Best Lunch Spots in Surry Hills | Butter, MLK Deli, Lode & Yochi

Name: Best Lunch Spots in Surry Hills | Butter, MLK Deli, Lode & Yochi
Uploaded: 2026-07-20T03:18:57+00:00
Duration: 13 min 34 s
Channel: Man of Many

00:00So here on Crown Street in the heart of Surrey Hills I'm going to show you four

00:03of my favorite lunch spots. We're gonna get a doughnut, we're gonna get fried

00:06chicken, we're gonna get ramen, a sandwich, some frozen yogurt. I'm gonna

00:10take you guys along so let's go get some lunch.

00:15While we're walking through Surrey, for one it's bloody loud. It's like the foodie

00:19heart of Sydney. You look at like any best restaurant list, look at ours. Most

00:24places are Surrey Hills. It kind of spans from like Central Station, up the hill,

00:29out back towards Hyde Park. It's full of like all the best restaurants. So we've

00:34been coming to Butter Ramen or Butter in Sydney for years now. It's actually the

00:38first place we filmed Monday Munchies. The vibe is very much like hip-hop, sneakers,

00:43fried chicken. It's like a really cool hangout spot. We come here on Fridays

00:46mostly but it's also a great lunch spot. That's why we're here today. So I want

00:50Julian to talk us through what we're eating because this is the OG. That's it.

00:54Thank you for coming in. So we'll go to the Bergs first. We've got our Cheezus

00:58on from day one. Chicken cheese, honey mustard. It's got good weight. Crunch test.

01:03It's really simple, full flavoured stuff. I don't like to do crazy over the top

01:08things. It's just like put, you know, three elements to kind of a plate and

01:11just make it tasty. Then we have the master spice which is a spicy mayo,

01:15pickles and cheese. We have to talk about how good these elements are because like

01:18look at bread. Perfect squish. Little pickle. Big ass chicken piece. Double cheese. It's like

01:23perfect ratio. Then our famous fried chicken ramen. Simple chicken base broth.

01:28That's like the tare is a depth of flavour. Thicker style noodles. And obviously our

01:34piece of fried chicken. It's still crisp. And it absorbs all that crazy stuff that

01:39he's putting in his broth. Simplistic elegance at its best.

01:44Like we're barely touching the service here. I don't want to finish eating. Like I

01:47want to keep eating all this stuff, but we have more places to hit. So let's go to the

01:52next one.

01:53Campbell Street. MLK is right there. Blue building. You can't miss it. We're going to

01:57have this sandwich. We've had a lot of great sandwiches in Sydney, South Darlene. I've

02:02even had Hugo's in Melbourne, but this is new. New to Surrey Hills.

02:07MLK Deli. We're a stone sword from butter. We're here to try the Uzbek sandwich. I'm a

02:11sandwich hunter. I found this spot on Google Maps. It's brand new. I don't think I've

02:15seen any videos on it yet, but I want to show you guys. So it's kind of in like a

02:19little bit of a quieter street in Surrey Hills. It's like still on Main Road, but

02:22it's not. On Crown Street. It's a little like homely vibe. Really good gourmet

02:26sandwiches though, which is why we're here. What's that? Oh, what do we got?

02:30Oh, this is the brisket. This is the six hour brisket. A little teaser.

02:35Damn. That's soft. It's like that good borderline between brisket and like corned beef.

02:39We found the M in MLK, Myra, owner, to come talk about the venue and talk about this

02:45sandwich because I want to eat it, but we've got to hear about the venue first.

02:47When did we open? MLK opened just shy of four months ago. We opened Easter long

02:53weekend, which was a pretty ballsy time to open, but we're all here for the risk.

02:57The reason we opened was just to do really good yummy sandwiches with a little bit

03:01of an ethnic twist. Myself being half Afghan, half Uzbek, I thought it would be

03:05fun to play on those flavors, bring something new to the palate because I felt

03:09like maybe those flavors hadn't been as explored in Surrey Hills. I also live here and

03:13I've lived here for a long time, so I really wanted the community to be here and

03:17and it to be built around Surrey Hills as well. I don't know, what else can I tell you?

03:21We are looking at, this is the sandwich that my mom thought I was too crazy to put on

03:26the menu. This is the chicken that I had growing up. It is MJ's chicken, MJ being my

03:31mom. She's a saucy messy sandwich and I let everyone know that. I'm gonna wait for

03:35you to try it and then you tell me the rest.

03:36I've never had a Uzbek sandwich before. I'm going in.

03:41I can't tell you too much about the spices, but all I can tell you is that there is a

03:45tropical fruit in there, in the sauce. Okay. I'm just trying to pick what the secret is.

03:52But I've got a shout out to this bread because, also can we shout out to the chicken?

03:55Because it's not like, look at it. It's so soft. It could be brisket. If you tell me this is

04:01brisket,

04:01ooh, that's got a good spice.

04:06As someone who's never had an Uzbek sandwich before, I'm impressed, but also inquisitive.

04:12Yes.

04:12I want to know what I'm having.

04:13You are having chicken that has been slow cooked. There has been a really, really vegetable

04:20packed spice that has been simmered down and mixed in with the chicken while it's been slow

04:25cooked. So a lot of the flavor actually comes from there. And that's a very Uzbek style way

04:29of cooking. Uzbek cooking is heavy on the proteins. We like our meat. But having said

04:33that, we implement the vegetables into the sauces and into the base of the flavors.

04:38You know, it's been a good meal when you've just spilled shit all over your leg.

04:42Aww.

04:43So we're heading to Lode, because I've heard they've got a $20 pie, which we'll find out.

04:49Is it worth 20 bucks?

04:50So we've just arrived at Lode Pies and Pastries on Crown Street in Surry Hills. We're going to

04:54try the $20 meat pie.

05:01We have our signature pie. It's a Lode Piedivier. Caramelized pork, Stalige mushrooms, and chicken

05:07gravy.

05:08So this is the most popular?

05:09This one and the bagu, the bagu beef and mushroom, they're the most popular. We sell more of the

05:16beef. We don't make as many. We do only limited pieces because we're going to keep up. So that's

05:23why we always sell out. This is intense labor.

05:28So how long does it take to make one?

05:30Probably we do all different components, probably three or four days. From the morning, we start

05:35to assemble it. It gets ready by the time we go home. So we always do one day ahead. Even

05:43just the glazing, we need to glaze twice since the race. The first egg washing is to dry before

05:49we can apply another coat. Otherwise, you don't get this nice shine. Even all the scoring,

05:53it's like all different steps. My pleasure. You guys want one more? We made two for you.

06:04We came for a pie. Let's take this thing down the road and get smashed. This is what happens

06:11when you hit up a pastry shop at the end of the day. John's breaking the fourth wall.

06:17Hey, we'll just do it. This is a nice wall.

06:24$20 meat pie. So we've ducked into a back alley to see this pie and try it out. I'll tell

06:31you what,

06:31when he said, when the chef said that this is a three or four day process, my jaw dropped. But

06:38at

06:38the same time, it's not necessarily surprising because look at that. If there was ever a $20

06:42meat pie, that's what it would look like. It's one of these foods that's quite funny because it's like,

06:47it's a viral food, but it's actually so impressive. It's not like those dirty donuts that we had that

06:53time. It's not just like a smash burger. This is like three or four days of just love, effort,

07:01practice. When I was, when I first tried this, I had no idea what to do with this because I

07:05wasn't

07:05looking on social media, but you actually pour this sauce down the chimney. There's a nice little

07:10spout there and that is like genius. I really get concerned when people just spray tomato sauce all

07:16over the top of their thing and just eat it. It just looks wrong, but injecting it inside is the

07:21way.

07:21I'm one of those people that will take the top off a pie, spray the sauce inside, put it,

07:25put the top back on the pie. So this is elite. This is a step up.

07:32All right. There's definitely a technique to doing this, but all right, let's try it.

07:48I think it's meant to sit in this well.

07:54Oh, it's going in. Come on, go in. I don't think I should stick my finger in there.

08:02Questionable. Whoa, that is good. It's crazy because this place is like, it's one of these

08:08places that it's like restaurant food in like a shop front. It's like a cafe, but it's all

08:15restaurant quality food. Like these pastries. We've done chicken crunch tests, but this might

08:22be the king of the crunch test. I never thought a pie would be the king of the crunch test,

08:26but

08:27let's find out. Crunch test on the $20 load meat pie.

08:39That is so good. And I haven't even got the meat.

08:45Why is pastry like the best thing on earth? It's soft. It's not, it's like crispy without

08:51being going, but I want to crack into the meat.

09:00I reckon if you serve this to average tradie, they're just, their mind would explode.

09:05I'll just blow. Get a look at the inside of that thing.

09:11And I don't think we've got any napkins, which is classic. I just want to drink the sauce.

09:19I hope the chef's not watching this, but I almost want to have some of the filling on its own,

09:24but

09:24I don't really have a fork. It's um, you know what? Look away. Yeah, please blow this out.

09:34It's something like the filling is, it's like premium, right? But it's like something your grandma

09:38would make. The pork is like salty. It's just classic. It's pork. It's delicious. And when you put it with

09:43all

09:43these special ingredients and stuff and all these little veggies, just elevates it. So the thing

09:49about a $20 meat pie is it's not necessarily better than your like 10 to $14 meat pies, your classic

09:57traditional Aussie beef pies, your wagas, your red wine juice, whatever you want to say. But if you were

10:02going to create a $20 meat pie, this is what it would be. It's beautiful. It's like a work of

10:06art.

10:07It takes days to prepare it. And I'm glad it exists because it's probably worth every cent.

10:23So this has been the Lode Potivier meat pie. It's worth every cent, but it's $20. It is like an

10:28out-of-body experience having this thing. Believe the hype. It's one of these things where you just

10:33got to believe it. It's delicious. It's amazing. It's like nothing else I've had. We've got one more

10:36place to go. And I was like, let's do dessert. We've actually already had a butter donut, but

10:40we've got to go to Yochi. I mean, Crown Street, Yochi, it goes off. If you're in Sydney, you'll know,

10:44it's just like 40 minute waits on Friday nights, but you don't have to pull me there. I'm going to

10:48be honest. I want to smash the Yochi. So let's go. So all these are like the same size,

10:55but you just load it up as much as you want. I think we're going to go pretty big today.

10:59I like to start base layer of vanilla.

11:08I don't think you meant to do that. We've got chocolate soil and like just crumble.

11:14I'm going hardcore today. These don't weigh much.

11:20I'm going to go $20.

11:22Not bad. $16. I've gone chocolate here with the chocolate soil, M&Ms, and Nutella.

11:30Why is it so good? We'll try the butterscotch. I've gone a bit different this time. I've had

11:34crumble and a bit of Nutella. I'm always about vanilla chocolate butterscotch. They're my like

11:41top three. Butterscotch is kind of too much though. I'm talking like a bit of a Yochi master,

11:45but it's kind of embarrassing how often I come in. So it's been a fantastic, what time is it?

11:50We've been out like a good three hours, lunch crawling, sorry hills. We're sitting at Yochi,

11:55finishing the day just how I like it. Thinking back though, we started with that absolutely

12:01amazing butter chicken ramen. The OG too. I wanted to make sure we were back for the OG,

12:06because the OG is just like phenomenal. We hit up that. We've got a donut,

12:09smash a donut, went to MLK, had a chat to Myra. It's so great to see some new places opening

12:13up

12:13in Surrey Hills, especially sandwich places that stand out. There's so many sandwich places now,

12:18so many like chicken stintel sandwiches, so many viral sandwiches. But it's clear that Myra doesn't

12:22really care necessarily about that sort of stuff. She just wants to make great sandwiches and really

12:26just feed people and see people enjoy the food. $20 meat pie. I never thought I would think a $20

12:30meat pie is worth it, but a lot of time and effort went into it. Three to four days. And

12:35honestly,

12:35I can see why. It's like beautiful. It was stunning. Was it like better than a $14, $10 meat pie

12:42from like

12:42a nice bakery? Maybe, up for debate. But I can see why it's worth $20. It's a different experience. It's

12:49like an

12:49amazing work of art. And it's cool that these things exist. And we need to give credit where

12:53credit's due because it takes a lot of skill to make that. And of course, we can't end anywhere

12:58else in Surrey Hills but Yochi. It's just like the nightcap. It can be your breakfast if you really

13:05want. It can be your lunch after you've had everything else. You can just squeeze in a little

13:09bit frozen. You're going to have so much fun to customize it and it tastes amazing. So this has been

13:13the best lunch spots in Surrey Hills. My favorite spots. Was there a place we missed? Is there

13:17somewhere we need to go back to? Let us know in the comments. And also let us know,

13:21is there a place near you that we should check out for a lunch crawl, a drink crawl, a bar

13:25crawl?

13:25Let us know down in the comments. And make sure you like and subscribe to Man and Many to get

13:30more

13:30of these amazing food videos we're creating.

Best Lunch Spots in Surry Hills | Butter, MLK Deli, Lode & Yochi

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