Visited 9 September, 2006
The corner of Burwood Road and Power Street, Hawthorn is something of a landmark corner - but only for those with long memories! There is now a huge hole and the beginnings of a major office development, but located on this corner used to be the headquarters and the factory of the Fowlers Vacola Manufacturing Company. Fowlers Vacola were food processors, and were at the Hawthorn location, from 1920, for more than 50 years. While Fowlers Vacola’s food products were no doubt worthy, the fame of the name Fowlers Vacola comes from the company’s home-bottling kits, introduced by Joseph Fowler as early as 1915. The ability to preserve one’s own fruit and vegetables, courtesy of the Fowlers Vacola preserving system and bottling jars, was a godsend to poorer (and not so poor) families right through to the affluent 1970s. Around the country, agricultural shows still give prizes for the best presented home preserves.
So thoughts of home-preserved food were on our minds as we traversed Burwood Road.
The shopping strip near the Power Street corner is brief, barely a shopping strip at all, and not our typical type of Saturday destination; but we had other things to attend to nearby later, and it suited us to be brief ourselves. There is a good (non-chain) supermarket near the corner and, across the road from it, a fascinating shop selling old household items – not able to be called antiques, and not shabby chic; but plain and honest stuff from earlier times, from lamps to gazunders, albeit at prices that their original owners would not believe.
Breakfast places were scarce, but we found one, Osso. The word “osso” is Italian for bone, so the café’s name is a bit faux – but nothing else about the café is. Indeed, I am diffident about calling it a café. It is one of these modern eateries that serves a range of snacks of highest quality. And it is a retailer of cakes as well. Again I prefer not to call it a cake shop; maybe patisserie is more apt. The combination of in-house dining (with some seating in the street) and delicious pastries for sale, works very well - certainly if the steady flow of Saturday morning customers is any indication. The premises are very pleasant and modern, and have clearly been fitted out at considerable expense.
We tried the muesli with yoghurt. We remarked to each other on the smallness of the serves, but then had to eat our words - the portions were more than filling. The lattes were so good we had seconds. Make no bones about it, Osso is highly recommended.
Gary Andrews
It's not like the old days dot com!
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