Da Lat Goulburn Bakery - Banh Mi in the country

Banh mi goes a little bit country,  a little bit rock n (pork) roll. Da Lat Bakery in Goulburn gives up it's fine sandwich secrets for road travellers who want to venture off the freeway.
The food options when country driving can often be limited. The yellow arches call out as you drive down the freeway, their bright neon signs perching on hillsides like golden buddhas beckoning the faithful. Travelling from Sydney to Canberra we usually try and take a final break in Goulburn, which is slowly recovering from the highway bypass in the early nineties that left the main strip a little ghost like.

The trip from Sydney isn't that long, so a small snack and drink is often all that's needed to get through the final leg.

The old highway, now called Auburn Rd, has a few pubs, cafes and places for locals and travellers. We made a pitstop at Da Lat Goulburn Bakery when we wanted to grab something quick. With a name like that, we had to investigate. Up the road a ways there's a large neon sign with the same name above the shop awnings, the bakery seems to have moved from an earlier location and is further down towards the Hibernian Hotel.

There's only a few hints to the Vietnamese ownership of the bakery. Bags of homegrown chillis on sale on the countertop are a dead giveaway.

These happy face biscuits seem like they know something we don't. The range of cakes and pastries is classic old time bakery (jam tarts, coconut slice, meringues, custard tarts). Sandwiches, pies and dsausgae rolls make up the lions share of the savoury offerings and plenty of fresh made breads, mostly rolls and white loaves.

And here's the main result of our side trip, a classic pork roll for $5. While there was only a small amount of pate, there was a good enough amount of cha lua and orange shred, cucumber, a little chilli sauce and coriander for balance. The roll was good and crisp, which you would hope for from a bakery roll.

We couldn't see a sign advertising these, there's a board with sandwich details but the pork roll wasn't on it.

Da Lat Goulburn Bakery is at 1/158-162 Auburn St, Goulburn NSW 2580. Ph: (02) 4821 9732.

Of course there's always the Big Merino for a stop, still standing strong. Shawn reckons there was a story that one of the sheep's testicles was falling off and was threatening to crush the gift shop, so they had to spend loads of money to repair it. So watch out for falling balls.

The aftermath of eating a crunchy bread roll in the car. Best eat up before you take off, or else carry a portable vacuum cleaner or pigeon for cleaning up the crumbs.