Jetty Village Shopping Centre, 361 Harbour Drive, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450
www.facebook.com/kpaneartisanbakery
Continuing my vacation trip, I got as far north as Coffs Harbour, on a day sojourn out of my accommodation in Port Macquarie. So I was here at lunch time, and keen to find something delicious to eat. A local pointed me towards the Jetty district of the city, where I found a small shopping centre, and K’pané Artisan Bakery. I neglected to take a photo of the exterior or interior, but it basically looked like a generic anonymous small shopping centre bakery, with nothing to distinguish it in any way.
Inside, the savoury menu featured some interesting pies, with a Penang pork tickling my fancy, as well as a pork and fennel sausage roll. There was alas no vanilla slice on offer, so I contented myself with the pie and sausage roll choice. I snuck a seat at a table belonging to the adjacent fish & chip shop and regarded my lunch.
The sausage roll (here displayed sitting atop the pie, as it was the only guaranteed clean surface elevated above the interior of the cardboard tray they came in) looks promising. It has a richly browned pastry crust, flaking into pieces as I manoeuvre it around for a photo, generously topped with poppy seeds. The pastry looks fairly thick, moist, and buttery. The end bits of the meat filling are crusty from baking, and display similarly generous amounts of shredded carrot. It looks enticing.
It doesn’t disappoint. The pastry is a little oily, but delightfully crisp and flaky. Honestly, the best pastry needs to have a bit of butteriness to it to ensure prodigious amounts of flake, so I don’t really mind my fingers getting greasy as long as the pastry tastes good, and this does. The filling is deliciously moist and nicely seasoned, with lots of shredded carrot, fresh green herbs, and a nice fennel flavour. Wow. This is really very good.
The pie too was delicious. Genuinely marvellous, with a crisp crust and a mout-watering spicy Penang curry filling with generous chunks of meat and vegetables. Both savouries were miles ahead of the pie and sausage roll I had back at Heatherbrae’s Pies the day before. They were so good that after a bit of sightseeing around the Coffs Harbour Jetty area, I returned to K’pané for something sweet. Not able to have a vanilla slice, I selected a lemon meringue tart.
And let me tell you, this was excellent too. The shop may be hidden on the parking lot side of a dingy run-down shopping centre, but this bakery is the real deal, and if you’re in Coffs Harbour you need to check it out. Apparently they also have a second outlet in another place in town.
Pork and fennel sausage roll: 9/10
Bonus Penang pork pie: 9/10
Bonus lemon meringue tart: 9/10