Source : the age
In Brisbane Times’ Heartlands series, Food and Culture Editor Matt Shea seeks out the migrant restaurants, cafes and stores that give the city’s scene its rich texture. This month, a cherished Nudgee Beach takeout.
Harry Tran has questions for you.
Sit down for an interview and a cup of tea with Tran, and they come thick and fast. He wants to know where you’re from, about your family, about your work.
It’s not an interrogation but something done with genuine curiosity and interest. And it’s that warmth that accounts for much of the popularity of Pam’s Cafe 88, which Harry owns with his wife, Pam Tran, who has loaned the venue her name.
You’ll find this old weatherboard takeout in Nudgee Beach. Head north out of the city, hit Southern Cross Way and then turn onto Nudgee Beach Road. Drive past the golf course and the recycling centre and the dog park, the wetlands and the mouth of Kedron Brook as it opens out onto Moreton Bay.
Eventually, the road curves sharply and you hit Oquinn Street. As much as Nudgee Beach has a main drag, this is it, but Pam’s is the only shop on the strip, surrounded by Queenslanders and worker’s cottages – some honest, others refurbished.
“It is changing slowly,” Harry says. “Almost every year we have one or two houses that have been knocked down and rebuilt.
“Two decades ago we were only 20 minutes from the city, but this was like a long-lost village. Now, everybody loves it here – 10 minutes from the airport, close to the highway to take you north and south … it’s like the little duckling that’s slowly growing into a swan.”
Pam’s, though, still very much has those duckling vibes about it. This is a takeout first, but also a convenience store for locals and those heading out onto the bay to fish: there’s a milk fridge and a small shelf of groceries on one wall, a soft drink fridge and bait supplies on the other.
Above hangs a series of menus that mix fish and chips and burgers with staples inspired by the Trans’ native Vietnam.
Pam and Harry came to Australia in 1980 as refugees. Pam worked back of house in restaurants, most notably Viet De Lites in South Bank; Harry, as a motor mechanic. They took up the lease on Pam’s in 2000, when the shop had been sitting empty for a year.
“One time we took our children out here,” Harry says. “Our daughter was walking along the beach and it was so hot, she wanted an ice cream. We came home and she said, ‘Dad, why don’t you buy the shop, then we’ll have an ice cream shop?’ We thought, ‘Wow, what a good idea.’ The shop had been sitting empty for a year.”
Early on, the Trans leaned into Vietnamese food. But the favoured play for locals visiting Pam’s has always been to grab-and-go some barra, cod or snapper – battered, crumbed or grilled – and take it to the beach a block away with a serve of chips, and watch life go by.
It’s simple stuff but you can tell Pam’s skill in the kitchen. This is some of the best fish and chips you can get in Brisbane’s north, the batter light but crunchy, the fish unmistakably fresh, even if the Trans have switched to larger suppliers post-Covid after previously being supplied direct by the boats that trawl off Moreton Island.
“We try to keep everything as fresh and house-made as possible,” Harry says, although he and Pam use off-the-shelf chips and tartare.
And as the years have rolled on and local tastes have changed, the Vietnamese dishes have become more prominent, with the Trans introducing a clutch of new items to the menu.
“Two decades ago we were only 20 minutes from the city, but this was like a long-lost village.”
Harry Tran
“We have the lemongrass beef salad, a chicken stir-fry, a beef stir-fry, a chicken curry,” Harry says. “And we sell plenty.”
Still, it’s that charm that keeps diners coming back. Arrive in the mid-afternoon when the kitchen is quieter, and you’ll often find one of the Trans sitting with a table of regulars – maybe locals, or a group of cyclists who’ve peddled in via the cycle trail that ends at Nudgee Beach – cup of tea or coffee in hand, of course.
One of Pam’s signature features is the twin photo boards that flank its entranceway, which celebrate friends of the shop both old and new. It illustrates how special this place is, not just to the locals who live in the surrounding patchwork of streets, but people from all over Brisbane who have made Pam’s part of their semiregular pilgrimage out to Nudgee Beach.
“We’ve become a landmark in the local community,” Harry says. “We’re lucky. After 25 years, it’s still going strong. It’s important to us to be the [face] of the business, that’s how local people like it – they come in and can sit down and have a chat. That’s essential in a community cafe, I think, to be there for everyone.”
88 Oquinn St, Nudgee Beach, (07) 3267 8898.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
