Saturday, September 19, 2009

Tan Viet, Cabramatta


Why hello, crispy skin chicken of my dreams. Where have you been all my life?

To finish off my little Cabramatta series (for now!), Lili, Betty, Leona and I stopped by Tan Viet for their famous crispy skin chicken. We were so full of food, after stuffing ourselves at Bau Truong and eating some other sweets which I'll talk about later, but we were determined to fit in some of this chicken. It must be good, their logo is a huge yellow chicken and there was a huge line of people coming out of the restaurant for most of the day. Lucky for us, by about 2pm we were able to walk straight in and get a table. The waiters seemed a little bemused that we were only ordering one plate of chicken and a side of grilled pork, but we didn't care, it was exactly what we wanted.

The air in the restaurant is thick with the smell of deep frying chicken and grilled meats. Almost every table has a plate of dark golden chicken. It doesn't take long before our fullness is forgotten and our mouths are watering in anticipation. We sip the cheap tea (which I always find so thirst quenching, I don't know why) and have a giggle at the 'engrish' menu, 'Cash only, no effpot!' and 'Criskin chicken' (though maybe this one was just their cute branding?).

Com Ga Da Don - 'Criskin Chicken & Tomato Rice' ($10.00)
The service is lighting fast and before we know it we have a steaming hot plate of crispy skin chicken which looks so damn good. The photos are taken in a hurry and we dig straight in. Ohhh yep, it tasted as good as it looked. The skin was uber crispy, crackling as your teeth sunk through it and giving way to the perfectly moist meat. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. We may have been doing some serious stomach stretching at this point but it was so worth it.

*drool*
The tomato rice that comes with it is pretty good, definitely better than a lot of the ones I have had in the past. I find a lot of places do a really terrible job with the tomato fried rice, it's always too bland and dry. This one has a decent amount of flavour and goes well with the chicken. We don't finish it, not when we could save the stomach space for the grilled pork that we got on the side. For just a few dollars, how could we resist?

Side serving of grilled pork ($4.00)
The pork is also quite crispy and moist on the outside, though it looks and tastes very different to the grilled meat at Bau Truong. I think if I remember correctly (sorry it was a while ago!) we detected some sort of herb or spice on the surface. It was very moist and delicious, but the chicken was still the stand out.

Oh and did I mention we had spent the whole day eating a ton of other things? I'm starting to feel sorry for my stomach. A huge lunch was followed by a small amount of wandering around and then we stopped by kaysone sweets to get me my durian shake that I was so determine to try for the first time. To make things a little more exciting, I got a shake that had both durian and avocado mixed into it. A huge splash of sweetened condensed milk and a load of crushed ice is blended into the fruit, and it's heavenly. It was a surprise how moreish it was, even the durian wary among us didn't think it tasted too bad. It was incredibly rich though, even though I enjoyed each mouthful I felt increasingly full as I made my way through the cup. I think over the space of an hour I only managed about half of it before I had to admit defeat.

Durian and avocado shake
Lili was hoping to get a rainbow combination drink and we were more than willing to share one with her :) We found a great place which made the drink with a scoop of icecream and sweetened condensed milk rather than coconut milk. I actually preferred this to the coconut milk version, which I found made it far too rich. Barley, pandan jelly works, pink glutinous rice balls, red bean, palm seeds and jackfruit turned out to be a great combination and my favourites were definitely the glutinous rice balls and the jackfruit.

Ahh Cabramatta, how I love thee. Rest assured, I will be back soon.

Tan Viet
Shop 2-3, 100 John St

Cabramatta NSW 2166

(02) 9727 6853

Mon-Sun: 9am-7pm

Tan Viet Noodle House on Urbanspoon

Kaysone Sweets

Shop 4, 59-61 Park Road

Cabramatta, Sydney

(02) 9755 5759


Check out my other Cabramatta posts:

- Bau Truong (Goat curry, custard apple shakes, crispy sticky rice)
- Phu Quoc and a general walk around Cabramatta (Vietnamese spring rolls, custard cakes, pandan waffles, mooncake, flowering tea and rainbow drinks)

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16 comments:

  1. yum yum. this place is still on my wish list to visit and try the crispy chicken. hopefully will get there soon. :-)

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  2. oh who can resist crispy skin chicken or those deliciously sweet grilled pork chops. I've never been able to finish more than half an avocado shake, but avo & durian is a new combo I must try soon!

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  3. Chicken that's good enough to travel for - sounds like a plan. Just throw in a Chinglish menu, and I'm there!

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  4. great pics!! loved the criskin chicken!! how good was the drink with the ice cream and condensed milk?!! i think another Cabra trip is in order!

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  5. Oh wow.....I am now craving crispy skin chicken thanks! LOL

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  6. I forget my foodblogging ways sometime - I visit Tan Viet on an almost monthly basis, and I've never thought of blogging it. How awesome is their chicken! The Mi Vit Tiem is pretty awesome too (...drowned duck soup? my viet sucks so bad)

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  7. Wow - look at that crispy skin - it's so crisp it's cracked at the edges like a toffee crust! Mmm, I'm craving the crispy chicken too now!

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  8. Wow Steph,
    Great post and pleased to hear about the culinary wonders of Cabramatta again - I would love to take my family there for lunch one weekend. I'm going to study up on your post and plan something soon.
    Cheers
    Tony

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  9. Tan Viet is THE best cripsy chicken. I prefer having with dry egg noodle although red rice is good also. The other half of the equation is the fish sauce mix, this has to be good for it to be a complete meal. My in-laws are Vietnamese so I'm at John St pretty much every weekend having a sumptuous lunch!

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  10. Ohhh man crispy chicken!!!!! And durian and avocado shake! Cabramatta is indeed exotic food heaven!

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  11. Ooh I love crispy chicken with tomato rice and lol at ordering one plate for all of you. Sounds like the Meet my Suburb tour we did! I think we got some amused looks at the meatball place-4 girls + 2 meatballs :)

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  12. Why is it everytime I go to a Vietnamese restaurant I always order crispy skin chicken, CAUSE ITS SO DAMN GOOD! Why cant they get the technology thing right and finally make it possibly to physically eat whats on your computer screen. Food blogging would be so much better!

    That Durian and avocado shake looks weird, I cant even imagine what it would taste like!

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  13. yAY finallyyyy i was wondeirng when this post was going to be up! Im loving tan viet crispy skin chicken. Im back @ cab this wkend when i get my haircut not sure what im going to have.

    Surprisingly their pork chop is amazing too i loved the taste of the lemongrass thats embedded into pork.

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  14. Simon Food Favourites - You have to try it, it's fantastic :)

    Helen - I have no idea why I combined the two but somehow it worked! Made the durian less intense I think

    Belle - Haha you gotta love the Chinglish, it's part of the fun!

    Betty - :) Thanks! That drink was so awesome, it was a meal in itself! Yes let's go soon, I already miss it!

    Brenda - Haha I made myself crave it too! Oh well, will just have to go get some ;)

    Chris - Heh I know what you mean, I never think to blog about my regular eating places, but you're so lucky if this is one of yours! Ooh thanks for the recommendation, I will have to try that next time

    Forager - Oh you're right, it does look like toffee..*drools*...

    tonyhollingsworth - Thank you! And thanks for the mentions on twitter. You should check it out, it's my favourite place in Sydney at the moment.

    Stanley Yip - Ooh I will have to try it with the noodles next time, thanks! Oh yes, how could I forget the fish sauce? It's definitely one of the important parts. You are so lucky!

    Trisha - It is! I want to go back, my own post is making me crave it!

    Lorraine - Haha it sort of was! Though without the inappropriate quotes hahaha oh the meatballs, so wrong!

    Maria - It's the best isn't it? I love it. Yeah it's definitely an acquired taste, I don't know many people who like durian!

    Leona - :) Actually I was waiting to see if you were going to post about it! I'm jealous, I wanna go back! Oh good, I did remember correctly about the lemongrass, it was yummy!

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  15. interesting name "criskin" for ga roti! That's what Vietnamese call this dish. We just made it but roasted it, not fried.

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  16. Hmm I think ga ro ti is fairly different since it is a roasted chicken. This one is definitely deep fried to make it super crispy :)

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