$5 dining in Sydney

Ever since I discovered cheap lunches near my uni, I've been eating out relatively often, and I have quite a few restaurant I need to blog about now! A couple of months ago, the Sydney Morning Herald had coupons for $5 dining deals in Sydney, I couldn't resist trying them out! So here I present you with the cheapest of all the lunches I've had so far this year (in Sydney)!

Home

Chicken Pad Thai- $5 (normally $8.90 on the lunch menu)

My first trip was to Home, though I had no idea where it was and ended up taking a lengthy walk down Sussex street. To be honest, I was expecting some cheap food court like place- afterall, the coupon was offering a pad thai for $5! So I was surprised when we arrived to find a really nice restaurant which was already packed but we were lucky enough to get a small table straight away and had our order quickly taken by the waitress....with an ipad!!

The prices on the menu itself were also pretty low, and there were many items on the menu I'd love to come back to try. I salivated over the satay skewers and the beef salad the table next to us had ordered, and wowed at the beautiful dish served in banana blossom that we saw taken from the kitchen.

My Pad Thai was equally as tempting, with its beautiful presentation and its taste did not dissappoint either! I would have liked it a little sweeter, but I do like my pad thai's to be very sweet, but I still loved these noodles!
Malacca Straits


Deep Fried Tofu with Minced Chicken- $5

I've walked past the Malacca Straits sign many times when walking down Broadway and after reading about it on many food blogs, I was looking forward to trying it out. We arrive quite early (as we usually do), to find the restaurant empty, but luckily, open. It could really do with an open/closed sign ;)

The coupon for this restaurant was a for a fried hand-made silken tofu with minced chicken dish. It's something I wouldn't have ordered if I'd seen it on the menu, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The dish arrived so hot and steaming that I couldn't manage to take a picture without the lends fogging up (hence the ugly picture!). The tofu was deliciously unique- it was extremely soft and silky though not to the point that it didn't feel like tofu and had a distinct tofu taste. It tastes a lot better than the packaged tofu we usually buy from Asian supermarkets! The sauce and the vegetables were a great accompaniment, but I didn't notice the chicken mince until we'd almost finished the dish!

Garlic Prawn Stir Fry $11

After deciding we didn't want chicken (since the above tofu dish already featured it), we decided on seafood as the best alternative, since it was nothing like chicken, and settles for the garlic prawns. A generous serving of prawns, accompanied with a selection of vegetables nicely stir fried with plenty of garlic, there was nothing not to like about this. I however, found it a little ordinary- I guess was expecting something a little different, after reading some interesting dishes on food blogs. Oh well- I guess I'll have to try out other dishes another time!

La Casa Pasta

Spaghetti Bolognese- $5
Lured by the promise of a $6 pasta, I decided to take my friends to try out La Casa Pasta. Though the website showed various locations, we arrived at each only to find they were no longer in business, and ended up taking the long walk down Glebe Point road to find this store- which looked more like a take away shop than restaurant, but we'd made it so far, we went in anyway.

The pasta turned out to be $5, which was even better though just judging by the looks of the place, we weren't really expecting that much. We ordered anyway (and paid at the table....which I found quite strange) and waited. And then we saw a cockroach on our table......

My friends ordered a spaghetti bolognese which was okay, though the pasta was a little soft and it was not really flavoursome enough.


Primavera ravioli- $5
My primavera ravioli was a little better in terms of taste- the primavera sauce was not too bad, and more flavoursome than the spaghetti bolognese with its hint of garlic and herbs. The ravioli however, was definitely overcooked and was much too soft- my friend thought it tasted like a dumpling ;)