So, there’s this bakery in the city, around the corner from a place I visit regularly for work. It’s on Erskine Street, and is called Central Baking Depot.

I only noticed it recently, but it has potentially been there for millenia.

Yesterday, I finally found the time and inclination to pop in and see what they do. I’m a bit of a fan of baked goods, so I like to investigate newly found bakers. Besides, I hadn’t eaten lunch, and bakers make pies. Who doesn’t love a pie?

They were very busy. People everywhere, munching down on delicious looking baked goods. It was pretty late for lunch by this point, which is probably a good thing - were it peak lunching time, I might not have been able to get in the door.

Whilst waiting to be served, I witnessed the following conversation between a fellow customer and one of the staff.

Customer: do you have any mince pies?

Staff: Mince pies? No.

C: No mince pies?

S: No, just what you see on the menu.

C: Oh. Well, I’ll just have a sausage roll then.

The staff member then proceeded to recite a list of 4 or 5 splendid-sounding sausage roll variants.

C [slightly aghast]: Don’t you do anything plain?

S [proudly]: No, we only do extraordinary!

At this point, the confused customer left - perhaps to the convenience store across the street to get a sloppy Mrs Macs - while I mentally noted that I had certainly come into the right bakery.

I was then served by a bright looking, friendly-but-not-annoying fellow who had the service skill to note I was wearing a work shirt with my name on it, and greet me by name like an old friend, without making it feel like an old friend I wish I hadn’t run into.

“I’ll have a chicken, pea & lime pickle pie, and a mexican beef & chili bean sausage roll, thanks!”

Yes, I actually said this sentence out loud, and was not greeted with a look of bemusement or a pitying “I’m sorry sir, but that isn’t even legal!” as the silent alarm was triggered.

No, these are actual, real items, right there on their menu board. I know, I know, they sound like some sort of fantabulous Willy-Wonka-esque dream-foods, but they were real, and I bought them.

They were absolutely fucking delicious, too.