In This Guide
July in Sydney is wet socks and early sunsets and the particular desperation that makes you eat laksa three nights in a row. Enmore is where you do it. The strip along Enmore Road between Newtown station and the Enmore Theatre runs maybe 800 metres, and in winter it feels shorter because you're walking fast, hood up, past shuttered vintage shops toward anything producing steam.
I've done this crawl twice now — once alone on a Wednesday, once dragging a friend who kept insisting we should just go to one place and sit down. She was wrong. The point is movement, comparison, the slow accumulation of coconut milk and chilli in your bloodstream until you stop noticing the cold. Five stops. You won't finish every bowl. That's fine.
1. Start at Boon Town, before you're hungry
Boon Town sits at 200 Enmore Road, a few doors past the intersection with Edgeware. Maybe ten tables. The laksa comes in one size. Last time I went, the chicken laksa was $17.50. The broth is thinner than what you'll get later in the crawl, more turmeric-forward, less sweet. This is deliberate strategy: you want to calibrate your palate before the heavier bowls.
Get there by 6 p.m. on a weeknight. By 7:30 the wait can stretch to 20 minutes, which is too long when you have four more stops. Eat half the bowl. Leave the noodles if you have to.
Pro tip:They're cash-only as of last winter. There's an ATM inside the convenience store two doors south.
2. Skip the place with the neon 'LAKSA' sign
You'll see it around the 160 block. I'm not naming it because I don't want to get into it, but the laksa tastes like coconut cream stirred into chicken stock from a carton. The online reviews are enthusiastic in that way that makes me suspicious — lots of exclamation marks, very few specifics. Walk past.
Spend the three minutes you saved standing outside the Enmore Theatre checking what's on. In July they sometimes run comedy nights mid-week, and tickets can be $25-35 for acts that would cost twice that in the CBD.
3. Lentil as Anything is not a laksa shop, and that's the point
The Enmore outpost of Lentil as Anything operates on a pay-what-you-feel model, which either appeals to you or doesn't. Their laksa — when it's on the rotating menu, which in winter it usually is — runs vegan and fierce. Thick. The kind of heat that sits in the back of your throat for a full minute.
I'll say something unpopular: I think the pay-what-you-feel model produces better food than most people expect. The cooks aren't optimising for food cost. They're just making the thing they want to make. The laksa here has had, on different visits, fried tofu puffs, roasted sweet potato, and something I'm fairly sure was banana blossom. It changes.
115 Enmore Road. Open evenings until 9 p.m. most nights, but check their Instagram for winter hours — they sometimes close Mondays.
Pro tip:Put at least $15 in the box. The model only works if people don't treat it as a free meal.
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Expedia →4. The prawn laksa at Bahay sits in your chest like a radiator
Bahay does Filipino-Australian food, and their laksa is a fusion riff — they use a prawn broth base that's darker and more savoury than the Malay standard. Dried shrimp, I think. Annatto oil giving it that orange glow. The prawns themselves are whole, head-on, which means you'll need napkins and a lack of vanity.
Last I checked, the laksa was $21. Bahay sits on Enmore Road close to the Liberty Hall end of things. Tight room. Two-top by the window if you can get it.
By this point in the crawl you should be properly warm. Coat unzipped, sleeves pushed up. This is the peak — bowl three or four is where the cumulative chilli hits and the cold becomes theoretical.
5. End at the pub, not at another bowl
The Sly Fox at 199 Enmore Road has no laksa. What it has is $8 pints of local draught and live music most nights of the week with no cover charge. After four bowls of coconut broth you don't need more coconut broth. You need a cold beer and a band loud enough that you don't have to talk.
The front bar is where you want to be. Back room's for the acts. Grab a stool near the taps and let your stomach settle. The whole crawl, start to finish, takes about three hours if you don't rush. If you do rush, you're missing the point — the walks between stops are where the cold air resets your appetite.
One more thing. Laksa for breakfast the next morning. No regrets.
Pro tip:The 423 and 426 buses run along Enmore Road and stop within a block of every place on this list. Don't cab it.
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Expedia →Essential tips
July nights in Sydney sit around 8-12°C. Bring a jacket that can handle drizzle — not an umbrella, which is useless on a food crawl when your hands are full.
Newtown station (T3 Bankstown Line) is the closest rail. From there it's a 5-minute walk south on King Street and left onto Enmore Road.
Eat half-bowls. If you try to finish every serve across five stops, you'll tap out by stop three. No one's judging unfinished laksa in winter.
Budget roughly $60-70 for the full crawl including a couple of drinks at the Sly Fox. Carry cash — at least two spots on this route are card-averse.
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