Adelaide stretches out in a series of long straight roads, usually intersecting at right angles, taking you north-to-south, east-to-west. To a new Adelaidian, this is actually a really unhelpful way to map out a city. Although it may seem straightforward, no street is made distinctive with twists and turns – and to make things even more complicated, sometimes the streets just change their name halfway down! For example, Daws Road becomes Oaklands Road. Why? Nothing changed about the road. It didn’t suddenly taking a sharp right angle or veer off in another direction – it merely crosses an intersection and then it has got another name. There is also any number of examples within the city centre of Adelaide: Wakefield becomes Grote, Grenfell becomes Currie. Why? – one might reasonably ask. Well, Adelaidians like to remind us that one should never cross a king and therefore any road crossing King William Street must change its name. Eh? For starters, we don’t currently have a King as our monarch, and second – what a silly answer.
Ok, sure, it may be historical (or just a rumour that’s now become fact), but it’s really annoying for us newbies and tourists! And with that – my rant is complete.
Brighton Road, BrightonView on Map
What does that have to do with Le’s Bakery & Vietnamese? Absolutely, positively nothing. I was just going to comment that Le’s resides on Brighton Road (one of the long north-to-south roads) and then I got lost on a tangent. Now, collecting myself once again I shall focus on the bakery itself.
Le’s Bakery & Vietnamese sits upon Brighton Road, in a small collection of older shops that look vacated or run down. Ironically one of the shops still remaining is called “The Special Size Company” and promises to provide only plus-sized clothing – appropriate given its proximity to the bakery. From the outside, this bakery looked dated, but step through the threshold and the interior decoration is modern, fresh and inviting. We were there after lunchtime but still had to queue for a donut as other patrons made their way through a selection of delicious looking báhn mì’s. Arriving at the front of the queue the very friendly server offered me a free donut hole to go and assured me that all the donuts were made fresh in store, daily.
We took our donut, to share, and sat in the warming afternoon sun watching the cars zoom by. Not the most aesthetically pleasing of environments for donut eating, but should one be bothered enough, the bakery sits a stone’s throw from Brighton Jetty and the sea. Consumption and rating of donut done we went on our way, a little heavier than we were before.
