336 Parramatta Road, Stanmore, New South Wales 2048
instagram.com/pantrystory_sydney
Stall at: Market Studio, 131 Booth St, Annandale, New South Wales 2038
airrmade.com/market-studio
On a warm early summer Sunday just before Christmas, Mrs Snot Block & Roll suggested we trek across the harbour to a small hand-made ceramics market that she had run across. Market Studio is a small building in the heart of the sinner city suburb of Annandale, full of ceramics by a handful of different artists, spilling out into stalls on the adjacent footpath.
Also there were a coffee stall, a place selling cakes, and another selling focaccias and hot snacks. The latter turned out to be a stall run by a place called Pantry Story, with its main premises a suburb away in Stanmore. It’s an Asian-inspired bakery, with a dizzying array of Asian fusion pastries and breads. And here at Market Studio today they had a pie warmer with a selection of treats: beef rendang pie, green curry pork sausage rolls, and prawn and chicken sausage rolls!
Although it was only 10 am and I wasn’t really hungry after my breakfast, I absolutely had to try one of these! I chose the green curry pork roll, which was handed to me in a foil-lined paper bag.
It’s not a big sausage roll, but it looks delicious, with golden brown pastry artfully slit on top to give a ridgeback appearance, studded with black sesame seeds. The meat filling peeks tantalisingly out from the ends, and a wonderful aroma of spicy curry comes forth to get your mouth watering.
Wow, this is delicious! The pastry is perfect, light and crispy, not too oily, providing a flaky crunch to contrast with the moist meat filling. The pork is strongly spiced with Thai green curry, aromatic with fresh green herbs, and providing a good hit of chilli. The texture is spot on, firm but yielding to the bite, and juicy without being sloppy. I think there are small shreds of carrot and onion mixed in there too.
The small size could have been a negative, but the sausage roll packs such a flavour punch that any bigger might have run the risk of being too rich to get through. As it was, I finished the roll with a satisfied feeling and wanting to try the prawn and chicken roll, but too full to attempt it on this day. I’ll have to seek out their store in Stanmore one day soon to try it, and hopefully the rendang pie too! I dithered with awarding only 9 points out of 10, but honestly I can find no fault at all in this truly sensational offering.
Green curry pork sausage roll: 10/10