Tannic Teeth

For returning readers, you may well be aware the post regarding certain turkish sweet-maker man who has a store inside a Farmer Jacks.

This post is about that said Farmer Jacks.

Its actual name, Farmer Jacks Nguyen Phat, may very well be a giggle-worthy name but in all seriousness this place is a verdant pasture for Sinophiles and Asians like.

You can pick up very cheap fruit and veggies here. A good yard-stick to measure is bean-sprout freshness. If they’re firm, creamy-white with bright yellow growths — they’re no fresher from the womb of the earth.

Bok Choi, Gai Lan, Lotus Root. All there.

Funnily enough some other foods are hit-and-miss. Some apples look worse for wear and the turnips are a bit tired.

Asian–Ding! European–Babow.

The weird and magnificently grotesque carnival of pickled and packed asian foods are to be found during a blitz though the aisles. Preserved mudfish? Squid jerky?  Vacuum sealed bamboo shoots? The fresh meat section is just as astonishing. Never have I seen meat trimmed so fine of its fat, it’s like a Parisian catwalk for topside. And for ten bucks a kilo, cheap meat is far from a murderous exertion.

I’ve been coming to this place for years and have seen the turkish man grow his shop and watched the little old asian ladies battle it out over the last of the mushrooms. The whole place will smell-infuse your shirt, jeans and hair, and all the shopping trolleys have wonky wheels. The car park is potholed like a munitions had gone off undetected.

But if you’re a sucker of cheap-cheap or the asian-hard-to-find try this place out. It’s same same but different. Well not MUCH different, but a whole lot cheaper.

(I was there Wednesday 21st July and I saw another gaspingly cheap asian fresh providore. A posting for another time though)

If there ever was a country’s dessert that could be classified as “comatose” for the level of sweetness, Turkish would be number one. (Indian a narrow second)

The fleshy cubes of rose-pink sugar-frolic, Turkish delight, is possibly the best known export. I speak from experience; I remember in my childhood years, hyper-speed afternoons spent in the yellowing sun, bouncing off branches and trees, in the throes of a sugary orgy. Perhaps it’s the body’s own self preservation mechanism — to burn the energy off before type two diabetes sets it. Back then, to have coffee with it would have been instant-death.

Now it’s mid-afternoon salvation. (Though the module has slightly changed, and I can assure you there are no more orgiastic exertions.)

Baklava is what the grown-ups have. With a coffee (my preference for long black) and a quarter-plate of sweetmeats, it’s something to ward off winter by delicately layering down belly fat.

But it doesn’t stop there. There are various incarnations of Baklava. Formed into filo rolls there are Ladies Fingers. Fashioned into a circle and filled with pistachio it’s a Bird’s Nest. Or was the Bird’s nest the one with the pokey tips? The man spoke loudly but mumbled. I didn’t quite get the last one.

These are some of the best Turkish Sweets you can find North side of the River (albeit in the ghetto). He sells it by the kilo ($16 last time I was there) and they are baked in an endless procession, as people winnow away his store. To be honest, I don’t even think the shop has a name.

You can find him inside Farmer Jack’s (review coming soon) in Girrawheen.

It’s further away than I would normally drive for food, but it’s well worth it.