a couple of days before i went away, i popped into the blood bank to donate 470mls of my finest, stickiest, type B+.

[ B positive! hah! ironic really, when you think about it ]

but so, after the bleeding, and the complimentary made-to-order strawberry milkshake, and the healthy snack pack from which i wolfed down two biscuits that must surely have contained a good dose of transfatty margarine they were so yellow… i wandered northward about two blocks, and finally made it to central baking depot.

i kept forgetting it was there, this bigger, fancier outpost of those bourke street bakers, in a part of the city i just never get to. but there it was, all good, honest, industrial chic, with little tables hewn out of big trees, and even littler faux milk crates fashioned out of… i dunno, galvanised steel fencing? in any case, it’s about eight more places where you can sit — and quite a bit more breathing room — than at the other two bourke street bakeries.

with more room comes more cake! there were trays of cake behind glass — slabs of flourless chocolate cake, and something hummingbirdy, and what i remember to be a caramelised banana cake sandwiched with a fat layer of cream, for which i must return, oh yes. in the window there were danishes and twists. on the counter there were bowls of chocolate meringues.

so i went the pizza route. this one, a pleasing crunchy base topped with roasted capsicum, pancetta and ricotta, with pesto, was that delicious amalgam of slurpy and squishy and salty. up front they were thin slabs arranged just so on a tray, but they arrived at the table sliced up and sandwiched. thoughtful, no?

i imagine it must get busy at lunchtime, but around 11, it was just me and the couple at the next table, the girl making the most orgiastic noises over her sausage roll. so i left them to it…

…and stumbled into the babycakes boutique right across the road, where the cupcakes are bite-sized and the variety boggling.

but that’s a story for another time.