New opiate for the masses

Once upon a time Chinatown was the place to go for a pipe of opium or a flutter at fan tan. Now, says Robert Ho, you have to be satisfied with 100 kinds of bean curd.

"The Government wasn't very harsh but once they opened the casino they put their foot down," adds Ho, owner of five restaurants and long-time Sydneysider, who is guiding us through the area.

It's a pleasant Sunday morning with few people about. Chinatown at night, though, bustles. Here among the karaoke bars and specialty tea shop, you can find restaurants from all over Asia, from Tibetan to the Mongolian Sheep Hot Pot.

When Ho arrived in Sydney in 1956 there were two opium dens and many illegal gambling dens tucked away - but no bean curd. As a restaurateur, he's happy with the reversal.

The Chinese have been coming to Sydney for years, he says, and Chinatown has grown from a few shops to 14 streets of shops and restaurants.

He takes us to Paddy's Market, a four-storey old building which was once the produce market but now is a jumble of shops and stalls.

Here it is jam-packed. At the top is a foodhall, an enormous restaurant and a cinema: "Even to see a movie here is cheaper than anywhere else," says Robert.

The next level down is discount clothes with big brands like Cue and Esprit, and bargains galore.

Below this are 300-odd stalls, "the world's biggest flea market," proclaims Hoe. Here you can buy, well, anything - trinkets, bras, bags, you name it, it's here.

Even supermarket shopping becomes an exciting adventure.

We pass teapots and steamers and kettles for boiling Chinese medicine, which Robert says are made of clay so medicines will not be contaminated by chemicals.

We pass the huge array of bean curds and fresh kimchi, a Korean dish of pickled vegetables which is hot and garlicky.

There are rows and rows of soya sauces - about 100 different kinds - and among the courgettes and broccoli you can buy lotus roots, big tubers dug out of the ground. You cook them up in a stew, says Robert.

He shows us the "King of Fruit", or durian, from Southeast Asia which has a spiky shell and powerful smell. Inside it looks like wedges of mandarin. These fruit are a great weapon if you are attacked, he says.

Next door is the fish shop with crates of all kinds of sea life packed in ice, including crabs, lots of crabs.

A bucket of big orange crabs are oozing what looks like water and have been cooked, or so we're told. But then some start moving, waving their claws.

Thankfully, you're unlikely to find live cooked crabs in the designer suburb of Surry Hills, which is just around the corner from where we are staying and only a few blocks from Chinatown.

The Vibe Hotel, on the corner of Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets, is only a short stroll from many of Sydney's different sides.

Surry Hills was once a slum, the hub of Sydney's clothing trade. Now, the wealthy have moved in and the cute little terrace houses are painted yellows and blues.

Many of the buildings are big old warehouses which have been remodelled into apartments or tasteful homeware stores with expensive goods in the latest greens and pinks. There are loads of these places tucked away among the art galleries and clothing stores.

There's plenty to do in Surry Hills in the evenings, if you have taken a fat wallet. Longrain, for instance, is a trendy and packed bar offering gorgeous cocktails and Thai food. Obviously, it's a cool place to come because there in the corner is British monster chef Gordon Ramsay. We go on for dinner at La Sala, a stylish, fabulous - and packed - Italian restaurant, a jewel in one of Surry Hills' unassuming buildings.

La Sala's Irish co-owner and chef is television celebrity, Darren Simpson.

The lack of vegetarian options is disappointing until the waiter, who has hovered and refilled wine glasses until you have no idea of how much you've drunk, hurries off to get the separate vegetarian menu. The spinach gnocchi was divine.

We head to the gloriously empty Lo Studio bar for an after-dinner cocktail. At 11pm it's way too early for this one to be pumping.

But then we could not pass by the Hotel Hollywood, much more your average pub. It is so jammed that people are spilling out on to the pavement, until the manager locks the door. Some of the more salubrious neighbours complain about the noise, he says.

Inside, the mainly young, hip and beautiful crowd parties. If you want to get picked up, the Hotel Hollywood will not let you down. "This is the real Surry Hills," I'm told.

If you are in Sydney for only a few days, the harbour is not to be missed.

Ten minutes from the hotel is Darling Harbour where the water is a deep green and either side is packed with eateries from the flash to the under A$10 ($11.43) barbecue place. Darling Harbour is a great place to have a beer and to sit and people-watch.

By 4pm the light is amazing and at night the city lights on the water are beautiful.

Circular Quay is a little further along the waterfront and on a sunny day it's great to simply wander - past the Aboriginal group busking for the crowd, past the man playing the trumpet, with the Opera House a cool backdrop.

It is tantalising watching the ferries leave from the quay. They set off as if on a race and converge in the middle, but somehow manage to never collide.

And up close, the Opera House really does look like Dame Edna's glasses.

* Catherine Masters travelled to Sydney courtesy of Vibe Hotels