Bau Truong

Don’t get us wrong, Sydney’s cheap and cheerful Vietnamese restaurants are something of a national treasure, and there is certainly no cause to complain when you can get delicious, fresh food at reasonable prices. All we’re saying is that, when you come across places like the Marrickville incarnation of Bau Truong, you’re reminded that even our most precious comforts can be improved upon. This suave restaurant on Marrickville Road offers Vietnamese cuisine a little more refined than what the Bau Truong name has become known for after two decades of queues-on-the-street-verified success in Cabramatta.

Sydney’s veritable Vietnamese connoisseurs may already know some of Bau Truong’s signature dishes from their Cabramatta restaurant, like the vibrant bun mang vit (bamboo shoot noodle soup with duck salad and ginger dressing) or rich com tam (broken rice with grilled Vietnamese pork chop). Well, take those as a standard and then throw it up a notch for Bau Truong’s Marrickville Road restaurant. We’re talking golden fried soft-shell crab in a tamarind glaze, delicately smoked duck with a seasonal fruit salad, or chilli-basil prawns served with crispy Vietnamese rice bubbles and okra.