Mado Cafe, Auburn

Mado Cafe has been an Auburn mainstay for years. I still remember the first time I went there after hearing stories about Turkish food from a friend’s travels. Stepping into a back room filled with ornate (and heavy) wood tables and chairs and decorated with hookahs then ordering plates of ice cream felt like an absolute contrast.

Darband, Auburn

A lot of what I love to eat is inspired by food tv, more specifically, Anthony Bourdain’s tv shows. I see a cuisine being eaten and I have to go find it in Sydney. Persian is one of those cuisines. I’ve had upscale Persian but it doesn’t quite compare to family-style. Darband is a relatively small restaurant in Auburn filled with, you guessed it, families. Since opening in 2005, it’s a local favorite which surprisingly, hasn’t gotten much attention over the years besides a Broadsheet write up and a Simon Thomsen article proclaiming its rice as “lightest, fluffiest [he’d] ever eaten”. A distinction I half agree with, and will explain a little later.