Pumpkin Ciabatta

This was my lunch my last day in Perth in the port town of Fremantle. Fremantle is a small town on the Indian Ocean, it's one of the busiest ports in Australia. It also has a history, it used to be home to one of the biggest prisons in Australia, and that prison is now a world heritage site (see below). Despite its dark history, the town itself is beautiful. It has streets lined with colorful colonial style buildings. There are shops and restaurants everywhere you look. I spend an extremely pleasant afternoon wandering around exploring. Popping in and out of shops, climbing up overlooks to see the ocean, and of course wandering around Fremantle's famous Cappuccino Strip. 

This is one part of the town's main street that is positively lined with little coffee cafes. I didn't really stop for coffee but couldn't resist getting lunch at the Fremantle Baking Company. If you haven't noticed by now, bakeries here sell much more than desserts. They are famous for pies, quiches, savory pastries and sandwiches. A bakery is usually a really safe bet for a fabulous and fresh lunch in Oz. I saw that they had a lot of vegetarian items on their menu at this bakery and was sold. I ordered the pumpkin ciabatta sandwich. They toasted it for me and served it up hot. And I've got to say, this was the most satisfying and flavorful vegetarian sandwich I've had in a good long time. It consisted of a marinated veggie salad of pumpkin, capsicum, zucchini and feta. There were also some fresh greens on the sandwich. But the crowing ingredient was the caramelized onion aoli, which added just a hint of sweet/tart flavor that brought the whole thing together. The crunch of the bread and the complex flavors made this such a yummy lunch. And the perfect thing to compliment my low-key yet wonderful afternoon in Fremantle!