Readers of noodlies, Sydney food blog would know recently, I’ve been writing about Vietnamese restaurants spreading outside of the Cabramatta ‘ghetto’; Red Lantern on Riley, Bay Tinh and Bau Truong for example. Regular readers also know my love of banh mi thit, or Vietnamese pork rolls that culminated in Sydney’s Best Pork Roll search.
Great Aunty Three is a cute new eatery that is bringing Vietnamese street food to the rest of Sydney, well at least to the hipster crowd in Enmore. Their website is one of the cutest I’ve seen and it explains why founder, Michael Le’s turned his back on the corporate world to pursue his passion. Great Aunty Three is all about his love of healthy Vietnamese food, inspired by his mother and grandmother (Yi Ba).
“Known to Michael as Ba Ngoai, but affectionately regarded as Yi Ba (Aunty Three) by family and friends, she has always been a role model: respected, loved and the glue that has kept the Le family together.”
The eatery is still in pre-opening mode as they iron out early kinks. Noodlies is excited to be one of the first to pay Great Aunty Three a visit.
Anyone who’s been to Vietnam knows about Vietnamese drip coffee, it’s made on a thick bed of condensed milk. So many have asked me where they can find it in Sydney, until today, I had no idea. Now, I’ll tell them to head to Great Aunty Three.
Do you know of another place that serves Vietnamese drip coffee? Let us all know in the comment section below 🙂
Enter this eatery and it’s a hipster city – complete with a scooter and chalk board menu, a wooden Buddha provides an Asian touch. And like all these establishment it’s cramped (hipsters are thin, no?) though it still manages to be reasonable comfortable.
Great Aunty Three’s range of gourmet banh mi rolls are particularly good; my fav is the caramelised pork roll. No processed meat here, it’s pork that’s cooked for around 4 hours so the flavour is soaked through, making the flesh amazingly melt-in-the-mouth tender. The generous filling of pork, pickles and greens are stuffed inside that flaky Vietnamese hot bread. Highly recommended.
The range of gourmet Vietnamese fresh rolls are also worth trying, in addition to the usual prawn rolls, there’s duck and vegetarian. The duck gives these rolls a different taste and texture and I’m surprised by how much I liked it. They come with the traditional hoisin sauce, but I’m in love with the more flavoursome vegetarian sauce made with fermented tofu. The rolls could be more tightly rolled to give them better shape.
It’s only three days since they first opened their doors and it’s already packed. While the food is genuinely delicious, there’s still some work to do to in relation to the eatery’s operations. Ordering should be easier and orders fulfilled quicker.
As Michael says, this is their pre-opening test period and he hopes to iron out teething issues by the time they officially open in a couple of weeks. I find myself swept up by this sweet couple with their endless passion and enthusiasm. Well worth a visit.
Great Aunty Three is across from the Enmore Theatre.
Great Aunty Three
115 Enmore Road, Enmore
(02) 9519 2886
Noodlies and friend were guests of Great Aunty Three
Hi, thanks for the earlybird review! I’ve walked past a few times and wondered when it was opening. It does sound a bit heavy on the hipster decor, but I guess a lot of places are guilty of that! The vego banh mi sounds ace.
Ugh, I meant to say rice paper rolls. Totally getting everything mixed up today!
you’re technically not wrong, I think they have vego banh mi too..
Looks good – at first I thought that Buddha was made from chocolate (wishful thinking). I’d love to try Vietnamese coffee.