The bánh mì line: Bankstown and Campsie

Metro Waterloo > Bankstown

Banh mi Phuong 18 Bankstown

Phuong 18 is a Vietnamese bakery shop in Bankstown that is said to sell some of Sydney's best banh mi, all priced under $10. Find out which ones are a must order and I also share a tip on where to get the best Vietnamese iced coffee nearby (if you know, you know!). Source: https://www.notquitenigella.com/2025/05/22/phuong-18-bankstown/

Yum yum Lebanese pizza

Metro Bankstown > Campsie

Albies Kitchen

Curry Puffs

Six am in Malaysia is a busy time. Before the air gets thick and heavy and the sun becomes vengeful, the streets are lined with food carts. Local builders and workers pick rice-packed banana-leaf pyramids, bags of curry and fried hunks of chicken for their lunches, while locals tear into rotis and chat over syrupy coffees or frothed teas. There’s one place in Sydney to have the same experience: Albee’s Kitchen. Every morning at five the restaurant’s small front room is flooded by Malaysian construction workers and contractors (some of whom come from as far as Hurstville or Strathfield) for takeaway containers of eggy noodles, rich chicken curry, grilled fish and congee. By half past seven the takeaway trade calms and Campsie residents file in to have a traditional Malaysian breakfast. It’s been open for the best part of a decade, but Albee’s only started doing breakfasts this year, after the restaurant’s eponymous owner got swamped with requests. “My customers were asking for many years,” laughs Albee Thu, the restaurant’s matriarch. There’s a huge menu and many more breakfast dishes that aren’t on it. For the most classic example of a Malaysian breakfast, there are three things you should order. The first is nasi lemak, a coconut-rice dome surrounded by an archipelago of varying condiments, probably including fried anchovies, roast peanuts, fresh cucumber and sambal. In Malaysia it’s often wrapped in a banana leaf with anything from a sambal-smothered egg, to bony chunks of ayam goreng (fried chicken), a sinewy pool of rendang or sambal roasted fish. “We do sambal prawns and squid as well but normally you’d have fried chicken in the morning,” Thu says. Source: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/sydney/food-and-drink/article/local-knowledge-albees-kitchen

Tianjin Bun Shop

Tianjin Bun Shop

Never heard of jianbing? Imagine a crêpe, cooked to order. Then, crack an egg across the top, spread it thinly until cooked, add giant shards of deep-fried wonton sheets and fold it up like a burrito. It’s a Chinese breakfast favourite and, like most street-food classics, it's easily eaten on the run. Tianjin Bun Shop calls this a hamburger on its English menu, but locals know it as jianbing. This eggy breakfast crêpe-cum-burrito is addictively delicious, slicked with sweet bean sauce, garnished with coriander and loaded with the noisy crunch of golden fried wonton sheets. The open shop window to the street is where you’ll pick up your jianbing ($6), straight from the chef manning the hotplate. Don’t expect small talk or smiles. It’s all about no-nonsense speed and precision. But that’s just what punters are looking for as they queue for a snack on their way to and from Campsie Station and nearby bus stops. This takeaway-only shop opens every day at 5am for the breakfast crowd, and trades right up until 8pm for dinner. Breakfast congee, wontons and fresh soya bean milk all sell out by mid-morning. Behind the counter, you’ll find plenty of snacks you can point at to order, like tea eggs, fried bread sticks and glutinous corn cobs completely devoid of sweetness but adored by fans for their chewy starchiness. Steamed buns ($2) include sweet red bean paste as well as savoury fillings like egg and chives or pork with preserved vegetables. There's also a range of stuffed pancakes ($4.50) so big they have to be folded in half to eat. The pancake stuffed with garlic chives and vermicelli noodles is particularly good. Check out the cold meats section, too, and don’t let the offer of 'pork head meat' freak you out – it’s actually slices of lusciously fatty pork jowl that go brilliantly with the accompanying tub of black vinegar and garlic. Whatever you order, just try to bring your own container. You'll be faced with more plastic bags than a roll of bin liners if you don't. Source: https://www.timeout.com/sydney/restaurants/tianjin-bun-shop

Hellenic bakery