Where to buy?
You want to know stuff I haven’t the space for on my site. You want to find places to eat South Asian or other spice-based cuisines that I haven’t deigned to review, or haven’t even got around to eating at.
You want more recipes than I offer. And you really, really want to know where to buy ingredients and equipment to make Sri Lankan food.
Search below for some of the answers.
Sri Lankan spice shops/ groceries (Sydney)
Providores
Want to find that ingedient I've written into my recipes? Here's where to go in Sydney.
Ashfield Fruit World
288 Liverpool Rd. Ashfield
Has one of the best ranges of South Asian vegetables outside of Paddy's Market.
Aum Spice Centre
19 The Strand Croydon 61 2 9744 1177
Owned by the team behind and in the same street as the Hotel Sravana
Bhavan, a terrific Southern Indian/Sri Lankan eatery, this providore is
a neat, well-stocked store that's easy to get around. Go early when
it's open and you may be lucky enough to come just after excellent
godamba rotis are made for the day and steaming away next to the cash
register - I dare you not to try one.
Bula Island Food Supplies
81 South St. Granville 61 2 9682 5800
A small croweded shop which has pretty much all you need Indian spice
wise, and usually a good range of South Asian vegies - including
drumstick leaves, kerala - and also Fiji and Pacific Island products.
There's a hot food bar that does a good line in home style curries,
too. Oh, and if you ever wanted to get one of those faux tapa cloth
shirts - go on, you KNOW, you do! - this is the place.
Dush Spices Joyce St.
Pendle Hill 61 2 9688 2772
A tidy SL providore! Wonders will never cease. And the only place I
have found the SL herb/green mukunuwena which makes a killer mallung.
Dan's Sri Lankan takeaway is just next door and definitely worth the
visit.
Graham's
9 Angus Cres. Yagoona
Undoubtedly now the oldest Sri Lankan providore in Sydney, in a
no-place location, with a shopfront and interior that hasn't changed in
the 10 years I've been going out there.
Himalaya Spice Centre
1 Station St. Thornleigh 61 2 9481 8200
Go here when you need a heap of fresh grated coconut as they have a
machine that is as big and efficient as it is scary. By the way, fresh
grated coconut freezes very well and lasts for ages. You can now buy
frozen grated coconut, which is fine. But you miss out on the
excitement of grating your own - own fingers, that is! - or having some
oversized relative of a cement mixer do it for you.
India Bazaar
100 Wigram Rd. Harris Park
61 2 9635 8935
I love the big plastic bins in this shop holding masses of spices and
curry powders or the makings for paan and supari; you can scoop just as
much as you think you want and not risk your spices going stale while
you use them.
Kabuljan Market
50 Station St. Wentworthville 61 2 9361 6300
A smaller range of Indian and Sri Lankan products than its Station
Street neighbours, but you get the benefit of also getting Afghani and
Iranian goods like a great range of nuts, dried fruits, and they stock
Alwazah Tea, an Egyptian packaged Sri Lankan big leaf tea that is my
home staple.
Spicy Choice
306 Liverpool Rd. Ashfield 61 2 9716 7527
Another smallish place - piles of rice bags on the floor, tins of oil
making questionable pyramids, a sense of unfinished busyness, but it's
got the usual range and also does a small selection of fresh cooked
short eats - mutton rolls, fish patties, that sort of thing. And it's
just down the road from the Ashfield Fruit Market.
Sri Siva Sakthie Enterprises
Burlington Rd. Homebush 61 2 9763 2180
This place is tiny, crowdy and odorous in the nicest way as a result.
The couple who run it are delightful and always happy to give advice
about your purchases. While you're there you can pop next door to their
food shop, the Sri Lankan Food Bar for snacks or a meal.
Sri Thakshana
4 Joyce St. Pendle Hill 61 2 9688 1819
Another of those delightfully crowded spaces where I am always fearful
of the imminent risk of bringing down bags of rice or spices or summat
but somehow never do. Dan's Sri Lankan takeaway is a neighbour and
worth a look in.
Tara's International
214 Northumberland St. Liverpool 61 2 9822 7555
This is a dream come true for me, a wondrous, large, well laid out
South Asian supermarket that has everything I could possibly want -
well, nearly. Love the big bins of spices and pulses; love the
individual containers of those little sweet coated cumin and fennel
seeds and other bits that go to making those minty mouth cleansing
supari mixes for the end of the meal; great range of weird and wondrous
frozen fishes, molluscs, vegetarian protein rolls; meats ready cut for
curries; and big tubs of pickles from which you can take just as much
as you want.
Udaya Spices
1/76 Station St. Wentworthville 61 2 96883954
Check out the upstairs here for a terific range of utensils, much more
than in most other shops in this list - chatties, stringhopper
steamers, hopper pans, the lot.
Vinayak
(a) 642 King St. St Peters 61 2 9550 6681
(b)Northumberland St. Liverpool 61 2 9824 1068
Mainly spices, but with the occasional veg and a terrific selection of
sweets; they also always have killer small spicy samosas and surprise
treats like dokla on weekends at the St Peters store - a savoury
something you will have to try without me describing it; or a terrific
homemade lime pickle at the Liverpool store. They also both have a
range of cooking gear, and the Liverpool store hires out enourmous
metal cooking pots.
Note: Many of the very specialist vegetables like methi/fenugreek sprouts, drumstick leaves, gotukola come in only at certain times in the week or on the local grower having a crop worth the selling. Always ring before you head off to the stockists and check what's in.
Copyright (C) 2008 Paul van Reyk