Category Archives: nsw

Sylvia & Fran’s The Upper Crust, Collaroy

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

1003 Pittwater Road, Collaroy, New South Wales

This place is a local institution. It’s been nestled in the same spot in a conspicuous green and yellow building on the side of Pittwater Road, amidst a row of residential houses, for as long as I can remember. On weekends people pull up to park out the front in a continual stream, dash inside to grab a bag of hot pies, and then leave to let the next car grab a spot. Some people linger and eat on the sparse pair of aluminium tables out the front, or sitting on the wooden benches in front of an adjacent house. In the couple of hours around lunch time, there is usually a queue stretching out the door.

Vanilla slice, Sylvia & Fran's The Upper Crust

The somewhat run down building is decorated with numerous stickers and plaques indicating the numerous pie competitions that the eponymous Sylvia and Fran have won with their recipes. They have a selection of 30-40 different pies, with fillings ranging from the traditional plain minced beef, through chunky steak, to middle of the road combinations such as steak and potato, steak and mushroom, and steak and kidney. Then they stretch into more exotic flavours such as Mexican beef; lamb and rosemary; satay chicken; Thai chicken curry; beef stroganoff; and their multi-award winning chicken, avocado, and brie pie. There are sausage rolls too, in regular and cheese and bacon varieties. Vegetarians are definitely not left wanting either, with a selection including roast vegetable; Thai vegetable curry; Mexican vegetarian; spinach and feta; and potato, pumpkin, and sour cream pies – which are delicious enough to tempt even carnivores.

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La Baguette, Crows Nest

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll

16 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales

This is one of those wonderful places you get in Australia – the French bakery run by Vietnamese staff. The Vietnamese learnt the art of baking during the French occupation of French Indochina from 1887 to 1954, with the result that today many of the best baguettes and pastries in Australia are produced by Vietnamese immigrants. Indeed, the bread and cakes here are superb. But as we all know, the true measure of an Aussie bakery rests on those two standards of the true blue diet: the sausage roll and the vanilla slice.

La Baguette

I approached La Baguette with every intention of purchasing a sausage roll and a vanilla slice – although in my mind I remembered this is one of those establishments that refers to their vanilla slices as “Napoleons”. I was however thwarted by the fact that they didn’t have anything resembling a vanilla slice or labelled as either that or “Napoleon” in the counter display. And when I asked them, they said that they didn’t make them! Undaunted, I procured a sausage roll, advertised on the menu as a “pork and veal sausage roll”.

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Pattison’s Patisserie, Cammeray

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

12/450 Miller St, Cammeray, New South Wales
pattisonspatisserie.com.au

Pattison’s is a small chain with a dozen patisseries scattered across the northern suburbs of Sydney. This one at Cammeray has a long glass counter stuffed full of delicious looking cakes and pastries. As well as the traditional Aussie favourites, they do trendy new things like macarons and fancy cupcakes. They also bake bread and muffins and other such things.

Pattison's Patisserie

The first day I tried to review this establishment, they had sold out of vanilla slices, so I had to delay my tasting to another day. The next time I was in the area, I ordered one of the sausage rolls from their hot savoury selection, and a slice. I took them out to sit in the sunshine in the adjacent courtyard as I ate. This area has a bit of restrained buzz from the other shops and cafes in the complex.

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Simmone Logue, Cammeray

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

5/450-476 Miller St, Cammeray, New South Wales
www.simmonelogue.com.au

This is one of two stores for the small baking and catering company started by the eponymous Simmone. It’s a trendy upmarket cafe with plenty of mouth-watering goodies, including gourmet salads, savoury pastries, quiches, fancy sandwiches, cakes, tarts, slices, and so on. They also apparently do a dinner service with full cooked meals in the evenings.

Simmone Logue

But I’m here for the sausage roll and vanilla slice. I order them to eat in on one of the chunky rustic wooden tables that looks like you could butcher a side of beef on it. The sausage rolls (as well as the pies) are not kept hot – they are more designed for people to pick up on the way home and reheat at home. But they are happy to heat one up for eating in. While I wait for my order, I admire the country kitchen decorations, including a large set of bookshelves overflowing with well-thumbed recipe books, and vintage French vegetable and flower seed packets in cutesy frames hanging on the wall. It seems these are for sale.

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Vina Bakehouse, Chatswood

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

Level 2, Westfield Shopping Centre, Chatswood

This bakery lives in a food court in the giant Westfield shopping complex in Chatswood, wedged between a cafe and an Asian noodle place. It sells freshly baked bread and a selection of cakes, tarts, and slices, as well as pies and sausage rolls. I’ve been here a few times before and don’t have a particularly high opinion of their bread items. I once bought a “bagel” here, only to discover that it was nothing more than a fluffy white bread roll in a very rough and ready approximation of a shape with a hole through it.

Vina Bakehouse

But being in the area around lunch time, I decided to take the plunge. I procured a sausage roll and a vanilla slice and took a seat at one of the food court tables nearby to examine and taste. An elderly lady and what I presume to be her granddaughter sat at the table with some lunch of their own as well, and the girl looked at me curiously as I photographed and considered my meal.

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The Pie Tin, Newtown

cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, special

1-1a Brown St, Newtown, New South Wales
thepietin.com.au

I’d been wanting to visit this place ever since I first heard about it. They do a big line in pies, as one might expect from the name – both the savoury, meaty Australian sort, and sweet dessert types. The establishment is tucked away in a little side street off Newtown’s bustling King Street restaurant and university student shopping strip. If you didn’t know it was here, you’d probably never notice it unless you are a local to the area.

The Pie Tin

On a sunny winter Sunday I sought out the address and ventured into the old brick building, painted a neat light grey on the outside. The interior is funky and modern, with two large display cases arranged at right angles. The right one contains hot savoury pies of several different varieties, while the left contains sweet pies. Some of the hot pies on offer include: steak, cheese, and smokey bacon; lamb and rosemary; smokey beef brisket and mushroom; Sicilian style chilli lovers sausage and white bean; creamy chicken with hot seeded mustard and mushrooms; vegetable and lentil; sweet roasted duck with Cointreau and seasonal vegetables. While the sweet section has: Black Forest meringue; whipped lime; brown butter pecan; American style pumpkin; banoffee; creamy coconut custard; lemon brulee; Mississippi mud; and “the apple pie that ate Newtown” – an apple pie roughly the size of a car tyre, I kid you not.

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The Flaky Tart, Kirribilli

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

4 Ennis Rd, Kirribilli, New South Wales

The Flaky Tart bakery.

I’d had my eye on this bakery for some time, but on my previous visit it was too early to eat lunch, and I had only recently had breakfast. But I had quickly checked they had sausage rolls and vanilla slices, awaiting a more opportune moment. That moment finally did arrive last weekend, having visited the area for a jog along some harbour-side paths and a swim at the North Sydney pool. I earned this!

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Grill’d (burger), Crows Nest

city, nsw, restaurant, special

57 Willoughby Rd, Crows Nest, New South Wales
www.grilld.com.au

Here at Snot Block & Roll we are, of course, proudly Australian, and aim to bring you the best in true Aussie cuisine. So we were somewhat taken aback when the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Good Food site posted a reference to an article written by American chef David Chang about what he thinks makes the ideal hamburger. Chang writes:

You know who fucks up burgers more than anyone else in the world? Australians. Australia has no idea what a burger is. They put a fried egg on their burger. They put canned beetroot on it, like a wedge of it. I am not joking you. This is how they eat their burger.

Uh… okay. But wait, he doesn’t stop insulting people who happen to have different tastes to him there:

My ideal burger is bun, cheese, burger. Sometimes bacon. … And the cheese thing has to be very clear: American cheese only.

Wait, whoa! If this guy had any credibility left at all, it’s all gone by now. American cheese??? This stuff?? But wait, there’s even more:

Honestly, what does the lettuce do? It adds texture, Dave. Texture? Really? Is it really going to hold up, crushed between the bun and the hot patty that steams it? I don’t think so. … And onions and tomatoes — what do they do? … The whole idea of half-steamed veg on top of your burger is the dumbest fucking thing I could ever think of. And I will say this: if you enjoy it, you’re an idiot.

Well. We could not let this go unanswered. So this very day we went to a local burger place: Grill’d at Crows Nest. They have a menu with several different types of burgers, including a good selection of chicken burgers, vegetarian options, and a trio of lamb burgers to showcase that great Australian meat as well as the beef. The ambience is casual and friendly, with bare brick walls and solid wooden furniture and slightly dimmed lighting. This couldn’t be further from your plastic primary coloured American fast food burger chain decor. For which we can be grateful.

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St Honoré Bakery, North Sydney

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

2/40 Miller St, North Sydney, New South Wales
www.sthonorebakery.com.au

Finding myself in North Sydney around 9am on a weekday, I did a quick web search for bakeries in the vicinity. The Bourke Street Bakery was nearest and sounded promising, with Internet reviews recommending the pork and fennel sausage roll highly. But when I arrived there and managed to penetrate the queue of a dozen people waiting to order take-away coffees in order to see what sweet delights lurked in the display cabinet I was heartbroken to see that they did not stock vanilla slices. Thus crestfallen, I sought the next bakery on my search list, St Honoré.

St Honore bakery

This is a French styled bakery lurking in a nondescript black granite office tower front around the corner from North Sydney station. It too was doing a brisk trade in take-away coffees as the morning office workers began their day in the corporate rat race. Peering through the window I spied both the quest objects, so walked boldly in and ordered. The woman behind the counter reached for white paper bags before I specified that I would be eating in at the small café tables, whereupon she changed to a pair of white plates. I would have liked to have taken the bags outside, but there was nowhere nearby to sit and the morning was chilly.

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St Malo Bakery: addendum, Crows Nest

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, vanilla slice

83 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales

I’ve already reviewed St Malo Bakery in this blog, awarding a 9/10 for their fancy “pistachio and raspberry mille-feuille”, which was deemed close enough to a vanilla slice to count. But the other day I was walking past and popped in to buy a loaf of bread, and lo! Sitting there in the counter display were not only some of those fancy slices, but also some plain “vanilla mille-feuilles”!

Vanilla slice: St Malo Bakery

Excited beyond belief, I ponied up to the counter, ordering my loaf of bread, “and a vanilla slice, please”. This achieved the desired result, and I stole away from the bakery with a light rye sourdough loaf and one of the vanilla mille-feuilles in hand, packaged with great care in a small cardboard box and then a paper bag for consumption off the premises.

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