Monthly Archives: January 2016

Piccolo Deli, Mount Victoria

bakery, cafe, country, nsw, sausage roll

30 Station St, Mount Victoria, New South Wales

A leisurely Sunday drive up into the Blue Mountains west of Sydney for a day out provided the opportunity to sample bakery products from a bit further afield. We stopped for morning tea at Leura, having a Devonshire tea of scones hot from the oven (they had literally taken them out just minutes before serving them to us), with home made strawberry jam and double cream. The scones were chocolate chip and cranberry, which made things even more decadent. After spending some time in Katoomba, we found ourselves in Mount Victoria when lunch hunger hit. So we parked in this small mountain town and walked to the Piccolo Deli, which also serves as a cafe.

Piccolo Deli

In the display counter were various pastries, both savoury and sweet. They had two types of sausage rolls: beef and onion, and pork and fennel, as well as a vegetable roll for the meat-free. A few rolls were hot in a pie warmer, but the friendly woman behind the counter said they could heat up anything for eating. Naturally, I ordered one of each of the sausage rolls, while Mrs SB&R chose the vege roll.

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Krispy Kreme

special, vanilla slice

My work has a social club, in which a monthly fee gets you access to various events and give-aways throughout the year. Today they had free doughnuts. Now, I’m not a member of the club, and I don’t eat doughnuts (I like them well enough but I gave them up completely a long time ago as a concession to healthy eating), but it turned out that the selection – from Krispy Kreme – included a “vanilla slice doughnut”! And when the call went out that leftovers were available for people to claim seconds, a friend of mine grabbed one of these for me. So I decided to violate my 20-year abstinence solely for the purpose of research for this blog.

Vanilla slice doughnut

The doughnut is neither a traditional toroidal doughnut nor rectangular prism vanilla slice shape. It’s a square pillow of dough, presumably cooked by deep frying as is usual for the product. The surface of the dough glistens disturbingly with fat and sugar. The top side is coated with what looks very much like conventional vanilla slice icing: a thin layer of white topped by a pattern of brown lines dragged into the classic parenthesis shape. With some trepidation, I take a bite.

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Rustique, Mosman

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll

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

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

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

bakery, city, nsw, sausage roll

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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