Where can I get good cheap meals in Sydney?
Jeez, mu~ha~ha~ha~har, Tamana’s isn’t that good. It’s not bad halfway through a Newtown/Enmore/St Peters pub crawl but in the end it’s just decent curry. For the purposes of the OP’s request & information, Newtown is well outside the range of CBD meals. A decent lunch if you find yourself toward the Circular Quay end of town: the bizarrely named and rather hard to find Le Chifley Bistrot a Vin who at my last visit did $6-$7 small lunch meals and did a good line in cheap over-the-counter house reds and whites.
Oh oh oh… I can vouch for Vrindavan too. It’s not much to look at, but boy is the food good there. I used to live about 90 seconds away and my wife and I would eat out there at least once a week. Great value and great food. It’s not exactly in the CBD though. I’m usually ‘meh’ about food-courts, but the one under Myers in the Pitt St Mall is pretty good; especially the Japanese outlet. I still miss the chilli chicken and teriyaki beef combination. Just outside Chinatown (which is about 1km up George St from the CBD) you will find a famous Chinese called BBQ Kings. It’s renowned for the quality of its cuisine, the tackiness of its decor and the gruffness of its staff. 🙂 Cheap food, and a place where a lot of restaurant staff and chefs choose to go themselves after work ( in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years back, it was the most popular in an article interviewing “foodies” for their personal favourite). Good luck. Sydney is fun.
It kind of depends on how far you want to walk and where you’re staying. I’ll assume that you’re in the Haymarket/Ultimo/Darling Harbour area. Firstly, there’s Hannah’s Pies right on Harris St near the Powerhouse Museum. This is the factory that supplies Harry’s Cafe du Wheels and their pies rock. A “Tiger” is the pie of your choice, mash, peas and gravy and will fill you up for about $7. Probably the best pies in Sydney. (Well, you did say cheap, right?) Then you can follow Harris St down towards Pyrmont. There’s a pub/bistro right on the corner opposite the Powerhouse museum (Duke of something). Ignore the bistro but go up the side street to the Pakhi Cafe. Their pizza’s are excellent and their curries are good, filling and very cheap. They also have free internet for customers and were about to start doing kebabs when I was last there – dunno if that’s started yet. Keep going down the west side of Harris St you’ll eventually come to an excellent Indian restaurant called Vrindavan –
