Category Archives: city

Homestyle Bakery, Mosman

783 Military Rd, Mosman, New South Wales

Having already procured lunch from elsewhere, I decided a dessert was in order, and found Homestyle Bakery on the busy main street of Mosman.

Homestyle Bakery

This is one of the anonymous shopfront bakeries with functional but perfunctory ageing steel and glass sliding doors that are ubiquitous in suburbs crying out for a little touch of urban renewal to spruce them up. It’s operated by a Vietnamese woman who serves me with a minimum of fuss, as I photograph the tray of offerings that bears the label “French vanilla sliced”.

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Hellenic Bakery and Cakes, Marrickville

371 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville, New South Wales
www.hellenicbakerymarrickville.com.au

I was on my way home from a business function in an unfamiliar neighbourhood when I stumbled across Hellenic Bakery and Cakes, just a stone’s throw from Marrickville railway station. Peering into the unlikely looking 1990s semi-brutalist concrete exterior, I discovered an Aladdin’s cave of wondrous treasures.

Hellenic Bakery

Mounds of Greek pastries and cakes filled display counters that rose above eye level on three sides of the dimly lit store: baklava, kataifi, poura, galaktobouriko, Greek shortbread. Amongst these are more diverse wares: cannoli, eclairs, macarons, lamingtons, tiramisu, tarts, and all manner of cakes. In the centre of the room was a table laden heavily with freshly baked bread and buns. Anything and everything looked incredibly tempting, but my eyes fell upon a golden radiance emanating from one corner of this treasure pile. A tray of humble vanilla slices beckoned, promising release of the genie of deliciousness if I would but rub some coins in my pocket and hand them over to the elderly Greek woman who was tending the counter.

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58 1/2 Espresso, Sydney International Airport

Sydney Airport Terminal 1, international departure lounge, Sydney, New South Wales
Sydney Airport website listing

Stuck in the airport waiting for a flight leaving late in the evening is a bad place to be. You know you’re going to get a meal on the plane that you’ve already paid for, but it won’t be until well after your normal dinner time, and you’re starting to get hungry. And the only thing available is airport food outlets.

Cafe 58 1/2

I felt the need for a snack to tide me over and help kill the time, and I spotted a literal pile of sausage rolls behind a glass counter display at this little cafe between gates 58 and 59. It’s called 58 1/2 Espresso – oh, I get it! Very clever. Hopefully the sausage rolls will be at least as entertaining, as I take the plunge and fork over the typical airport gouging price of $5.50 for one.

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The Cake Man, Lane Cove

Shop 5A, 23-25 Burns Bay Rd, Lane Cove NSW
www.thecakeman.com.au

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Looking up a local bakery to go for lunch, I had originally intended to go to The Pottery Green bakery at Lane Cove. Upon arriving, they didn’t have any vanilla slices, so I went for a walk and found The Cake Man instead. This is a place occupying both sides of an entire arcade between the pedestrian mall and the parking lot at Lane Cove, a locality in the northern suburbs of Sydney. They have a take-away cafe with a few dining tables, a separate fancy cake shop, a restaurant and wine bar, plus their actual bakery and kitchens at this location.

The sausage roll and vanilla slice were described exactly thus by little plaques in the display cabinet and pie warmer – although there was also a “caramelised mille feuille” which looked tempting. The server requested I took a seat at the tables outside, and the items were bought out to me on little plates with serviettes and cutlery.

The Cake Man

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Rustique, Mosman

920 Military Road, Mosman, New South Wales

I’d taken a Wednesday off work, and decided to head out for lunch. I took a drive to the suburb of Mosman, which has a long main street with dozens of shops and cafes. Unfortunately my first choice for lunch had just sold out of sausage rolls when I arrived – the man immediately before me had bought the last two! So I wandered in search of another bakery for my lunch.

Rustique

I found Rustique, sitting on the corner of Military Road and Raglan Street. The sign proclaimed it to be a “bakery patisserie cafe”, which sounds good. Mosman being a posh suburb, I expected it to be a bit fancy inside, but it was very standard bakery-cafe sort of decor, a bit tired looking even, as though overdue for a renovation. Furthermore, even though there was a fairly large selection of cakes, they didn’t have a vanilla slice! I decided to try a sausage roll and a pie, and seek a slice elsewhere.

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Sweet Infinity, Sydney

Shop 18, Strand Arcade, 412-414 George St, Sydney, New South Wales
sweetinfinity.com.au

This is a tiny cafe in the upmarket Strand Arcade in the heart of Sydney. The Strand is an historical Victorian era shopping arcade, lovingly restored and full of quaint little shops that offer exclusive services such as bridal fashion, jewellery, antiques, high fashion, millinery, a shoe maker (an actual workshop with a guy hand-making shoes from large sheets of leather), fancy chocolates, cigars, a shoe-shine service, and a barber with fully reclining chairs on which men lie back and have their faces lathered for a cut-throat shave.

Sweet Infinity

Amidst this, Sweet Infinity offers tea and coffee, and a selection of fancy looking and lovingly made baked goods. Mrs Snot Block and Roll and I looked in a few months ago and noticed that they serve pies and sausage rolls, as well as various cakes and slices, including a vanilla slice. So we stored it away in our memories for another day. Today was that day.

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The Brooky Pie, Brookvale

650 Pittwater Rd, Brookvale, New South Wales
www.thebrookypie.com

The Brooky Pie is a small family-run business with a single pie shop on the busy Pittwater Road just north of the vast Warringah Mall shopping centre. The pies are lovingly hand made in a traditional fashion, and they also have a vegetable pastie and a sausage roll. There are a handful of sweets on the menu, including an apple pie, custard tart, and caramel slice, but alas no vanilla slice.

The Brooky Pie

Nevertheless, being in the area at lunchtime one day I ventured in to sample the savoury wares. I selected a pie and one of the sausage rolls.

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Dinky-Di Pies & Pastries, Pyrmont

35 Union Street, Pyrmont, New South Wales

I found this place on a day walk around Sydney Harbour, following the Seven Bridges route. With “Pies & Pastries” in the name, this had to be a good place for finding material for this blog. Unfortunately, on the day when I first spotted it, I had just had lunch a few minutes earlier, at a place a block away, so I had to make an excursion to return on another day and sample the wares.

Dinky Di Pies & Pastries

I assumed they would have a vanilla slice as one of the advertised pastries, but upon entering the establishment I discovered that they had more varieties of pies and sausage rolls than sweet baked goods, and that the pastries didn’t include a vanilla slice. I asked if they made them and perhaps rotated their selection from day to day, but the lady behind the counter said they only made the ones currently on display. Nevertheless, I’d made the trip specially, and they certainly had sausage rolls. Not just one, but two different varieties: beef, and lamb and rosemary.

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Delitalia Gourmet Foods, Crows Nest

84-90 Atchison Street, Crows Nest, New South Wales
www.superfresh.net.au/superfreshcrowsnest.html

Delitalia is a cafe and Italian delicatessen on the premises of the giant Superfresh greengrocer in Crows Nest. I buy fresh fruit and vegetables here sometimes, and this is also the supplier for the imported Italian pasta that I get for cooking fancy pasta meals. Besides the usual fruit and veges, the deli stocks a wide variety of meats, sausages, cheeses, and Italian groceries, including ready to heat-and-eat items such as arancini and lasagnes. They also have a cake section in the attached cafe, with ricotta cakes, cannoli, biscotti, shortbread, and numerous other delights. And nestled amongst these is the good old Aussie vanilla slice, but with an Italian twist.

Delitalia Gourmet Foods

I ordered a slice and sat at the indoor tables – there are also a handful of al fresco tables just outside on the footpath. It’s served on a plate lined with a sheet of paper, with a fork supplied for eating. It’s a very attractive looking slice, with a multifarious layered appearance. From bottom to top, there is a layer of golden brown pastry with plenty of flakiness evident, topped by a layer of dark yellow custard with a slightly moist appearance. This is topped by a second layer of custard, much lighter in colour and more dry looking in texture. Then follows a repeat of these three layers, topped by a third layer of pastry, which is in turn topped by a slab of white icing with the traditional crosswise lines of brown dragged into an alternating zig-zaggy patten by a skewer during the icing process.

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Fare Game Poultry, St Ives

St Ives Shopping Village, 166 Mona Vale Road, Shop 116, St Ives, New South Wales
stivesvillage.com.au/fare-game-st-ives/

I found myself a bit peckish in the St Ives “shopping village” (really just a name for a covered shopping centre), and saw this place adjacent to the food court area. Fare Game is a poultry butcher that sells a selection of uncooked chickens, chicken cuts, skewers, pre-marinaded chicken pieces, chicken sausages, and other meat such as turkeys and ducks. It also has a hot food section, selling hot roast chickens, lunch boxes of chicken pieces and chips, and on this day a suite of chicken sausage rolls.

Fare Game Poultry

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