Taiwanese dessert cafs and drink shops, Malaysian Nonya eateries, Korean BBQ joints, Vietnamese pho spots, Japanese noodle bars, Thai caf-bars with hawker stands, a handful of shopping malls brimming with Asian fashion boutiques selling teensy little frocks of the kind common in Bangkok and Tokyo, as well as Malaysian shoes, Korean music stores, Thai hairdressers, Balinese spas, and Chinese herbalists, along with some of the best Asian supermarkets we've seen anywhere, and big busy food halls where you'll find everything from big bowls of curry laksa and ramen to sushi and char kuay teow. The diversification of Chinatown began in the 1970s, following the arrival of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam and Cambodia, in the 1980s with Chinese from Hong Kong, and in the 1990s with Malaysian, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Singaporean, and Thai students arriving to study in Sydney. The wonderful diversity aside, what we most love about Sydney's 'Chinatown' is that it's an authentic, living-breathing Asian-Australian community. It's predominantly Asian-Australians running the businesses, going to university, and eating, drinking and shopping in this part of the city. This means it's an area of the city that's always alive, from early in the morning when Asian stallholders open for business at Paddy's Markets to late at night when BBQ King is still dishing up its delicious plates of BBQ pork and duck. And there aren't too many Chinatowns outside of Asia that you can say that about in the world. OUR PICKS: CHINATOWN Chinese Garden of Friendship Darling Harbour; southern end, adjacent