random number generator I pick a place, then travel to it, have a coffee, lunch or beer and then return. This trip was not undertaken by train, but by car, as time was short. In my mind it is still a Cityrail adventure.

I have often heard of Cabramatta, the food, and the people: a city within a city. Up until yesterday I had shrugged off peoples insistent suggestions that I visit there. However yesterday I did venture to Cabramatta and what I saw and experienced blew my mind.

Cabramatta is a suburb of Sydney, located 35km south west of the CBD; a nondescript area of the city, surrounded by dry, grassless fields, tacky ethnic mansions with lions and gargoyles standing sentry on their fences, and vast series of highways – expanses of tarmac stretching in every direction. This is not a wasteland but it is close. It is not the area you would expect to find a thriving, vibrant, rich community.

Community is the best way to describe Cabramatta. I have not been to Vietnam but I have visited Hong Kong and Cabramatta reminded me a lot of Kowloon’s hectic city streets – street hawkers, market stalls selling fruits, sweets, vegetables, meat and seafood, and the tailors flush with fabric awaiting the next customer. There was vibrancy to the scene, people scurrying to and fro, the urgency apparent. It was also a place inhabited by Asian people; Anglo Australians were in short supply. This gave the street legitimacy, improving the experience, allowing the visitor to get lost in the moment. This wasn’t Sydney; it was Hanoi – well, in my mind at least.

I had heard many positive reviews of Tan Viet, a local restaurant and so my mate and I headed there for some lunch. Tan Viet is very popular with the locals and this day was no different. A line snaked out the door and down the pavement. After a short wait we were shown to a table. The restaurant smelled of fish sauce, oil and onions and was packed to the rafters with eager consumers. With a cup of tea in hand we perused the menu. It took about 5 seconds as we both agreed on the crispy chicken and soup – this was the dish of the house and every table was eating it. To accompany I had a soybean milk drink, Roger a sickly sweet concoction that resembled an icy cocktail, minus the booze.

When the main meal arrived it was understated but delicious. The delicately flavoured noodle soup paired well with the saltiness of the crispy skinned chicken. I quickly saw what the locals loved about this place. After 30 minutes we had polished off the lot and had the shared grin of the diners we sat with – a grin of satisfaction at a job well done. For $14 each, including drink, it was a bargain and I would not hesitate to return.

A quick dash across the main road and we arrived at the local cake shop. I was keen to purchase a treat to accompany my afternoon cuppa. I settled on pandan sponge – a lime green sponge cake. Apparently the cake is either dipped in pandan juice, or the pandan extract is used in the cake making process. Either way it was an interesting cake, although not one I would flock back to buy.

As we left Cabramatta I lamented that it had taken me so long to visit. Cabramatta is a shining example of the value of multiculturalism, a little slice of Vietnam in the middle of seeming endless urban sprawl. It was such a rewarding experience and somewhere I will hasten to return with my friends in tow.

Combination

This random word generator exercise is stretching the brain. Each time I write for the blog I get my random word and then write a short piece based on it.

Today’s is ‘combination’. Yep. Good one huh? Starting with a piece of original fiction I will attempt to explore ‘combination’.

Dressed entirely in black, moving with catlike agility and military precision, the team of shadowy figures descended on the vault door. Imposingly robust, the door was an impressive and threatening testament to man’s ingenuity; its design and size injected a sense of hopelessness and fear into would be assailants. The only way that the team was penetrating this barrier was with the combination; a luxury they didn’t possess. However, within their team they had an unwilling participant; shackled, out of breath and paralysed by fear was the key to the door’s puzzle. Albert Koelsher was the man who had designed the vault door: the only man alive who knew how to penetrate it.

This is how I remember the heist tales of my youth – before high tech gadgetry, military weaponry and superhuman strength got in the way. Safecrackers, working against an imaginary clock, sweat pouring off their brows, attempting to crack the combination. That final click, the sounds of metal cogs turning and steel doors opening – the sounds of success and relief.

People often comment on whether another person has the right combination of skills, attributes, knowledge etc. It is this combination which some feel is the key to success, power, prosperity and popularity. Aristotle once said, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” or words to that effect. I this is so then the combination of a person’s attributes is not as important as the person themselves – however I feel the combination of the parts is the essence of the person. “We are but a sum of our life’s experiences” is another quote I enjoy and this speaks to the importance of combination. I think that Aristotle may be a little off the mark when applying his theory to humans.

Combination is also widely used in Asian food. Most of us would have experienced the westernised version of Chinese food – infused with MSG and vegetable gums so that each dish is very similar to the next – meat with gluggy sauce and rice. One of these bastardised dishes is the ‘combination’ dish, seemingly a mish-mash of last night’s ingredients  - the Asian bubble and squeak. I am sure this was not the original intention, and revered Chinese chefs would be sick to the stomach, but in Australian Chinese restaurants this is a dish to miss.

People are forever searching for the right combination – food, art, design, sport, attributes, love, work; combinations form the basis for our society. Without combinations it would be a sterile environment indeed.