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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Otto’s Bakery, Hahndorf

bakery, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

9 Main Street, Hahndorf, South Australia

Earlier in the morning I had visited Beerenberg’s Strawberry Farm, on the outskirts of the small town of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. When approaching the farm shop, there was the surprising but unmistakeable smell of tomato sauce in the air, which made no sense at all to me. Upon going inside the shop, which had numerous jams and sauces for sale, I discovered the reason. Through a window one could see workers processing fruit and other ingredients to make product, and a sign indicated that today they were making… tomato sauce!

And so we come to Otto’s Bakery, where I stopped for lunch later that same day. They boasted “award winning” pies on a blackboard outside, as well as a vanilla slice. This seemed to bode well, so I ordered the obligatory sausage roll and vanilla slice. (I neglected to take a photo of the exterior of the bakery, but a quick search online will reveal several photos.)

The roll got things off to a bad start. It looked decidedly average, like a roll from a warmer in a petrol station. The pastry on top was an anaemic looking pale golden brown, with evidence of thick crocodile-skin-like flakiness rather than delicate thin flakiness. Biting into the roll confirmed my worst fears, as the pastry was crisp on the outside while not being flaky enough and a bit soggy near the meat. The meat centre was bland and a bit too dry. Not terribly dry, but certainly too dry to be good.

Sausage roll: Ott's Bakery

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St Malo Bakery, Crows Nest

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

83 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales
www.stmalobakery.com

I have wanted to review this bakery since the beginning, but every time I went in they had nothing resembling a vanilla slice in their selection of cakes of the day. Until this day.

St Malo is a fancy French bakery which does a line in fresh bread, croissants and other flaky pastries, and beautiful looking cakes and muffins. They also make delicious pies, as well as the other object of this review, sausage rolls.

St Malo Bakery

On this day I went in, intending to have a pie for lunch and not expecting to get anything else. But as I looked into the cake display, I saw gleaming there a magnificent shining creation, resplendent in its French elegance. It was three layers of pastry separated by layers of custard, with intriguingly attractive red stains in it, and topped by a sprinkle of ground nuts and a dusting of cocoa. This, I thought, is in essence a vanilla slice. Upon inquiry, I was told that it was a “pistachio and raspberry mille-feuille”. Well, a mille-feuille is basically a vanilla slice, so good enough!

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Delicia, Naremburn

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

298 Willoughby Road, Naremburn, New South Wales

This place looked promising from the outside, with a blend of traditional bakery with just a hint of fanciness in the exterior decoration. Heading inside, there was the odd experience of being served by a swarthy Latino guy in jeans and a white T-shirt and bearing three days’ worth of stubble. He would have looked more suitably placed riding a motorbike to his DJ gig on some Mediterranean island than serving meringues and tarts in a fancy bakery in suburban Sydney.

Delicia

I didn’t see a vanilla slice, so I asked if they made them, and the Ibiza DJ said in a lilting Spanish accent that they had none at the moment, but would be making a batch that afternoon. So I made do with a sausage roll and a chicken pie and went outside to sit at a sunny table in the late autumn chill and perform at least the first half of the reviewing duties.

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Arthur’s Bavarian Bakehouse, West Pymble

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

9 Duneba Ave, West Pymble NSW

Arthur’s Bavarian Bakehouse is located in a tiny cluster of shops and restaurants in a quiet suburban street, one block away from the highway at West Pymble. I’ve known about this place for about 15 years and I don’t think anything about it has changed in all that time. They sell a selection of freshly made German style breads and pastries, plus homemade pies, sausage rolls and vanilla slices! There’s also a selection of German household groceries.

The window display proudly declares “Baking with passion”, and the planter boxes and little tables create an inviting friendly atmosphere.

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I buy the products from the friendly server and take two brown paper bags to the tables and chairs just outside the front door.

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The Little Red Grape Bakery, Sevenhill

bakery, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

148 Main North Road, Sevenhill, South Australia
www.thelittleredgrape.com.au

I arrived here with Mrs Snot Block & Roll on a cold, rainy morning for an early breakfast, as it was one of the few places in the Clare Valley region open before 9am on a Sunday. We asked if they had a breakfast menu, but received a politely apologetic response in the negative. The place is simply a bakery with a coffee machine – whatever you see on display is what’s available. But since that included good looking sausage rolls and vanilla slices, there was no real decision to be made anyway! The bakery is actually attached to a cafe of the same name which serves meals and acts as a cellar door for one of the local wineries, but the cafe wasn’t open at this time.

The Little Red Grape Bakery

The sausage roll is an enigmatic yet ultimately frustrating compilation of excellent meat in a frankly awful pastry blanket. It looks promising, with golden brown flaky pastry on top, wrapped around a plump roll of meat filling. The first bite delivers a pleasant experience as the flavour of the meat explodes in the mouth. It is delightfully savoury, with a hint of herbs and the right amount of saltiness to bring out the savoury umami flavours of the meat. Any additional spices are subdued, but there are huge chunks of onion adding to the taste, which is like a friendly home-cooked stew, cooked well, and simply all round a great flavour experience. The texture is in that perfect zone between too soft and too dry. It’s really very good. It would suit a full flavoured Cabernet Sauvignon.

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Darby’s Fresh Bake, Erina

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

Erina Fair shopping centre, Terrigal Drive, Erina, New South Wales

Went for a drive up the coast today, and did some exploring of new places. While I was out, popped into “the biggest single-level shopping centre in the southern hemisphere” for some shopping. Now there’s a drawcard.

Now, usually, shopping malls in Australia just feature the same 50 shops cloned from every other mall, and aren’t the sort of place you would expect to find an actual bakery that makes its own products. You might find a little cafe that gets baked goods delivered from an off-site commercial kitchen. But I found this little place amongst the standard clothing outlets and homewares stores.

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Gleaming red and white decor, with immaculately presented hot and cold display cases. Behind the drinks display there’s a small commercial kitchen where they make the products fresh on the premises. Store signage lists “Slices” and “Sausage Rolls” as the top-billed items – hey, this place is perfect for Snot Block and Roll! I ask for “A sausage roll and a vanilla slice, please”, they ask which type of slice I want, leading me towards “just the standard one?” I go with their suggestion, leaving the fancier-looking one for another time. The total is just $3, this is certainly a bargain.

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D&M’s Bakery Cafe, Angaston

bakery, cafe, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

36 Murray Street, Angaston, South Australia
dmsbakerycafe.com

This place was a must-visit, as it boldly advertises “the best vanilla slice in the Valley” on all of its promotional material in the tourist guides of the Barossa Valley, and on a large sign outside the premises.

D&M's Bakery Cafe sign

It occupies a traditional neat-looking shop front on the main street of the tiny town of Angaston, but inside it stretches expansively back from the street to form a somewhat funky cafe atmosphere with chill music playing softly. The display counter is large, with a big selection of delicious looking savoury pies, plus dozens of cakes and slices, and then a fresh sandwich bar.

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Lai’s French Hot Bread & Cakes, North Ryde

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

144 Coxs Rd, North Ryde, New South Wales

So, this food review blog is actually going to be a combined effort from a number of contributors. Talk began one lunch time with the friends I work with, about the nucleus of an idea where we are food reviewers for one single food item. An item that you can get anywhere. But it should be an item with lots of variability. Something you know when it’s a good one, and know when its a bad one. Vanilla slices! Ubiquitous, beloved, and there’s posh ones and daggy ones and everything in between. Did a brief search, and there’s one other vanilla slice review site, but it’s Melbourne based and seems to have been abandoned for most of the last decade.

Then came the next evolution of the idea – review a complete meal, main and dessert! It was decided then, that the blog would review sausage rolls and vanilla slices. The name “Snot Block and Roll” quickly followed and a plan was afoot to set up the site and start reviewing!

On to my very first review. After a couple of recent failed attempts to locate a suitable bakery on the weekend, I went on a lunchtime expedition to the neighbouring suburb of North Ryde. Parked the car, headed out to cross the road to the bakery I had gone to once before… and found this place instead!

Lais french hot bread and cakes.

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Linke’s Bakery and Tearooms, Nuriootpa

bakery, cafe, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

40 Murray Street, Nuriootpa, South Australia

I found this bakery cafe for breakfast. Linke’s Bakery has been operating since 1938, as a small sign inside proclaims proudly. Apparently everyone in Nuriootpa was part of the Linke family back then, because across the road is the Linke Butcher, and around the corner is Linke’s Building and Construction.

Linke's Bakery

The bakery does a line in muesli or bacon and eggs and various other breakfast goodies, but I sacrificed the chance for an eggs Benedict to try their sausage roll and vanilla slice. The bakery goods all look really good here, with mouth watering sweet tarts and slices galore, and a full range of hot savoury pies with obviously hand-crimped pastry tops. Given this promising selection, I was looking forward to reviewing the twin quest items.

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