Koshari Korner puts Egypt's national dish on the map

The national dish of Egypt, koshari is made up of many elements, including spiced tomato sauce, macaroni, lentils, chickpeas, rice and deeply fried onions. It is deeply delicious, but it's also a dish best left to the professionals, such as Walid El Sabbagh who runs Koshari Korner.

It's here that he draws on a recipe from his grandmother, whose kitchen in Alexandria, Egypt, is where El Sabbagh learnt how to cook. His version of koshari is flavoured with garlic vinegar, topped with fried onion flakes and comes with extra chilli oil if you need some heat. But it's already punchy and satisfying without it.

El Sabbagh didn't set out to sell koshari in Australia, he's a marine engineer by trade. But when he arrived in Sydney in 2015, he couldn't find any work in that field, despite five years of international experience. People only wanted to hire someone with locally acquired skills.

After being advised by the NSW government's Small Biz Connect program, El Sabbagh came up with the idea for Koshari Korner. He first launched it as a market stall at an Eid event, and it gained a permanent location last May in Marrickville.

It has the compact appearance of a food truck, but El Sabbagh has packed a lot into its small footprint, with a cleverly maximised kitchen that serves up an extensive menu of Egyptian street food, including falafel that's super crunchy on the outside, while impressively soft and herb-green on the inside.

Unlike other parts of the Middle East (where falafel is formed from mashed chickpeas), Koshari Korner's version is made with broad beans, which is how they do it in El Sabbagh's homeland.

Add some to your koshari order – or better still, get a mixed platter, so it's served with wonderfully fried eggplant, bracing pickles, green salad, tahini dip and a stack of flatbread you'll happily envelope around these ingredients.

Koshari Korner also serves ful, another popular Egyptian staple made from mashed broad beans. It's translated from his grandmother's recipe and, like everything else on the menu, it's vegan. El Sabbagh didn't engineer this to be trendy – it actually reflects how he grew up eating.

"Egyptian street food is already vegan," he says. "Meat is very expensive."

That said, he's tweaked certain dishes to make them plant-based – his tomato-rich shakshuka comes with tofu instead of eggs and his vegan cashew baklava relies on coconut butter and a light syrup to create that trademark finger-coating stickiness, without being too intensely sweet.

The drinks are well-modulated, too: the Turkish coffee is like a good filter brew that's spiced with cardamom, while his rosewater hot chocolate is floral and delicious without being overloaded with sugar.

Koshari Korner's lo-fi set-up might leave you slightly exposed – and with the odd raindrop landing in your coffee – as you dine in its outdoor seating area, but it doesn't matter as El Sabbagh is incredibly personable.

(But should you prefer eating his dukkah-seasoned hot chips on your couch while wearing sweatpants, you can get his food home-delivered, too.)

People will travel great distances to eat at Koshari Korner, with diners arriving from the Blue Mountains and Wollongong. It's not surprising: the food is good and it means something – it's a tribute to El Sabbagh's grandmother, even though she's passed away.

"When I cook, I remember her," he says. "When you do something with love, people remember it."

The low-down

Koshari Korner

Where: Addison Road Community Centre, 142 Addison Road, Marrickville, kosharikorner.com

Main attraction: Excellent Egyptian street food with a vegan focus

Must-try dish: The signature koshari – load it up with extra falafel and fried eggplant or go for the mixed platter.

Instaworthy dish: The mixed platter or the gloriously sticky vegan baklava

Drinks: From $3 for espresso to $8 for Turkish delight smoothie with almond milk

Prices: From $2.50 for vegan cashew baklava to $22 for a mixed platter with the works: koshari, falafel, salad and pickles, tahini and flatbread.

Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 8am to 4pm