PappaRich
Little Saigon Plaza
G13-G14/462 Chapel Rd, Bankstown
PappaRich is a restaurant chain which serves authentic Malaysian food in a casual but modern atmosphere. It started in Malaysia (which has 70 outlets!) and came first to Melbourne and now Sydney has several outlets. We visited the Bankstown venue on a Saturday afternoon for a media event. You will find it on the side of Little Saigon Plaza and the parking is quite good. The menu is visually appealing and quite easy to read. There are plenty of appetizing pictures to help you make your choice and the beverage menu, while there is no alcohol, has a wide variety of interesting drinks. There are some fascinating chilled tea and coffee options and soybean drinks, some of which don’t look familiar at all. I chose a fresh watermelon juice and Dame T had a Lychee Soda. Both were sweet and hit the spot.
A selection of starters arrived at the table and they looked amazing. Especially the Pappa Deep Fried Chicken Skin! Need I say this was naughty but nice! We loved the Roti Teur Bawang (stuffed) with Curry Chicken. A good roti like this is such a treat and very hard to stop eating when it comes with such a tasty curry and dipping sauces. The Roti Canai with Tandoori Chicken and dipping sauces was also really good. Fluffy roti with meat so tender it melted in the mouth. Great flavours! We also had the Beef and Chicken Satay Skewers with delicious peanut sauce. They were very popular among our group!
Time for the mains, which we also shared. We enjoyed the Ipoh Koay Teow Soup with Steamed Chicken which was a lightly flavoured seafood soup with succulent tender chicken breast slices on the side. Who doesn’t like a good laksa? It’s probably the first dish which comes to mind when thinking of Malaysian food. This Laksa was authentic and not too milky, with lovely flavours and delicious goodies on top such as fried eggplant. It had a little kick as expected, but it wasn’t too spicy.
We love a good Char Koay Teow and were suitably impressed with the vegetarian variety which was served here. This dish has a smoky barbecue taste and the combination of soft noodles and crunchy vegetables makes it so wonderful. Next we had the Pappa Special Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken and Sambal Prawns. Yum! That rich curry went so well with the fluffy rice cooked in coconut milk and the prawns were juicy and had a lovely kick. On the side we found a traditional Ikan Bilis, a crispy fried anchovy and peanut combination which adds a nice crunch to the dish.
The final dish we tried was a tangy Pappa Asam Laksa, which is a fish-based soup with thin noodles, crunchy vegetables and pineapple chunks. This is a very popular Malaysian dish. Dame T loves a good fish soup and thoroughly enjoyed this one!
PappaRich is warm and casual and very popular among the locals. So much so, there was a line-up outside the door as we ate. That is always a good sign of the food! They are open 7 days from 10.30am until 9.30pm and are family-friendly and obliging.
Those Dames, who review for Sir and Mlady Dine Out, dined as guests of PappaRich. Special thanks to Lauren from Wasamedia for arranging this visit.