Close your eyes, and you might think you’re roaming the streets of Istanbul in this fun, frantic, charcoal-smoke filled eatery in Auburn. The HSP sees chips layered up with greasy chicken and beef doner kebab. They put the cheese on top of the meat, which is a rookie error – for maximum meltage it needs to sit between the chips and meat. But the way they do it here means the cheese stays cold and dry rather than melty and stringy. Then the whole lot is slathered with mild, sweet chilli sauce, garlic sauce and barbecue. It's not the best example in Sydney, and we’re wishing we had the shish plate instead, with smoky, charred chicken kebabs hot off the charcoal grills at the front.
Halal Snacks Packs are so popular right now they don’t even want you to sit with them. This is thanks mainly to Sydney’s very own Halal Snack Packs Appreciation Society (HSPAS) Facebook page, where people post and discuss their favourite HSPs, rating them based on criteria as follows: “Show us a sick pic of ur halal snacky, whered ya get it?, is it sick?, is it halal? and salrite or na? also, is it a halal snack pack mountain or na?”
So what is it? Well, it goes like this: hot chips on the bottom, topped with an optional cheese layer, and then an essential halal kebab meat layer (either beef doner, lamb or chicken, or a mix of all three). On top of this is drizzled the ‘Holy Trinity’ – that is, chilli sauce, barbecue sauce and garlic sauce (more like a tzatziki than the thick, mayonnaise-like sauce you might expect). It comes in sizes so big you’ll be lucky to get through one between two, and sizes so immense they have to be fitted into jumbo pizza boxes. There are no small portions in the world of HSP: the dish that looks like someone vomited over a polystyrene box, but tastes like late-night food you’d queue for an hour to get to.
Here’s how we completed our HSP quest: we created a hit list of the most talked about venues in the city, and hit them all in one saturated fat laden day. At each venue we ordered the same thing: mixed meats and cheese. Although there are a range of sauces available, we stuck with the ‘Holy Trinity’, to keep things on an even playing field. We did not get, sadly, a “Hello brother/sister” at any of the venues, which HSPAS fans frequently report receiving. Where’s the love, man?
Here are our five picks for Halal Snack Packs in Sydney right now:
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Need some vegetables after all those chips? Try one of Sydney's best vegan restaurants.
Want more snacks? Try one of Sydney's best Chinese dumpling restaurants.
