Upon first entering the sleek-looking Koko Black, I feel my head twitch, my heart skip a beat, and my toes fidget in a wave of curiosity. Although the store has the look of a Starbucks that's been mutated into a bank, the atmosphere is more than delightful while the staff, namely the J man, are simply wonderful.
With tedious predictability, every year I exclaim, ‘I wish you could get hot cross buns the whole year round’, and then realise that they just wouldn’t be as good then would they.
This Easter, Daniel Chirico of Baker d Chirico who we interviewed in our last issue, is doing buns with a decadent dark chocolate cross.
It’s fluro-white and smack in the middle of China Town, but there’s something about Candy Cube that recalls the childhood dash down to the local Milk Bar for a 50c bag of mixed lollies (and the occasional Big Boss).
It could be all the candy. The juicy assortment of fruit salad, sour colas, raspberries, milk bottles and fizzers mean that here eyes are frequently bigger than stomachs.
Now don’t call us pansies, but ThreeThousand occasionally enjoys a organic-gluten-and-sugar-free-apple-bran muffin.
The Organic Food and Wine Deli (TOFWD) is Degrave’s answer to the Vic Market’s organic section, but smaller. After seven years in operation last week the store took on a whole new face (and acronym), but thankfully its insides have remained the same.
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