Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner-west, is a suburb known and loved by local foodies for both its interesting restaurants and fabulous food wholesalers.
A quest for Ben Furney Mills’ flour, which I mentioned in a previous post, led me there again this week.
For Sydney bakers, Southern Cross Supplies offers a huge range of wholesale food and grocery items at reasonable prices. There is a small showroom you can wander through, but most of the items are stored in a large warehouse which is off-limits to the general public. You can, however, walk in and purchase single items over the counter.
The bakers (bread) flour was very reasonably priced – $22.50 per 25kg bag, and the 5kg bag of dark rye flour below was $11. They also had chocolate, grains, an assortment of packaging, dried fruit, some great muffin pan liners and a large range of condiments. If you ring them, they’ll happily email you their product list (it’s also available on their website), although pricing of items is only given out on enquiry.
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While we were in Marrickville, we made a stop at Chef Express to pick up frozen berries – the mixed berries were $9/kg, the blackberries $10/kg, and the raspberries are currently on special for a tiny $6/kg. Ever since Lorraine put us onto this supplier, we’ve bought all our frozen berries from them.
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The highlight of the trip was a visit to Faros Brothers!
Whenever I’m in Marrickville, I try to stop at this fabulous fishmonger – the produce is always fresh, and the prices are ludicrously cheap compared to seafood at the Sydney Fish Market.
On Tuesday, $60 bought us:
- Two small Atlantic salmon (about two kilos in total)
- 300g local calamari rings
- 6 large Australian green prawns
- a half kilo red snapper fillet
- a kilo of Portuguese sardine fillets, and
- an Australian smoked trout.
We made sardine alla beccafico following this recipe…
…and the snapper, calamari and prawns went into a tomato-based paella (we’re still infatuated with our new pan).
It was a great finale to a fabulous day’s shopping!
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Southern Cross Supplies
6B Rich Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
Tel: 02 9572 7888
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Chef Express
17-19 Buckley St
Marrickville NSW 2204
Tel: 02 9519 3488
. . . . .
Faros Brothers
34 Buckley Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
Tel: 02 9519 3785
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Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Oh, that’s all so wonderful! Great to have a place like that to indulge, I’m certainly going to miss living in California when we go back home
that paella is making me hungry! ;-)
Sally, we haven’t quite got paella right yet – this one was still a bit too juicy. But you know us, we’ll keep practising! ;-)
A little longer in the oven Celia and get those yummy paella crusty bits happening on the sides & bottom & your paella will be awesome :) Don’t you just love this stuff huh.
Seriously jealous with your fishmonger, good buying in Marrickville – I remember Lorraine talking about some of the shopping a gal can do there.
Sigh…Anna, we had a couple of purist friends insist that the oven bit was not allowed, so Pete’s been trying to perfect the paella on the cooktop. We might have to get back to the oven method though – don’t think our burners are up to it! :)
Fishy heaven! How wonderful, I would find it hard not to buy fish as beautiful as that if I saw it! Your photos make it all look so inviting :) In fact if there’s any of that paella left….. no?
You are always welcome! The fish shop is pretty ordinary to look at, but the value was astounding!
So looking forward to living in Australia………someday soon. What a fine selection!
Oz, thanks, we have some of the freshest produce anywhere!
So have you swapped flour suppliers? I will have to remember that place, not that I go to marrickville that often… Maybe a good excuse for yumcha!
Brydie, so here’s an update on flour – our original supplier of Kevin’s flour, Alain, shut down his business, so we were buying Manildra Bakers Flour at Harkola. Then we were given a sample of the BF flour to try, and it was superb, but Harkola don’t stock it, so I rang the mill to see where I could buy it from. They put me onto Southern Cross Supplies. Apparently there’s also a supplier in Hornsby.
You know, I’ve never had yumcha in Marrickville – it’s more famous for it’s Vietnamese Pho! :)
I will have to try the flour one day. Although fitting in a 25k bag? eek…I’ll have to start laying it under pillows.
Yumcha is up near the church. It’s busy though!
Brydie, I have trouble just lifting a 25kg bag! They’re sitting in the storeroom at the moment, making Pete cross because they don’t have a proper “spot”. ;-)
Will have to check out the yum cha, thanks!
I love your photos, Celia!
I think some of those fish were smiling at me.
And the prawns look gigantic.
I love fresh seafood- where I live it is frozen or thawed- rarely fresh. Although they’ve been farming shrimp in Ohio- Midwest American fresh seafood?
Anyway, I’m off to the East coast in a couple of weeks and we will dine on oysters and clams and crabcakes.
Thanks for the view from your side of the world.
Heidi, we’re so fortunate to have access to such amazing seafood. It’s not as diverse a range as many other countries get, but it’s usually amazingly fresh. Enjoy the crabcakes and shellfish! :)
What a fun and satisfying spending spree! Don’t you get great satisfaction sourcing great ingredients to feed your family? They deserve only the best, but if you find some bargin prices, even better!
Becca, as you and I both know, often the best isn’t the most expensive – sometimes it’s the opposite! It’s usually much cheaper to buy amazing raw ingredients and prepare them yourself than it is to buy an even half-decent restaurant meal!
Looks like a very successful day of shopping there, Celia and the seafood looks faaabulous. I especially like the raspberries for $6 – I’m quite envious.
Amanda, it was a fun afternoon – Marrickville is such an interesting suburb/city, and there’s always such a culturally diverse offering there in food terms. Raspberries for $6/kg though – cheapest I’ve ever seen them!
Isn’t it amazing how fast one goes through one of those bags of flour?
Fresh salmon and smoked trout are hard to beat!
Manuela, the flour gets shared around a bit, but given how fast Small Man is eating at the moment, a lot of it’s just being eaten by him! The smoked trout was particularly fine!
I didn’t think your list of fish buys was going to end. What a bargain.
I wish I could get frozen berries for those prices here. The best I’ve found are Nanna’s brand at the supermarket. When they’re on special you can get mixed berries for $8/kg.
Claire, I’m sure they’ll be a frozen berry supplier in Brisbane, although I’ve never seen raspberries at $6/kg either!
I’m rushing off to Marrickville tomorrow, all the bread I’ve been making lately is struggling to rise, left for 12hrs overnight, I’m blaming either the cold or the flour, so some new flour to try might just be the trick!…and pho for lunch would be perfect.
Wendy, my starter is sulking too – the change in weather always makes it play up. Try putting a little in a bowl and giving it lots of feeds over a couple of days. That’s usually enough to get mine right again!
I couldn’t resist scrolling through this post twice Celia. What a treasure to have all of this on your doorstep.
:-) Mandy
Mandy, it’s so true, treasure really is the right word for it! :)
You’ve had so much fun shopping and thanks for the heads up on the raspberries! $6 a kilo is amazing! :o
We’ve had so much fun with the frozen berries – thanks for the initial headsup, Lorraine!
Haha I stopped by today and bought some raspberries :P
I love living in the bush but I must admit, shopping in Sydney does have it’s pluses. The prices! The fish, the fish!!!
Ben Furney does mill a ‘variety’ labelled Award. My supplier seems to have it in half size bags.
Thanks for the headsup, Liz, I’ll look out for it. Mind you, 25kg bags aren’t a problem in winter – I can store them bug-free in the storeroom, it’s only when the weather gets hot that I get nervous about weevils!
wow the raspberries look AWESOME for that price. And I would ignore the purist approach on Paella – I am still wowing everyone with your microwave custard, which is bound to be anti-purist!
Anne, so glad you like the recipe, I made a batch last night using all milk and no cream. Worked well, albeit less rich!
Microwave Custard recipe
As much as I hate to leave Italy, I am looking forward to some excellent Australian prawns. I might just try that recipe too.
Deb, my friend Dan once said that all Queenslanders are particularly fussy about prawns, because they’re just all so good up there! :)
MMMMarrickville – what a bounty – I’ll have to let my daughter know about the berries in particular. I did the twice-through scroll too – it all looked so fabulous. I heard recently that weevil eggs are actually already in the flour, rice, etc when we buy them. The eggs are really, really tiny. But Sharon Lush (of spotless fame) recommends bay leaves to “break the breeding” cycle. She says one bay leaf per 60cm centimetres of pantry space. I’m guessing that’s square centimetres. However, as we are growing a vigorous bay tree, I’ve put a leaf or two in every dry goods packet and tossed a branch in the pantry for good measure! Also, when I was a young mum and making bread regularly, I stored the flour in a drum and was advised to put a small lighted candle in when I put the lid on, this would use up the oxygen and therefore snuff out the weevils. Of course, it could also burn the house down and totally solve the weevil problem!!
Jan, the lit candle solution sounds a bit extreme! The way the weevil thing was explained to me by my miller friends is that the eggs are always in flour, and if you keep the flour below 28C (I think), then they won’t hatch. Airtight helps too, but I guess it only stops spreading of the bugs once the moths hatch. I try and keep everything in the fridge of freezer in summer – seems to work well.
Oh how I love marrickville. I can’t believe you got all that seafood for 60 bucks too! I wish we had a fish shop near us that was that good, but I have tasted too much bad seafood from canberra to trust the fish shops now.
Susan, that’s a shame there isn’t better seafood in Canberra – I sometimes forget how fortunate we are to live by the sea!
You are so fortunate..i have to go to Chinatown in NYC for mine.
Snippets: I nearly choked reading the end. I was dancing with my granddaughter and tried to do a semi split and stayed in that position until my daughter-in-law helped me to stand upright. ;}
Norma, you made me laugh! We’re not getting any younger.. ;-)
OK Celia, where can you get BF Flour in Hornsby?
I am starting to plan a day in Marrickville with the girlfriends for my birthday. What should I simply not miss that is open on a Saturday, and where should we eat?
Haberfield is a close second..and then there’s Surry Hills…
oh the decisions!!
Vix, I rang the mill to check for you – the supplier they gave me was:
Food on the Move
Unit 7, 28 Leighton Place
Hornsby
02 9482 1701
http://www.foodonthemove.com.au/
Faros Brothers is open on a Saturday, as is Chef Express, but I’m not sure about Southern Cross Supplies. And paper girl, don’t forget to stop at Reverse Garbage and see what treasure they might have on offer (Addison Road community centre). :)
I love having Vietnamese pho at PHD, 308 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville (02 9559 5078) – they’re often very busy, so probably worth a call first. And recently, the Spice Girl and I ate at Let’s Eat, a Thai restaurant, and it was quite nice too!
Brydie recommended a yumcha place in a comment above, and in the past we’ve also had nice meals at the Corinthian Rotisserie Palace – haven’t been for a few years now, but they used to have wonderful homestyle Greek food!
Haberfield is insane on a Saturday, and I don’t know anything about Surry Hills on a weekend, since Chefs Warehouse isn’t open then.. ;-)
Have a great birthday! :)
right, that rules out Surry Hills!!!
Thanks for the great advice. I think I will drive my friends crazy if I go to Reverse Garbage…
And thanks for ringing the Mill. I wondered if it was Food on the Move. They are really very good. Will go there Monday perhaps. We are low on flour!
Thank you!!