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.

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.

Continue reading Vina Bakehouse, Chatswood →

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.

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.

Continue reading Delicia, Naremburn →

24 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales

Snot Block & Roll is a review blog dedicated to the two true measures of worthiness of a good old Aussie bakery: the Sausage Roll and the Vanilla Slice.

First, let’s get one thing straight. The vanilla slice is as Aussie as a sweet treat gets. In some places, essentially the same thing goes by various different names, depending on level of poshness. From the top: mille-feuille, Napoleon, or custard slice. And at the slangiest Aussie end, they are also known affectionately as snot blocks. But they’re pretty much the same basic principle – layers of custard sandwiched between flaky pastry – and this blog will review anything on that spectrum.

Before getting dessert though, we examine the savoury end of the bakery spectrum, with the classic sausage roll. Yes, yes, meat pies… we know the argument. But pies aren’t as variable as sausage rolls. If you want a good bakery, they have to be able to make a good sausage roll – it’s so easy to do it wrong.

So, the ground rules of this blog: We go into a bakery and ask for: “A sausage roll and a vanilla slice, please.” We review whatever they give us. If they claim not to have a vanilla slice, but we see one on display labelled “Napoleon” or somesuch, we can point at that and say, “Well, one of those instead.”

First up we have the Crows Nest Bakery, a small bakery on the bustling Willoughby Road restaurant strip at Crows Nest in Sydney. It seems like a relic from the 1970s, nestled in between upmarket Thai restaurants, fashion outlets, and relaxation therapy boutiques. It would seem more at home amidst milk bars, charcoal chicken shops, and a pub. The bakery has been there as long as I can remember, outlasting an incursion from the Michel’s chain right across the road, and now putting up a good fight against a couple of newcomer fancy French patisseries. The bakery has a selection of hot pies, individual quiches, loaves of bread, and baked sweets including tarts, cakes, and slices.

Continue reading Crows Nest Bakery, Crows Nest →