Madam Char Char

Great burger. the Foodie quality blue meat and great baked potatoes and pumpkin to rep layout chips in any combo!

I stopped in for a tasty and healthful trio of side salads and the quarter chicken while taking a break from shopping on Crown St in Surry Hills.
Clean and flavorful, a great option for lunch or dinner!

My friend and I were craving for a big bowl of wholesome and filling salad and as cruised down Crown St we spotted ‘gourmet salads’ and thought we’d give Madame Char Char a whirl… No expectations but when we walked in we realised the universe had answered our taste buds desires.
Massive tubs of gourmet wholesome healthy salads to our delight! Issue we had were to decide which ones we could fill the small, medium or large bowls. I chose a medium filled with Pearl Barley & Shredded Chicken & Pomegranate, Quinoa & Roasted Eggplant, Sweet Potato & Roasted Cauliflower Salad… I tried some of my friends Dahl Curry and it was divine, smooth and creamy!
But if you’re up for some home styled goodness there is roast chicken with the good ol’ usual suspects of potatoes, carrots and greens or a few burger choices to fuel that hungry appetite.
There’s also a Phoenix fridge with all the organic juices & sparkling fruit juices to wash it all down with.
Decently priced for some good grub in this food haven!

We were walking down Crown Street mulling over what to eat for dinner as we had both been feeling really quite blah and unhealthy over recent food choices. Walking past Madam Char Char and peeking into to see the beetroot salad totally won me over. I ended up ordering the medium size meal of the 10 hour slow cooked beef (yum yum!) with 2 salads, the beetroot and quinoa salad. I think I overdid it though! Next time definitely a small as medium was slightly too much for me… unfortunately I couldn’t stop eating and polished the whole thing off as it was so delicious. I did end up feeling a little stuffed for the rest of the evening. Head in if you’re after some healthy eating!

Yay! THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!
This is what I was thinking as I chowed down on my plate of homey, filling salads and quarter chicken. This place is pitched and reviewed as if it’s a health food option, so after my only other recent experience with health food (ick, eww), I was skeptical and somewhat averse to trying it. But passing by the counter window every so often on Crown Street, you peek inside and see people’s plates piled with yummy looking veg, chicken, and burgers, and trying it will make you a believer. This place is proof that food can be good for you and still taste good.
I had a quarter chicken with gravy and three side salads including broccoli, pasta, and carrots. The salads are all far more gourmet than I’m describing them, but I can’t even remember all the ingredients if I tried. Some off the top of my head included pine nuts, lemon, currants, etc. Partner’s cous cous had currants in it too. It’s small elements like that which add flavor to a basic starch and I think are lacking at other health food eateries. Each ingredient was uniquely identifiable too, as in, not mushed together into a congealed blob and presented in a bowl as an indecipherable stew (although my memory fails me and I’m not sure which each was as of writing this review).
If there were one complaint about this place, it’s that most things (with the possible exception of the burgers) are premade and sitting in the counter dishes to serve. As a result, most items were lukewarm-​to-​cool in temperature, including the chicken and gravy. This leads to the meal feeling like a plate of holiday leftovers, like after Christmas or Thanksgiving (American holiday, but surely you all can think of some TV sitcom episode for reference and know what I mean). The prices are reasonable though, so even if they appear as leftovers the taste is worth the cost.

Delicious food, absolutely delightful service. My friend and I shared a family-​sized bowl of all the salads on offer. We couldn’t finish it but boy did we try! The food is filling yet healthy and fresh. Will definitely return!

When your into fitness, you want to eat healthy, nutritious and delicious food. At Madam Char Char that’s exactly what you get, chicken that’s cooked to perfection and to go with it, a wide variety of tasty, healthy salads.
It’s such a struggle to find a place like this in Sydney and now that it’s finally found, it’ll have regular visits from me :)

Certain things in life are unqualifiedly great. Deep-​fried foods, for example … or Unilocal.And then there are certain things in life that are great, but only really because our expectations were low to begin with, and they managed (unexpectedly) to exceed them. I call this GFWII = good for what it is. Porn that actually manages to excite is GFWII (as an example), but obviously not the real deal.
Madam Char Char is like that for me. It’s GFWII, which is healthy food made from seasonal, unadulterated ingredients that actually still tastes decent. Is it tagliatelle bathed in bone marrow and topped with foie gras and white truffle? No, but you could do much worse in the salad /​healthy foods genre. My personal favorite is the pickled beetroot and chickpea, with yogurt and pumpkin seeds. It’s got a generous tang, isn’t too beet-​y, and has a fun mix of textures from the seeds and chickpeas. I also like the pearl barley with shredded chicken, which is surprisingly filling, has a nice toothsome quality, and gets bursts of flavor from pomegranate arils and grapes. The green beans, peas and broccoli with mint, feta and currents is also good, but you definitely know you’re eating your fiber with this one. On the braised side, I usually get a half-​half of the chicken meatballs with sweet corn (very moist, probably from the use of dark meat) and chicken tagine, which has a lovely spiced tomato base and the zip of preserved lemon and cinnamon. You can mix and match various salads and/​or braised meats in a single container. They’ll even let you sample before you choose which ones you want.
A few complaints: pricing (in addition to being on the high end for salads /​prepared foods) is a bit strange. Doing «all meat» for any braised dishes (which by default comes with ½ brown rice or cous cous) is an extra $ 3. While a surcharge for more of the premium ingredients is not itself weird, the fact that the charge is the same regardless of the container size you pick is a bit odd, since you’d think you’d ought to pay more going all-​meat in a large size container than a small. Also, the braised dish is $ 0.50 more expensive than the salad of equivalent size for every portion size EXCEPT family, where the family salad is $ 1.50 more than the family braised dish; what’s up with that? And I have to say, I gave the roast chicken a go once, but was sorely disappointed by how dry it was. The pasture that free-​range chicken clucked around on must have been a desert, because it was quite tough to eat.
Overall, though, GFWII: fast, wholesome food that you won’t feel the slightest bit guilty afterwards for having eaten.

This place is so good its kind of bad. What do they put on those fries? Its addictive, and my waist doesn’t need encouragement.
The burgers here are delicious, I’ve only tried the chicken ones, but friends who have eaten lamb ones agree that the meat is always cooked so tender, much better than you’d expect at a ‘burger place’.
The salads are different and delicious too, some of the braised meals are yummy (chicken meatballs). The roasts here aren’t my thing but they seem to be popular. It’s not the cheapest place but I think you are paying for quality here. Staff always seem to be friendly and more than once I’ve thought ‘thats some cool music they are playing.‘
This place is literally around the corner from me so I’m there a bit, check it out — totes yum.

I love the salad here! We stopped by for a quick bite while we were waiting for a dinner table and we almost wanted to skip dinner and dine here. The variety of salads are great — many types of vegetables and seasonings and very healthy. Not a fake salad place that uses so much mayonnaise you might as well be eating junk food. I wish this place was near my office, I’d be quite happy to have lunch here everyday.

Located near the corner of Crown and Campbell St, this place is great as a primer for a good night out or a quick bite to eat.
The quick take on this place is, if you either can’t travel to Petersham for real Portuguese chicken, don’t care less for a Woolworths ready made whole chicken takeout, or have enough energy to boil/​toss/​mix/​steam/​dress an organic, low gi, gluten free or lactose free salad; then this place is it.
I won’t review the food, but I liked it. I’ve only tried the chickens and the salads. For what you get at a place like this though, it is a little pricey. Convenience has its price and when your meal is shared with a friend, lost in conversation and with the anticipation of going out, I don’t think price really matters too much. There’s not many healthy fast food alternatives, but given the choice between other fast food outlets then I’d choose this place. Lastly, you’ve got to try the chips.
The service is decent and the table arrangements are sensible. They’ve added seating on the footpath.
I’ve not encountered any rude staff, but this is probably due to my rather exuberant and overpowering positive demeanor when seeing a selection of salads, including quinoa!

The burgers are pretty good but usually I go for the chicken and salads here.
You can get a whole, half or quarter chicken and then pick three sides. Marinated herb and spice chicken with lentils and a herb dressing and yoghurt is a good pick. Also like Roast pumpkin and cous cous with feta, walnuts, pomegranate and mint yoghurt dressing. To name a couple… noms!
The only bad thing is that the staff is sometimes rude. It’s not all of them, but it’s happened multiple times/​different people. Such a shame. Incidents like that always leave a funny taste in your mouth even if the food is delicious ;)

The Hollywood actor Rod Steiger once said (it was, specifically, before he passed), «Not everything is supposed to make sense.» I, at various times, find this statement comforting and certainly no less when I think of this very popular eat-​in and take-​away healthier food joint. I just about hate it. The food pretty much sucks (no offense guys). Everything looks healthy but nothing that I’ve tried tastes good. The salads — like the quinoa with roast eggplant, parsley, toasted nuts, mint, and currents or the chickpea salad — are a particular sore point for me. The chicken is fine. I haven’t had the chips here but I’m sure they’re particularly super-​fine. And admittedly, the brownie on the counter looked like it could very possibly win a brownie competition. But otherwise, I’m not feeling this place. And you know, I’m like you. I avoid oil too. So that clearly is not the problem.

This is a very unique business as what feels like a take away chicken and salad shop is actually quite devine cuisine. I had the braised Lamb kofta with 2 salads and a sweet ($ 5) and it came to $ 17 so they are reasonable. I only got the medium size tub too. But the flavours that bounced around my mouth — ooh la la — it was really magnificent — I was really hungry and the staff were encouraging of my appetite as I ran my eyes across the different salads available, lentils, sweet potato, beetroot, brocoli, cous cous — so all your Aussie fav’s. How this shop is different, as there is a very caual walk in walk out feel about it, although you can sit in and eat, there is not much place. The salads and braised dishes are sitting in a glass cabinet where you can select and they serve for you. The food here is really seasoned well, mint, garlic, cinnamon and a couple of secret touches included, really does make for a little snipe into some great fusion dishes. They cater for functions too.

After many attempts to find that amazing burger in Sydney, I’ve stumbled across Madam Char Char, which up until yesterday, I thought was an up market chicken & salad bar. Never the less I tried The Little Piggy pork burger.
The menu read ‘Slow cooked pork, corn purée, grated apple, currants, aioli, rocket & Nans relish’ $ 13. In my mind that sounds juicy, salty, and fresh with a mix of textures and sweet salty blends. It looked pretty good, although the plate was bare, and there wasn’t any effort in presentation. I dug into the burger, and the pork was not as juicy as slow cooked could have been, I couldn’t taste or see any corn relish, and the grated apple were thicker slivers of apple, which would have been better if they were grated. The bun was crispy and soft which was a plus, although for $ 13 it wasn’t what I expected.
On a whole, ⁶⁄₁₀. The salads looked amazing, and they aslo sold their famous Portuguese chicken.

This is the kind of place that I wish could set up shop in my kitchen and supply lunches for the rest of my life. I’ve only ever tried the salads from Madam Char Char, but with nearly a dozen to choose from on any given day, why diverge? $ 10.50 will get you a medium size in which you can choose a couple different salad types. Because I’m a color junkie, I usually go with a) Baby Beetroot, rocket, basil, avocado and feta, b) Roast pumpkin and cous cous with feta, walnuts, pomegranate and mint yoghurt dressing and c) Quinoa with roast eggplant, parsley, toasted nuts, mint and currents with a green tahini dressing. Each salad is fresh, flavorful and healthy. If I ever met the Madam herself, I would curtsy uncontrollably in thanks.

I love a good burger. I mean… L-​O-​V-​E!!! *drools a little*
Good thing Madam Char Char does awesome burgers. In this instance awesome does not equate well with cheap… but if you are after a substantial, juicy, fresh burger… look no further.
When I was there last I ordered the Tradesman’s Burger (which is basically a burger with the lot). The burger was SO juicy I had to mop it up with the last bit of the bun. The fried egg was perfectly cooked so that on the slightest bit of pressure the precious yolk covered my bite mark with oozing yolky goodness.
When you walk in here you’ll see a huge display filled with a tonne of different salads (which I hear are also not the cheapest), but when I saw the range of burgers they offer, everything else seemed less important. If you are in the area this place is really worth trying out.