90210: Beverly Hills (3rd Anniversary Special)

Hello again. Like Haberfield, this suburb also came equal fifth in your votes of where to send me. Let's go to 

Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills is a suburb in Sydney's South. And yes, it was named after the one in America. This means that my goal for this post is to work out if this suburb deserves its namesake. 

Getting back into the usual groove, I got here by taking a 25 minute train ride from Central, arriving at a totally typical suburban station. 

Leaving the station, I found myself on the traffic-heavy and less-than-glamorous King Georges Road. Beverly Hills is one of many Sydney suburbs split into two by its trainline, and this pretty terrible stretch of road is, as far as I can tell, the only way to cross the tracks. 

I decided to start by heading north, 

immediately finding myself at a quiet, mostly closed, strip of shops,

plus local supermarket. 

Starting on the suburb for realsies, I took this back alley vaguely in the direction I was trying to go, 

past this industrial wall with an aesthetic I found pleasing for no reason, 

and onto a residential street. 

This is where I found out - 

Beverly Hills is actually pretty nice. 

I strolled through a surprisingly attractive streetscape towards a church.  

This church - which incidentally is also quite a nice building. 

From here, I continued through this memorial minipark, 

and deeper into residential Beverly Hills. 

Here, I found that the attractive residential street from before was a bit of an anomaly. 

It's not that the other streets I headed to were ugly, they're perfectly fine. 

But they certainly feel more "regular" than that one street from before. 

With regular brick homes, 

on regular streets. 

I soon reached this canal,

at the creatively named Beverly Hills Park, 

where they have play equipment and one of those little street libraries.

If all that is too exciting, you can cross the canal, 

through to an oval, 

and head for some more suburbia. 

At this stage, Beverly Hills seems okay, but I suspect folks didn't vote me to come here just to stroll around its residential streets. As such, I headed back towards the rail crossing point from earlier,  

passed the HQ of the Brazilian soccer team, 

some more canal systems, 

and even a fence with patchy views of the surrounds. 

But I did soon make it back to the main road, 

where I could investigate what the bit south of the station had to offer. 

Here is Beverly Hills' main commercial district and I have mixed feelings about it. 

On one hand, it's full of the super-diverse Sydney dining options that we come to expect from a great suburb, from Vietnamese, to sushi, to Turkish, to Chinese and even a Yemeni restaurant,

and not only that, they've even got a cinema. 

So the place should be pretty cool right? Well, the issue is that this commercial district is entirely straddling the super busy King Georges Road, meaning it's not the kind of place you really enjoy walking through and exploring. As a result, it feels like more of a "get-in-get-out" sort of experience. 

That being said, I could at least enjoy this place's multi-cultural dining options. As such, I chose one of my go-to's for a quick lunch and dropped into the local Lebanese bakery, Abu Najee. 

My choice at these places is always the half-zaatar (Middle-Eastern herb and spice mix) and half cheese manoush (they called this an oregano and cheese wrap on the menu, but I'm a professional). 

Usually, this results in a tasty and cheap bite to eat, and today was no different. That being said, I did find them to be a bit stingy with the ingredients. For a better one than this check out my visit to Westmead back in 2018. 

Having dined and explored Beverly Hills, I was now at liberty to head off. 

Beverly Hills: Some interesting points, dulled by its less-than-stellar walkability. Sorry but I'll take the Californian one.