Piedmonte’s in North Fitzroy does nice fresh home cooked meals packaged for one - ready to heat and eat. I’ve lost count of the number of chicken stroganoffs with rice & veg I’ve bought when I cbf cooking. Their lasagne is meh, but the porchetta with noodles & veg meal is pretty legit too. Also their Italian Rice Salad - which is deeeelicious when heated up a bit in the microwave. They also do a nice roast chook too - bit heavy on the salt for my taste but always well cooked and juicy. They also sell vacuum packs of the ends of the smallgoods rolls all chopped up and ready to go on pizza or whatever. Yummmmm. Very cheap way to enjoy very expensive smallgoods. Like $4 will buy 300g of a variety of amazing sausages like regional calabrese and sopresso and expensive wood smoked hams of various sorts all costing over $30 per kilo and some of them over $70 per kilo. Great way to add amazing flavour to stews and cottage pies and stir fries and things.

Pricing generally is a touch above Colesworth standard but worth it if you cbf cooking. They price their just before due date meat very well, and I’ve had a lot of delicious bargains from them. Particularly the flat iron steak which is a fab fave of mine. I tend not to buy veg/fruit from them as Psarakos Market is better and cheaper, but for ready meals and meat Piedmonte’s is excellent. They also stock 1000 lire pasta as ready meals as well as the usual suspects like Corelogic - these are nice but pricey. Good range of vego and vegan stuff too.

The Miller St IGA has a limited range of fresh stuff, and has a good range of frozen stuff but don’t bother going there for a major shop of ingredients. Good for emergencies when you can’t be arsed going further afield. Their range of speciality chocolate is impressive. Good stock turnover, which makes me think that people are shopping there quite a bit even if I don’t.

I’m missing my local bakery, which is on holiday until late January - their banh mi is superb! Also their tiger rolls. Only 8 days to go until they’re back in business. Can hardly wait.