By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
WALK through the door of Dandy Naan bakery, and the first thing that hits you is searing radiation.
Then it is the sheer enormity of the 250 degrees Centigrade gas-fired oven that looms as large as a bus.
Within its space-age cavern, the furnace bakes Iranian sangak bread on a slow-moving turntable in three minutes.
Co-owner Mohammad Musawi says no other bakery in Melbourne cooks sangak – a generously-proportioned naan-like flat bread with a pebbled texture.
The bread derives its name, which translates to “little stone”, from its traditional cooking surface. It has long been cooked on hot stones within a tandoori-style oven.
Mr Musawi’s month-old bakery is hard to find, without so much as a business sign and advertised by little more than word-of-mouth.
Yet it’s already building a regular, Melbourne-wide clientele hungry for sangak, sold in 500-gram pieces for $2 straight out of the oven and wrapped in paper.
“For Iranians, this is the bread they love,” Mr Musawi said.
Others are being converted to the taste; one customer buying up to 20 for barbecues.
Traditionally sangak is eaten simply with sheep fetta or kebabs, salad and onion.
Mr Musawi gave up his job as an industrial designer to start the business.
He created the bakery’s striking fittings, including the counter, lights and a housing for the gargantuan oven imported from Iran.
As Mr Musawi watches customers queue, he says: “Yeah, I made the right move.”
He has been joined in this enterprise by his brother Hamed, who learnt baking in their Iranian homeland, and his father Saeed, who arrived in Australia as a refugee five years before his sons.
At the moment, the bakery is cooking a reputation for cheap breads. Soon to come are kebabs, coffee, salads and snacks.
Dandy Naan is open Tuesday-Sunday at 30 Stud Road, Dandenong.
