Two for one loaf deal on Smith St

Pastry Art Design, at 280 Smith St, next to Gluttony, is a strange old bakery I’ve never quite been able to categorise. It has a two for one loaf deal on Saturdays and Sundays, so I picked up a white sourdough cobb and a fruit loaf for $3.50. They do very good pastries, good cold pizza squares and focaccias, as well as bread which is good without ever being outstanding. Certainly, it is a cut above Baker’s Delight. But the exception to this goodness was an inviting but dreadful loaf of olive bread: the olives were those tasteless unripe green olives dyed black by being soaked in lye and pumped with oxygen (a revelation to be found in Stephanie’s Cook’s Companion) found on poor quality pizzas. As indication of how olivy it wasn’t, consider that I took a piece of the stuff and ate it happily with lemon buter on top. I think there are too many laws already, but there should nevertheless be a law against such fraud.

3 of best 10 cheap eats within this blog’sosphere

The Age has helpfully identified “10 of the best” — I like the modesty of these words in a best of list — inventive cheap eats. Southern Richmond’s Pearl gets an honourable mention for $16 eggs on toast (keep it real, Cheap Eats), but I have to admit it’s one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to, and you can go there for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a drink. Then the Builder’s Arms on Gertrude Street Fitzroy comes in at number 3 for a $14 “3 mint pea soup with smoked paprika butter with steamed prawns” which sounds rather good. And Replete just down from MLC in Hawthorn, but metres away from being Kew, gets another gong at #6 for $12.50 ricotta hotcakes with lemon curd and strawberries. Thanks to Flickr’s Spin Spin for the photo of an uncommonly unpopulated image of the Builder’s Arms.