The United Nations: Campsie

Some suburbs completely take me by surprise. This next suburb I absolutely loved.

Campsie

Geographically, Campsie's in a funny bit of Sydney. It's very close to the Inner West, sitting just south of the Cooks River. It's kind of south, but not that south, and it's kind of west, but not that west.

Most importantly though, it's immediately north of my previous suburb of Clemton Park.

That's confusing because the first thing I found upon crossing the border into Campsie is Clemton Park Shopping Village.

This turned out to be one of those shiny new small shopping centres with a supermarket and a handful of smaller stores and restaurants nestled into a new apartment complex.

This bit of southern Campsie actually has a whole stack of new apartments, which seems a little bit poorly thought out considering that this is the furthest possible point from the suburb's train station. That being said, that's not exactly news for Sydney is it.

As I continued north, I entered the more established bit of Camspie, marked with a mixture of townhouses and duplexes,

as well as plenty of older free standing homes.

Interestingly enough for a random chap strolling by, Campsie hasn't skimped on making each house unique.

My walk through suburban Campsie was broken up by a need to cross Canterbury Road, where I did manage to catch a nice little glimpse of our city's skyline.

My goal was to get to the suburb's commercial centre a little further to the north, so I continued through the suburb's eclectic assortment of houses,

until I hit Beamish Street. Beamish Street is road the which hosts Campsie's CBD further north. I was still on the road's relatively shabby residential end though. 

But once you hit the Campsie Shopping Centre sign, boy oh boy does the suburb come alive.

Campsie CBD has just about everything you can imagine, from anywhere on earth.

There's Arabic nuts and coffee.

Of course, there's Indian grocers.

Asian markets are a given too.

Fishmongers? Easy.

Hungry for duck heads? They've got you sorted.

The flurry of activity in downtown Campsie is incredible. From the endless fresh fruit and veg, to the restaurants of all types, I love to see such a "well used" suburb.

They've even got a shop who's ripped off the American giant Walmart (here's Walmart's design, for comparison),

and a dude sitting on the footpath selling what I'm sure are 100% genuine Raybans and perfumes. 

Though not exclusive to Campsie, it was also nice to see some ornate older buildings nestled into the suburb's commercial hub, with these curly painted options,

and Orion, an art deco former theatre.

Now if the old and ornate isn't really your thing, you can instead take a stroll over to Anzac Mall where you can get stuck into the local flea market.

To be honest, it's a little bit more garage sale than market, but it still makes for an interesting visit. Apparently this thing runs every Sunday from 9am-3pm.

Walking away with a second hand TV remote and some old shoes, I was ready for a (late) lunch. In a place like Campsie you are absolutely spoiled for choice, due to how multicultural this suburb is.  

I didn't eat at Mo Burger, which confusingly appears to make Chinese food, rather than burgers. 

Instead, I decided to go for something new to me - Nepalese food. This is Ad's Kitchen.

Apparently, the main thing that they do is a Nepalese buffet. They even have performances during weekend dinners. 

Now, I was here at a weird time (3pm on a Sunday arvo) so the place was empty apart from me. This meant ordering off the menu rather than a buffet (which I prefer anyway).

Not knowing anything about Nepalese cuisine, I picked up some chicken momo (Nepalese dumplings) and something called "chat pate". 

Momos are dumplings. Dumplings are delicious, and these were no exception. I don't mind a bit of chilli, but a word of warning, the dipping sauce was outrageously spicy.

Now, the chat pate. The menu described this as "puffed rice, marinated with onion, chilli, coriander, herbs and spices". This one was definitely an odd one for me! It was sour, rather spicy and served cold, with crunchy bits of dried noodle and pea in it. I'm glad I tried this unusual salad, but would I get it again? Probably not. 

The spice is best extinguished with a mango lassi (a mango yoghurt drink). I don't know lassi is considered Nepalese too (I've only ever experienced it at Indian restaurants), but if there's mango lassi on the menu, you better believe I'm ordering it.

The total came to something like $17 which I thought was reasonable. 

Feeling well fed and well cultured, I took the entry into the station which is nestled amongst Campsie's shopping district and headed home.

Campsie: A strong contender for this year's ambassador award.