Food Takes Centre Stage Campsie Food Festival – 4 June

Celebrity cook and 2010 MasterChef contestant Alvin Quah is one of the major attractions of the 2011 Campsie Food Festival.

Alvin Quah and Canterbury Mayor, Robert Furolo

“Now in its twelfth year, the Campsie Food Festival has become an opportunity for food lovers to satisfy cravings and their appetite for foods from all over the world,” Canterbury Mayor, Robert Furolo said.

noodlies Cabramatta Food Tour, May 2011

noodlies Sydney food blog's Cabramatta Food Tour came and went today and it was a wonderful success.  We met at a local temple and were greeted by the nuns.  Walter gave everyone a brief tour of the temple and read an exerpt from his book Destination Saigon.  And the lovely nuns and their volunteers whipped up a storm in terms of wonderful vegetarian food.



We were shown how to make our own Vietnamese rice paper rolls (goi cuon) adding our own filling which included several types of home made vegetarian 'meat', vegetables, mint, vermicelli and more!

The 2 of Us, Walter Mason and Thang Ngo, Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age

Walter Mason & Thang Ngo

Author Walter Mason, 40, is doing a PhD on Australian self-help literature. Thang Ngo, 44, is a strategy and planning manager at SBS Radio, has a popular food blog [noodlies] and, from 1999 to 2008, served on Fairfield City Council in Sydney. The couple met when Walter was 19.

Dong Ba Restaurant, Vietnamese, Cabramatta

Dong Ba is spreading like wildfire, there's two branches specialising in Bun Bo Hue noodles and one in Bankstown. Now they've just opened a new restaurant, the third Dong Ba in Cabramatta.  This one claims to offer more general Vietnamese food.



When noodlies Sydney food blog tried it recently, we found the menu selection, well, very broad, they still have the single serve dishes like pho, com tam, mi, but added to that are mainly seafood dishes that you order for a family meal.

Rahmen Genki, Japanese, Artarmon

Artarmon is one of my favourite suburbs on the north shore. It's villagy, great public transport and is home to some great eateries too.



Rahmen Genki is a Japanese noodle bar that serves your usual ramen nori, teriyaki and gyoza, fast and delicious.

The Coffee Club, Brunswick St, Brisbane

Fresh from a recent speaking engagement in Brisabane, author Walter Mason writes a guest post for Noodlies, Sydney food blog.

First, let me just say that I do in fact have an obsession with breakfast. You may have noticed that most of my guest posts concern that most important meal of the day, and anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that,unless I have breakfast pretty pronto after waking up, I can become a little, er, difficult. What can I say? Blood sugar problems? Probably.

I often say that the only two things you need to worry about when selecting a place to stay in a strange city is 1) Can you get a good breakfast very close by and 2) Can you get a late night snack when you are drunk and ravenous? For both of those reasons I always stay in The Valley when I am in Brisbane. There’s something about The Valley I love – its old-school sleaze, its incredible crowds late at night, its high-energy buzz and the fact that there is a 7 Eleven for every two residents. It’s heaven.

No. 1 BBQ House, Chinese, Campsie

The line for takeaway at No. 1 BBQ House went out the door.  Luckily for me on this cold Wednesday evening, I could get a seat inside to dine in.  And within minutes my order was taken and my dish is delivered.