PappaRich Chatswood

The first PappaRich outlet was established in KL back in 2005. Today, they have over 70 outlets in Malaysia and in other countries, such as Singapore and more recently, Australia. When we first received word of them opening in Melbourne, we thought, "Yea, about time." Fast forward to 2 months ago, they opened their first one here in Sydney, in the very Asian suburb of Chatswood.

Normally, us typical KLites would associate PappaRich with the phrase "upscale mamak". It is like from high school or college mamak hangouts we graduate to uni and career world cafe hangouts. The food they provide is the common food fare available in hawker centres around the country but at a high price and in an air-conditioned and free wi-fi environment. Most of the time, we only order drinks, especially the traditional Hainanese coffee and tea, that goes down well with the traditional Hainanese bread with kaya and butter.

With all the hype, we decided to wait for a bit to avoid the long queues. But hype or not hype, we figured that they are like Mamak, where the queues are forever long. The only way to beat the crowd would be to get there really early.

In all honesty, the food is exactly like what we have back home. The biggest difference is that instead of in Malaysian Ringgit, they charge in Australian Dollar.

The seafood curry laksa ($12.90) is a bowl of noodles in spicy coconut curry gravy with mussels, prawns, eggplants, tofu puffs, beancurd skin, fish cake and bean sprouts. Perfect for the current cold weather.

Pappa Wat Tan Hor ($12.90) is basically a plate of wok-fried flat noodles with egg gravy. Their portion is slightly smaller than Albee's portion and a dollar more expensive but I suppose the ambience makes up for it.

A different version of it is the Crispy Egg Noodle, which is egg noodle instead of flat noodles.

Without realising that they had a vegetarian menu, I gamely tried a Nasi Lemak with Vegetarian Curry Mutton. Tastes like normal nasi lemak. Would have preferred the sambal to be more spicy, though and oh, definitely a smaller portion of rice. Too much rice!

The Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken came with three pieces of chicken but like my plate of nasi lemak, the egg must have been cut open for some time.

Normally in KL, the usual drink would be Michael Jackson, which is a mixture of soya bean juice with grass jelly (named after MJ's famous hit, Black and White). We ordered the Barley Grass Jelly instead. Interesting...

We were wondering if the Milo they use for their Milo Dinosaur is Malaysian Milo or Aussie Milo (yes, the IS a difference). We could not tell, perhaps due to how much Milo powder there is!

Personally, I find the food at Petaling Street in the city better and more affordable. And not worth the queue time. However, they do have good service and a kids' play room for families with children.



PappaRich Chatswood
1/63A Archer Street, Chatswood NSW 2067, Australia
Tel: +61 2 9411 3207; E-mail: info@papparich.net.au
Sunday to Thursday 11:00am to 9:00pm
Friday & Saturday 11:00am to 10:00pm
Walk-in only, no bookings