04 February 2014

Kaysone Sweets ~ Thai Lao - Cabramatta


We head to a sweets shop for sausages and walk away with three bags full of salad, larb, dried beef and shredded chicken feet.







After a feast at Battambang, we decided to fix up some takeaway for dinner while we were in the neighbourhood of fantastic food choices and headed toward the ever busy mall off John Street. We had stopped at Kaysone Sweets for a sticky rice and banana wrap before and had eyed off their great range of takeaway treats, in particular the sausages.



This bright blue store is buzzing with blenders, deep fryers sizzling and the stomp of papaya salad being pounded.



The front bar is full of sausages and fritters, as well as dried beef and taro chips which can be bought by weight. The owner says he is one of the only makers of this style of dried beef in Sydney.



Taro fritters, 70 cents each or three for $2. Also sweet potato and banana versions available. The batter tasted like it had a sweet coconut cream added in.



Lao sausages, $6.50 for a box of five or six. Alison thinks one of these was snaffled before the shot was taken. Slice them up and add them in with your salad. The meat has a slight hot spice and sour flavour.



Papaya salad with shredded chicken feet, $7.50. Shredded papaya, carrot, red onion and fresh mint leaves, served with a sauce to pour through.The feet seemed to have been boiled and the skin removed and served without the little bones.

The last time we had a chicken feet salad was sitting at a little street stall in Nha Trang, drinking vodka with a group of Vietnamese boys eager to talk about Priscilla Queen of the Desert and life in Australia where they felt they would be free to be accepted as gay. Let's hope they achieved their dream. The chicken feet salad there was great (or was it the influence of the vodka?), this one was probably a little chewy but a textural hit that worked well with the spices.



Papaya salad with dried beef, $7.50. Shredded papaya and carrot, with a sprinkle of peanuts, also with it's own spicy dressing. The dried beef was similar to a sweet jerky, and provided a good contrast to the sweet and spicy dressing.

As an alternative, you can also buy the papaya salad on its own (we saw a number of these going over the counter) and add whatever you want, including the tiny little crabs pounded into the mix popular as a flavour addition.

We would like to try the raw beef salad next time as well, perhaps not when we have to lug it all home on the train.



Pork larb or laap, $9.50. A mountain of cooked pork mince, herbs and slices of cucumber, with a wedge of lime and fresh mint leaves provided. There was so much in this serve we ended up saving half for another meal. Also available as beef.



Lettuce leaves and slices of fresh cabbage for wrapping and dipping.



Khao tom - Sticky rice and banana, $2.50 each. Also available with coconut cream for an extra $1.



Sticky rice, $2 a serve. The essential component to any Laotian meal.



A type of Laotian dipping sauce called a jeow. This one was labeled 'Anchovy paste', $3 for a small tub. It was an absolute blast of flavour - chilli hot, fish salty, sour and tangy. Take a small piece of sticky rice and dip it in for a temporarily mouth numbing heat experience, which slowly turns to an exciting mix of flavours. We also tried dipping raw beans, cabbage and small pieces of pineapple, all worked a treat.



We gotta go back for those taro crisps... The avocade/durian shakes sound worth a punt too..



Kaysone Sweets is in the pedestrian mall at Shop 4, 59-61 Park Road, Cabramatta, NSW 2166. Stop in for some takeaway for dinner after a lunch time feast.

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8 comments:

  1. i love the taro chips there and the sweet potato chips are also a winner!

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  2. I travel from Seven Hills to Cabra nearly every weekend and this place is a pit-stop must. Love their taro and banana fritters! They make some delicious juice smoothies too... much tastier and slightly cheaper than the other juice joints in Cabra. Try their soursop one, it's incredibly refreshing :) the durian shake and avocado shake are both great too (but rather heavy... meal-like lol)

    Their raw larb has been on my list for ages too! Let us know if you try it and what its like! Their papaya salad is damn good but I prefer the som tum made by Papaya Kitchen inside the BKK food court.. it's just that little bit more zingy.

    ahh this is why I love Street Food.

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    1. Like most great places, there's always so much more to try. Thanks for the BKK food court tip, we've been meaning to get in there soon.

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  3. Love the taro chips and avocado shakes from here - it's something that I get every time I go to Cabra!

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  4. this is a fave place of mine whenever i need a quick snack esp if there are queues everywhere on the weekend. been around for ages!

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    1. It's the places that have been around for ages that are often overlooked for the treasures they contain. We hope they are around for ages lobger.

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  5. We stop in here for fruit shakes when we're in Cabra. The sweet potato chips are addictive but I'd definitely recommend you get the avo and durian shakes separate and not together. Gotta appreciate the glory of them on their own :) The sour sop one is also great in summer.

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Thanks for your comment joy - please keep your musings happy - if you want to complain about a restaurant please do it on a restaurant review site (or your own blog) - we're all about celebrating cultural diversity and the great eats that come along with it :-)

Our ethics: We pay for all our own meals and travel (though sometimes Mum shouts us).