Harry’s Café de Wheels (Haymarket location), Sydney Australia

Updated: Harry’s Café de Wheels, which first opened in 1938, is a 70-year-old Australian pie company with 13 different locations (the owner is clearly not superstitious) around the Sydney area that is considered so iconic that its original food cart is housed in the nearby Powerhouse Museum. Of these, seven keep true to the company’s food truck architecture — hence the “Café de Wheels” moniker.

All the tourist books say Harry’s Café  is one of those MUST do things while in Sydney things. According to Wikipedia celebrities visiting Sydney who have made a point of stopping to eat here have included,  Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, Marlene Dietrich, and even Colonel Sanders.  I learned about it before coming on this trip, while watching food channel episodes about things you HAD to try while in visiting Sydney, describing it as “authentic Sydney eats”. In keeping with my exploration of Australian Pies during my visit last year, which are sort of one of the national dishes …  and as such I felt I had to at least TRY Harry’s “spécialité de la Maison” so to speak

Theirs is the tiger which is one of their pies covered and mashed potatoes which is then covered and mushy peas which is in covered in gravy. I left it to the woman working there to choose the most appropriate pie and she said it hat to be the beef one. Looking at it, from what I can tell their topping defeats the essential purpose of a Aussie pie that makes it different from … let’s say an American Pot pie… which is the Aussie incarnation of it is supposed to be easy to eat by holding it in your hands, like a sandwich …. sort of….

and THIS collection of slop you definitely cannot eat while holding it in your hands.

That said, the beef pie the “Tiger topping” was sitting upon, was exceptionally bland except for the flavor of pepper.  Seriously, it was the only flavor that stood out. If you eat the mushy peas by themselves you can taste those, essentially fresh green peas pureed — (and nothing like the British version which has to start from a tin to taste right), but the flavor of Harry’s peas are subtle enough that its easy to see how they are overwhelmed by the pepper in the pie….. and if you eat the mashed potatoes with gravy again the whole thing is kind of bland because the gravy is a bit bland ……  

So in effect… the individual parts are actually stronger alone than as a whole and as such… the dish is a major fail. The meal was in fact so underwhelming that once I got done doing the taste analysis I threw the rest of it out. Definitively not worth the calories. This had me looking at the other options on the menu but… there’s that pesky diet I have to maintain for medical reasons… so I didn’t order something else.

Update: Talked to a few Aussie friend about having gone here, current and former residents of Sydney, and they were amused I went. According to them, Yes it’s a Sydney tradition… but usually at 2 am when you’re drunk and need a serious amount of fat in your system to help you sober up. None of them considered it ‘good food.’

Kind of sad actually… I’m from Chicago where we take our hotdogs seriously, eat Italian beef & sausage sandwiches, often dipped in gravy and created the deep dish pizza and take it seriously….  these foods are all fatty, sure… but GOOD! While Italian beef and Pizza might sound Italian, the reality is they were, as eaten, created locally… it’s at best Italian influenced… but it’s local. AND… it’s SO good that all of these dishes are worth the calorie hit. Honestly the more I try “Aussie” food the less impressed I am.

There’s good food in Australia, only almost all of it is foreign ethnic.

ALSO… went to the Powerhouse museum and asked where the Harry’s original food van was. First I was told “no we don’t have it” and then I found out they did, but it was in deep storage and is never displayed…