Nothing meaty here, simply a bit of a lament and couple of questions or quibbles—which sound like a grain, as in a bowl of rice and quibble or how about a tomato, feta and quibble salad?

My first question or quibble is why are almond croissants so often over-baked? OK, not the kind of question to keep one awake at night, but still … a question I’d like answered. Someone recently told me it’s because most almond croissants are made from yesterday’s pastries, or the day before yesterday’s. The old croissants are split open, filling spread inside, flaked almond scattered on top and then into the oven they go for a second baking. If that’s true—and I don’t know if it is—no wonder they’re so often hard and dry. And BTW a heavy dusting of icing sugar is more giveaway than disguise.

Now for the lament. I don’t know if this is an Australian thing or a uniquely Sydney thing, but it’s really hard to find a café open past 3:00 pm. I want to meet a friend or colleague late afternoon but in my local suburb the cafés have all shut up shop for the day. And if’s not much better in the CBD. A handful say they’re open until 5:00 pm—which means from 4 o’clock the staff are clearing up, putting chairs on tables, mopping floors. Low-key-challenging customers to keep sitting there until the advertised closing time. Look, I get it, staff have probably been there since early morning; they want to go home and get on with their own lives.

But still …

Such experiences—who wants to sip an iced coffee while a waiter sprays cleaning fluids around you?—invariably get me thinking of London where cafés stay open evenings. Sure, a lot of them are chains like Costa, Pret a Manger and Caffè Nero, but they’re open, trade is usually pretty brisk, and although I’m not generally a fan of chains, I’m starting to wish we had them in Sydney.

Don’t want to end on that rather sour note, so here’s a photo of my sweet and delicious tomato and mushroom biryani. It’s a Rukmini Iyer (India Express: Fresh and Delicious Recipes for Every Day) recipe with a couple of tweaks.