Category Archives: sausage roll

Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe, Drummoyne

10 July, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla sliceroll6, slice10David Morgan-Mar

150 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne, New South Wales
drummoynesbakehousecafe.com.au

The focus of my ongoing quest turned from chasing reports of the “best vanilla slice” in Sydney to seeking alleged sighting of the “best sausage roll”. One of these sightings was at the Drummoyne Bakehouse Cafe, which seemed a good excuse to go for a lazy Saturday lunchtime drive during a brief sunny respite from the rainy winter weather of late.

The bakehouse sits on the busy but narrow Lyons Road, running down the centre of the Drummoyne peninsula on the south side of Sydney Harbour. It has a distinctive green, yellow, and brown striped awning and signage visible from the road, and sits next door to Ocean Foods, which also has conspicuous signage, proclaiming it to be the home of the “Best fish and chips in the Universe”. They certainly don’t do things by halves in Drummoyne!

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Pierre’s Patisserie, Turramurra

4 July, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla sliceroll6, slice9David Morgan-Mar

Shop 8/1380 Pacific Highway, Turramurra, New South Wales
www.pierrespatisserie.com.au

On a fine winter Sunday afternoon, after a relatively light lunch, the call of afternoon tea beckoned, and I decided to make the trip and check out a place that garners a mention in various “best vanilla slice in Sydney” discussion threads on the Internet. The place is Pierre’s Patisserie, on the Pacific Highway in Turramurra, in Sydney’s northern suburbs.

According to the potted history on the website, Pierre’s was founded in 1976 by immigrant Frenchman Pierre Cantin. He was not, however a pastry chef, so hired two chefs, who preceded to build a reputation in the local area. The current owner and chef is the son of one of those two, and appears to have maintained the local praise for this establishment.

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El Karim, Roseville

26 June, 2016city, nsw, restaurant, sausage rollroll9David Morgan-Mar

126 Pacific Highway, Roseville, New South Wales
elkarim.com.au

One of my favourite places for a nice dinner out is El Karim, a long-established, slightly fancy Lebanese restaurant on the highway in Roseville. I’d planned a dinner out with Mrs Snot Block & Roll and booked a table for two, little suspecting the surprise that was to come. The menu had been redone since our last visit, and now listed amongst the various small mezze plates – such as falafels, fried haloumi, lamb kofta, and the delicious honey and zaatar calamari – was “El Karim sausage rolls”. You know what had to be done.

The dish cost $16, and appeared at the end of the meal, as the custom here is to bring dishes out separated in time so everyone can share a few things at a time. The plate contained four rolls, which would do a good job of sharing between four people if you’d ordered a bunch of other things to sample the menu. Each one was maybe half the size of a regular bog-standard sausage roll.

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Bourke Street Bakery, Neutral Bay

5 June, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage rollroll8, roll9David Morgan-Mar

Shop 7/19-25 Grosvenor Street, Neutral Bay, New South Wales
bourkestreetbakery.com.au

Bourke Street Bakery has become a bit of a Sydney institution, as their website will tell you itself – though there is some truth to it. They opened their first bakery in 2004, and have since expanded to a several shops across a bunch of inner city suburbs. They regularly attract rave reviews in the media, and have built a reputation as one of the best bakeries in the city. This is built on a foundation of hand crafted artisan bread, and extended with a range of cakes and sweet pastries, plus a mouth-watering array of savoury pastries.

Amongst the latter, they boast a menu of gourmet meat pies, and not one, not two, but three different flavours of sausage roll. In fact, if you search online for “best sausage rolls in Sydney”, Bourke Street Bakery comes up first in many lists. Alas, they don’t do a vanilla slice among their extensive selection of pastries, but ah well, let’s try the sausage rolls anyway. I place my order amidst the horde of hipsters and young mothers with toddlers in tow getting take-away coffees and croissants. My rolls appear on oblong white china plates, one plate per roll. I take them to the outdoor seating in the pedestrian plaza outside and shoo away inquisitively hungry pigeons as I examine the haul.

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The Little French Patisserie, Mosman

2 June, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla sliceroll8, slice7David Morgan-Mar

840 Military Rd, Mosman, New South Wales
tlfp.com.au

One of the nicest things about having a day off work during the week is that you can travel around the city when everyone else is at work. Everything is open, but the streets are populated mostly by people with free time, and the atmosphere is very relaxed and laid back, unlike when hordes of 9-5 workers are around after hours or on weekends.

On such a fine day, I took a drive to the posh north shore suburb of Mosman, to partake of some of its fine array of victuals. Mosman boasts a swag of high fashion outlets, boutiques, and a high end toy shop featuring such children’s playthings as rocking horses and hand carved wooden soldiers. On the food side, there is a gourmet butcher, and Italian delicatessen, a specialty cheese shop, plenty of trendy cafes, and this place: The Little French Patisserie.

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La Renaissance Cafe Patisserie, The Rocks

20 April, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage rollroll8David Morgan-Mar

47 Argyle St, The Rocks, Sydney, New South Wales
larenaissance.com.au

The Rocks is the oldest and most historical colonial-era area in Sydney, and in fact all of Australia. The first English colonists established their settlement here, on a small peninsula extending into Sydney Harbour. Many of the oldest buildings in the country are here, and many of them are reasonably well preserved. The area has now been adapted with shops, cafes, and restaurants, mostly for tourists, but it’s also a pleasant place for locals to hang out and partake of food and drink.

Amongst this plethora of eateries is La Renaissance Cafe Patisserie, a French bakery specialising in cakes and tarts of the traditional continental style. In a concession to its quintessentially Aussie location, it also does a line in hot pies and sausage rolls. The pies come in three varieties: Boeuf bourguignon, agneau, et poulet chasseur. The sausage rolls come in two types: pork and veal; and pork, bacon, and fennel. For lunch this day, I decided to sample the pork and veal sausage roll. (I shall have to return to try to pork, bacon, and fennel another day.)

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58 1/2 Espresso, Sydney International Airport

11 March, 2016cafe, city, nsw, sausage rollroll3David Morgan-Mar

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.

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

29 February, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla sliceroll2, slice6Andrew Coker

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

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.

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Piccolo Deli, Mount Victoria

29 January, 2016bakery, cafe, country, nsw, sausage rollDavid Morgan-Mar

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.

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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Rustique, Mosman

17 January, 2016bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage rollroll6David Morgan-Mar

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.

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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