Belle: One thing I love about living in Western Sydney is that you are surrounded by a range of ethnic clusters offering a range of food from around the world right at your front door. Auburn is a suburb famous for it’s Turkish and Middle Eastern Food. I’ve always wanted to check out Mado Cafe after doing a little ‘exploring’ on Foursquare for dessert places nearby. I was reading about their sticky ice cream which caught my attention.

The Lamstock herd decided to go here on a Friday night after dinner for a late night dessert feast.

Mado Cafe is situated along one of the main streets of Auburn. There is an ice cream counter at the front of the store that offers takeaway ice cream for their customers.

Walking into Mado Cafe was like walking into someone’s living room. The cafe is furnished with heavy dark stained timber dining tables and chairs. The walls are decorated with traditional Turkish ornaments and clothing. There is a warm ambiance in the store and the busy Friday night crowd added to this atmosphere.

When it came to deciding what to eat, we were all like kids in a candy store and wanted to try everything on the menu. It was fun wanting to try everything new to us. We ended up trying four drinks and three dessert dishes.

First up the Turkish Coffee ($3). In this tiny cup is one powerful hit of coffee. The coffee is thick with hints of coffee grind and is very bitter. Too bitter for my liking but Ando enjoyed it.

The Apple Tea ($3.5) is more up my alley. It was light and refreshing. I could of went for another cup. Delicious.

We were drawn to trying out Salep ($4) after reading about it on their menu. This drink is made with the tuber roots of the orchid flower and is supposed to have an aphrodisiac affect. The drink is white, thick and creamy and also very sweet. It has a unique taste to it but I could only have it in small portions.

In the spirit of trying everything new we also ordered Ayran ($3), a drink we usually see in the fridges of kebab stores but have never tried. Ayran is a cold yogurt drink which is slightly salty. I am not a fan of it and I believe it is more of an acquired taste.

Moving onto the main dessert, the one thing to try is their famous Kesme Maras ($7.5) and on the menu it states that it is “the only ice cream in the world eaten with a knife and fork”. This dessert was originally made by the people of Maras by mixing the snow layers accumulated from the caves and pits on the outskirts of the legendary Ahir Mountain. The Kesme Maras is combination of honey, milk and salep. And the menu doesn’t lie you can use a knife and fork. It is a totally new experience of eating ice cream. It is nice and sweet with interesting flavours from the salep. I would definitely come back here for this dessert. 

Their skicky Mado Ice Cream is another must try. We ordred their Mixed Sweet Scoop plate ($16) which you get a choice of four sweets and three scoops of ice cream. We chose the sour cherry, black mulberry and caramel flavour. Their ice cream has a nice smooth and almost chewy texture. It was very enjoyable and I would want to go back to try their other flavours. And lastly you can not go wrong with ordering the classic sweets. Yum. These sweets are addictive!

And lastly we tried Kazandibi ($5.50), a charred pudding. This stretchy sweet rice texture was interesting. But I could only have a few mouthful of this dessert.

I am glad we found this little cafe so close to home. It is definitely a place I will be coming back to.

63 Auburn Road, Auburn, NSW 2144

(02) 9643 5299