'The world is for us to share and respect'

Strolling through Freedom Plaza

Cabramatta crowds at last year’s Moon Festival

Shopper's paradise

Guess the ingredients

Home of the 'Durian King'

Papaya Salad - If Cabramatta is a melting pot, then stick a spoon in!

Pho Ann Vietnamese

Bunches of coriander sit alongside durians, green mangoes and young coconuts; a local wipes crumbs from his shirt after a bite of freshly made pork roll; the steam from bowls of hot pho wafts past a Vietnamese grandmother selling home-grown herbs. This is Cabramatta: Saigon in Sydney.

It was my go-to second date destination. After a neutral-territory first date (handy for that quick escape should he turn out to be unnaturally interested in Maroon 5), I would take potentials on the 45-minute journey to Sydney’s southwest to unveil what matters most to me: food, family and fruit shakes.

“Sapota, jackfruit, custard apple, mango and passionfruit,” I say to the girls behind the counter at BKK’s fruit shake shop, just off Freedom Plaza. I’ve literally grown up with these girls. It was once a young, shy me asking if all my five fruit choices could be mango and a younger, shyer them saying ‘yes’. Now, one’s a scientist, the other’s “in superannuation” and they still work in the shop on the weekend.

Food is this suburb’s heritage. Cabramatta was named by the Aboriginal Cabrogal tribe who inhabited the territory some 30,000 years ago – the Cabra in Cabramatta referring to a fresh, tasty water grub. These days, however, locals are more focused on slurping noodles instead of grubs. Pho anyone?

As Australia’s most ethnically diverse area with 75 per cent of its residents born overseas, Cabramatta is home to some of the best Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Lao and Chinese cuisine this side of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and China. And all just 30 kilometres from Sydney’s central business district.

Perhaps it’s sentimentality, or a desire to again be walking amongst the locals of Saigon, but each sip of my juice takes me back to weekly family pilgrimages to Cabramatta, huddled around a Lazy Susan, fighting for noodles and fresh spring rolls. Or I’m suddenly transported to the waterfront in Can Tho, sipping tamarind juice with the man who not only survived the Cabramatta second date but relished it.

Now, some two hundred Cabra-dates later, from the roof of the local carpark we look out over Freedom Plaza, hold hands and start arguing over what’s going in the fruit shake.

Upcoming events in Cabramatta:
23 October Canley Heights Chef's Demonstrations
26 October Meet Luke Nyugen
30 October Luke Nyugen's Long Lunch