Monday, June 12, 2006

Italy Nostalgia Trip

Only been a month since our Italy trip and already I'm trying to recreate my holiday experience. So on Sat, we dove-tailed down to Sydney's "Little Italy" or Five Dock as it's more commonly known.

The stretch along Great North Road contain quite a few Italian shops, including:

  • a bakery, Pan D'Or, where we bought some crunchy Italian bread and foccacia. Verdict - foccacia tastes pretty good, soft and oily, about middle of the pack compared to all the foccacias we tried in Italy. The bread roll was a bit hard, but for 25 cents, much cheaper than anything we could get in Italy.

  • several delis, we stopped at P.R. Raineri since it seemed the most crowded. We can get just about everything we could get from Italy here, with a few exceptions of things that can't be imported, like Parma ham. We got some buffalo mozzarella (excellent, creamy and smooth). We wanted to get some cold cuts as well, and, just like Italy, we were able to taste before we buy. The guy serving us was very friendly and recommended a few things for us to try. I think the cold cuts here are just as good as over there.

  • a lot of pasticceria/cafe, we stopped off at La Deliziosa for coffee and cake. We tried a chocolate liquor cake, heavenly, and just the right amount of alcohol, as well as a cream-filled donut, which was a bit sweet for my taste. The coffee was good, but not as good as Italy. Coffee and cake costs $4, so I can't complain about that. In the interest of research, we also went to get takeaway cakes at Tomborrino Pasticceria, we got a niccoletta (that's hazelnut) puff pastry, which was heavenly, creamy and nutty cream filling and great pastry, as well as a cream filled croissant, which also had great pastry and great custard. I will definitely be back to try all their other varieties of cakes and biscuits.

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