We finally found a restaurant in Sydney that does an amazing bò né that tastes close to Vietnam 🤤. This small restaurant in Marrickville, sitting 20 patrons, has been around for years, serving delicious street-style breakfast foods to those lucky to come across them.
Food
So what is bò né, you ask? It is traditionally low-quality beef cuts cooked on a hot plate with pâté, butter, eggs, soy sauce and herbs, served with fresh bread rolls (banh mi). Vietnamese people found a way to make low quality and unwanted beef cuts delicious and it is a popular dish often enjoyed for breakfast 😙.
Fortunately, Co Ba has premium options with wagyu G7 ($25), G8 ($35) and G9 ($45) for different price points. We opted for the lower quality because we want to stay authentic as possible and wow! Even wagyu 7 tasted amazingggg 😍.
There was so much flavour! Dipping their freshly baked bread with this crispy crust and soft whites into the juicy beef fat and melted egg yolk was soooo good. Add in the extra pâté and butter for some creamy goodness and oomphhh, satisfaction. GO TRY IT NOW.
Fortunately, Co Ba has premium options with wagyu G7 ($25), G8 ($35) and G9 ($45) for different price points. We opted for the lower quality because we want to stay authentic as possible and wow! Even wagyu 7 tasted amazingggg 😍.
There was so much flavour! Dipping their freshly baked bread with this crispy crust and soft whites into the juicy beef fat and melted egg yolk was soooo good. Add in the extra pâté and butter for some creamy goodness and oomphhh, satisfaction. GO TRY IT NOW.
We looked over at the regular table and saw this bánh tráng trộn for $11 so we ordered one too. This was rice paper, cut up and mixed with herbs, peanuts, chilli and fish sauce. I found it very spicy but when I was able to fight through the burn, the crunchy texture of the rice paper was very enjoyable 😅.
This exotic dish was ốc hương xào (sizzling snails) in tamarind sauce for $30. They also have a garlic butter and corn & garlic butter option too. These were full of flavour, buried deep inside each snail. The only difficult thing was picking them out with our toothpicks because the shells were piping hot.
This gỏi đu đủ khô bò is a healthy green papaya salad with beef jerky for $13. It’s a crunchy, refreshing bite with savoury, chewy beef chunks in the mix. The sauce is a mix of fish sauce, chilli and sugar.
Xôi thập cẩm is a staple dish people talk about when looking for a cheap and delicious lunch option. This $13 dish is a sticky rice combination, with processed pork, pork jello, carrots, reddish, coriander, dried shallots. It tasted like a delicious array of savoury flavours and textures.
If corn wasn’t so hard to pluck, I’d make this all the time. This is bắp xào, sautéed stir-fried corn with dried shrimp and it tasted like a sweet addiction 🤤. Every piece was juicy and oozing with so much depth of flavour. Highly recommend it for $10.
This is probably the best dish of the lot, after the bò né. It may not look appealing but OOOFTT, bánh mì phá lẩu is the shizzz 😍. This is beef offal with a bread roll for $12. The offal was cleaned thoroughly and stewed for hours, giving it this soft, chewy texture. The broth was also flavourful, perfect with our freshly baked crispy bread roll.
I love that their bánh canh cua had full-sized crab claws and chunks in the broth. And the colour was sooo rich and orange. Most places use imitation crab but Co Ba cooks the famous crab udon noodle soup right 🤤. This $20 bowl even came with dầu chéo quẩy (fried bread sticks)!
Service
The staff were really fast for a small team of 3. They were able to efficiently serve the patrons while simultaneously serving fresh pork rolls to visiting customers.
Review
We loved this restaurant so much, we came back the following week and waited an hour in the rain too 😂. Absolutely loved how delicious everything was. This is one of the restaurants with more unique Vietnammese dishes that you cannot find anywhere else in Sydney.
Thanks for reading! Happy eating!
Thanks for reading! Happy eating!
