Halal Tips for Traveler in Melbourne and Sydney

I was enjoyed my last trip to Australia (Melbourne and Sydney specifically) in the winter break. Surprisingly, it is more moslem-friendly in Australia than in Japan. It is very easy to find halal food. There is one event when me and my husband stroll randomly in Sydney and we still could find halal restaurant nearby. I will share my experience finding halal restaurant and prayer room in Melbourne and Sydney. Hopefully it will be useful for moslem traveler. The first part of this article will talk about the prayer room and halal restaurant in Melbourne. Then followed with the Sydney part. By the way, if you interested to read my other article about my detailed itinerary for Melbourne and Sydney, you can read it here.

A. Melbourne

Prayer Room

The first prayer room you might find is the one in Tullamarine Airport. The Prayer Room is located on the Ground Floor – between Terminal 2 and 3, and is open 24/7.

The other praying room I found is the one in Southern Cross Station. It is written in the direction sign. It is located in the same location with passenger lounge. There is no wudu space so you could go to the toilet which is located next to the passenger lounge. The prayer room is clean and quite spacious although the prayer room for man and woman is not separated . Prayer mat and Al-Quran is also available.

I took some pictures of this prayer room as below:

You could also find prayer room nearby through the muslimpro apps. It is the easiest and fastest way to find prayer room.

Halal Restaurant

As I already mentioned before that find halal food in Melbourne and Sydney is not a big deal. If you are planning to visit major tourist attraction, halal food is everywhere! Another good news is the food is served in big portion. Well, at least compare to food portion in Japanese Restaurant, most of the food is served around 1.5 times bigger than the regular size. Me and my husband (our stomach space also) was quite surprised with this fact. We always ended up save half portion of our meal for the next meal time. I remember we was ordered one pan pizza and we can only finish half of it! The food is quite cheap compare to food price in Japan. One large pan pizza is only 30 AUD. Here is the picture:

I recommend Papparich restaurant in QV Building for the best Malaysian food in town! The price is cheap, the portion is large and you could also ask for plastic meal box if you have some leftover and take it home with you.

One useful tips for choosing halal menu is look at the alphabet “H” sign after the name of the menu. I think Australia already familiar with the halal restriction for moslem. I could find similar type of menu written with the alphabet “H” sign in other restaurants. Halal beef menu is rarely find in Japan, therefore I never skip every time the halal beef menu appear in the menu. Below is the example from the Foodcorner in Luna Park Sydney (Their chicken schnitzel burger is exceptional!):

Other information that might be useful is list of halal restaurant. I found it in here: http://www.visitvictoria.com/Regions/Melbourne/Food-and-wine/Restaurants/Halal-restaurants

B. Sydney

Prayer Room

Sydney airport also has prayer room inside the airport building. You could find the comprehensive list of prayer room and halal restaurant here: https://www.zabihah.com/sub/SfloJ4dwoZ?t=r&s=p

Halal Restaurant

Similar to Melbourne, there are many halal restaurants also in Sydney. I remember we plan a visit to Blue Mountains. The location is in the suburb around 2.5 hours from Sydney city center. Fortunately, the halal food is still available there! We have a lunch at Eat270. Here is the menu we ordered:

I believe we will gain several kilos after this trip if consider the size of every meal in Australia (Indeed we gain 3 kilos afterwards!). Well, it is a pleasant experience for having halal food adventure in Australia! Although the taste is not as rich as Indonesian food, but the fact that halal meat is a common thing already a marvelous thing for me. Thank you Australia for the great halal trip experience!