When a suburban restaurant has been operating successfully for more than 20 years, and in 2023 it's still buzzing and packed every night, something even brighter and bolder than 'doing it right' is happening.
Point in case, walk down Auburn Road, Auburn at 6pm on a Sunday night. There are lots of eateries on this strip. Here in Auburn the worst populated is a big name chain, and by far the busiest, and probably also happiest, is the OG of Sydney Turkish food, New Star Kebab family restaurant.
Auburn locals love it! And with good reason. All weather seating outdoors spills out across the wide pavement, then move beyond the open kitchen - shish kebab grill on your right and the doner rotisserie and pizza ovens on the left - to discover the large family sized tables are inside too.
The extensive boards of menus display what are now well known in our multicultural community: shish and doner kebabs, dips, flatbreads aka gozleme, pide, pizzas - of infinitely yummy variations
Be confident though, that at the OG the generous and delicious platters are well crafted and well served with a smile by the big busy New Star Kebab team.
For this feast, I stuck with my all time favourites. Mixed New Star Kebab dips are lusciously creamy and flavourful, baba ganoush, hummus, tzatziki with bread included. Although the tender meats are superb, vegetarians are well catered for - the New Star Kebab golden falafels are as light as they get. On a falafel plate, they are a resplendent feast in themselves with salads, tabbouleh, raw onions, cheese, and pickles.
Turkish pizza and pide are tops here too. Keeping on the vegetarian theme, I started with the very cheesy and very satisfying billowing pillows of New Star Kebab gozlame.
Yet possibly my all-time favourite Turkish street food is Lahmacun, it's also a flat bread but with ground meat topping, and is thinner than gozlame. The Lahmacun here is superb, sublimely thin and crisp, the meat gloriously ground, and even the slice of accompanying lemon for squeezing on top is big and generous. This is a best of baking version for sure.
I wish my stomach was a bottomless pit, because there were so many more dishes I wanted to try here. Oh well, seems like a good excuse for another visit...
You can also pick up pizza by the slice from the front counter, when you are just after a snack. Sadly as you know, I had no more room this time.
