Antipasti Deli Cafe, 1 High St, Yarraville. Phone: 9318 0103

Yarraville Square Shopping Centre is the nearest shopping centre to our home, yet we rarely use it.

A well-stocked Coles with frequently long queues, a bottle shop, average chicken joint, a Subway – there’s not much there for us and the way we do.

Searching for details and information, this quip came up:

On a quiet night, the northern end of the parking lot affords a lovely view of the Subway store.

Turns out we’ve been missing a real gem the whole time.

When we visit for a Sunday lunch, Antipasti Deli Cafe is busy in a fetching way.

Locals and regulars are coming and going, picking up lunch makings and coffee, keeping the place humming and the staff busy.

The shop is quite small but stocked with a comprehensive range of goodies.

I suspect this place serves as a much-appreciated point for many folks putting together short-term shopping and evening meals when a full-on visit to the supermarket is not possible or warranted.

There’s all sorts of filled rolls and pies.

There’s the Sunday papers.

There’s all a good range of antipasti, cheese and dips.

There’s pasta and sauces and oils and a limited range of fresh produce.

The display of packaged biscotti and other sweeties is alluring.

There’s pasta sauces to take away – tomato, bolognese, pesto – all  for under $6.

There’s some tables inside and another half dozen or so outside.

Outside, too, there’s flowers and freezers offering all sorts of gelati and ice-cream stuff.

Antipasti Deli Cafe does cooked breakfasts, but we’re here for lunch … and what better than an antipasto platter for two, as befits the establishment’s name?

I really love the way Bennie has taken to these exercises in yumminess.

We adore the $21 spreads we get at Barkly Johnson, but a recent lacklustre and more pricey serving at a revered Carlton business showed him just how standards and quality can vary.

An earlier visit has ascertained from the boss, Fab, that they have two antipasto spreads – $15 for one and $28 for two.

We tell him that $28 sounds like too much food for we two, so he agrees to create something at the $20 mark just for us.

He may have given some weight to our lunch in the knowledge that photos are going to be taken and words are going to be written, but we are well pleased.

Our platter is meat heavy – good ham and prosciutto, some mild salami, some mortadella.

We use mortadella for week-day lunch sandwiches and rolls, so Bennie leaves it for me – and even I struggle.

The olive quotient is varied and includes large and red items we’ve never seen before. Unlike some big olives, these taste fine.

Bennie has taken a liking to artichokes, so he has his way with ours – meaning I get to scarf the tiny marinated mushrooms.

There’s two breads slices topped with what I believe is generally referred to as tomato pesto.

The two chargrilled eggplant slices are claimed by myself, while the cheese factor is represented by two globules of buffalo mozzarella.

We both like the sundried tomatoes with pesto.

I’m unsure how much of what we eat is prepared on the premises and how much is simply cracked out of bottles and other containers – but it all tastes good to us.

We finish with a good cafe latte for me and a hot chocolate for him that he opines lacks the required level of sweetness.

Could be we will become Antipasti Deli Cafe regulars.