The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
All things considered, Piccolo Me is home to some pretty tasty, pretty cheap food.
The North Rocks Smash ($19) is a full featured smashed avocado plate consisting of smashed avocado on toast, rolls of smoked salmon, two poached eggs, and some tomato and herby stuff. All elements are good, including the runny yolks inside the poached eggs. At $19 it makes for a pretty reasonable value proposition. Just don’t add a beef patty for $5 like me and then wait fifteen minutes before digging into it.
The Hangover Roll ($10) is a great bacon, egg, and hashbrown roll at a great price. It hits just right, and it hits with the best.
The Piggie Smalls Wrap ($12) is very similar to the Hangover Roll, but in wrap form. I’m not too sure what the difference is, actually, but assume there must be one. Also good.
The Hen Solo Wrap ($12), unfortunately not pictured, is a nice chicken wrap that is jam packed with grilled chicken and enough sauce and tomato to maintain the moistness. I can also recommend.
The Pablo Escobowl salad ($15.90) is, like many of Piccolo Me’s other dishes, a meat forward meal. The pulled pork was absolutely excellent, with good moistness and a slightly sweet and slightly tangy marinade. Maybe it’s the fact that I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours before this meal, but my first taste of it sent me straight to heaven. The other salad components were fine but nothing to write home about, the smashed avocado being the secondary breadwinner of the dish. I opted for some extra Moroccan chicken ($4) in my “salad”, which unfortunately ended up a bit dry for my liking. A good bowl.
I loved the bright, energetic yellow colour scheme of Happyfield, Haberfield’s latest American-style diner, but nice colours don’t stand just on their own. Happyfield’s menu is also a force to be reckoned with.
This Savoury Stack ($21) was amazing. The best pancakes I have ever had, even better than the sourdough pancakes that DTC made for HMB and me in his own home. These pancakes were just so light, creamy, and fluffy on the inside. The maple syrup was not too sweet, and added rather than subtracted from the experience. Pepe Saya’s butter, one of the best widely available Australian artisanal butters, was a worthy splurge by the restauranteurs, as it kept up the delicious and premium theme. The bacon was well cooked, with just the right amount of softness and crispiness without venturing into hardened territory. The two fried eggs, sunny side up, had perfectly runny yolks that mixed in with the maple syrup and butter to form a umami sauce. Perhaps best of all was the slightly spiced, slightly sweet brown powder on top, which may have been cinnamon (this is not confirmed). The child on the table next to us hated it (his mother asked their waiter what it was, but she didn’t get a straight answer), but to be fair children generally have limited palates. Said child didn’t finish his breakfast. Perhaps when he grows into adulthood he will come back and experience this pancake dish for the masterpiece that it is. The best pancakes I’ve ever had.
The Drippy Eggs with Salmon Roe ($18) was well-loved by my girlfriend. She’s always been a big potato fan, and the pomme puree with horseradish was no exception. The mashed potato was silky smooth, and the addition of codded eggs and a bit of salmon roe (for an extra $3) added good and varied flavours. I wasn’t a huge fan of the focaccia sliders (bread for bread’s sake), but I did like the dill in the salad. I don’t think this was as good or as special as the pancakes, but she liked it so I am duty bound to tell you.
The McLovin Muffin ($13) is a McDonald’s style breakfast muffin filled with folded eggs, cheddar cheese, and two chicken sausage patties. I enjoyed the light, slightly herby flavour of the housemade chicken patties, as well as the softness and runniness of the eggs. It is a sign of culinary expertise when the eggs and the cheese of a dish mixes into one, and even though they were discrete layers in this muffin I do feel like they had an omelette-vibe to them. I have been thinking about this muffin for some time. I can’t wait to have another.
Even the baked beans ($5) were good. I have tried to avoid cafe baked beans, ever since I had some very average ones at Grounds of Alexandria in February 2020. It is surprising, therefore, that Happyfield with its Grounds alum has such nice beans on offer.
VERDICT Happyfield lives up to its name, inspiring happiness through its bright yellow fitout, pleasant service, and delicious food. I can’t wait to go back.
UPDATE OCTOBER 2024 We went back. It didn’t quite live up to my recollections.
The citrus confit salmon ($7.50) was super middling, though I don’t know why I had pictured a tetsuya-style confit fish for $7.50
On our second visit, we had the McGruber Muffin ($18) with pork sausage patties rather than the chicken McLovin Muffin. The taste was generally good, with a nice and runny fried egg included, however overall too salty for my liking.
The Potato Hashbrowns (2 for $6) were similarly very salty, and I found it difficult to enjoy the added flavour of the house-made chilli mayo on top of the already ‘happy salted’ potato.
We visited A Man and His Monkey on an extra-ordinary windy and cold day in June. Though allegedly outside of the peak COVID-19 season now two and a half years down the track, I made the decision to forgo the warmth of the claustrophobically packed café interior and sit us al fresco next to a non-functional gas heater instead. Some would later call this a mistake, but I would argue that the real mistake was that same person not bringing her own jacket and taking mine instead.
I really enjoyed this grilled salmon salad ($18.50), which truly exceeded all expectations and was exactly what my mouth needed at the time. The salad was a symphony of freshness, primarily composed of the flavourful herby green plants mint, parsley, coriander, spring onion, and a small amount of dill. There was no boring, garden-variety iceberg lettuce in sight, and as such each single leaf provided its own unique flavour. The grilled salmon was able to retain its presence despite being pulled into flakes, with just enough spread out throughout the greenery to exert a umami and fatty mouthfeel. The dried cranberries, another master stroke, provided a textural as well sweet tasting reprieve from the green in just enough quantity, and just when you thought the freshness might get too overbearing the bed of crème fraîche would swoop in with a save.
The poached egg, a $3 addon which I didn’t realise wasn’t part of the salad until re-reading the menu just now, was also excellent.
The men and monkeys of this café are masters of ratio, and all elements of this dish were in the right amounts in perfect harmony. There’s literally nothing that I could imagine that could have made this salad better, except maybe if I had had my jacket back.
Though I loved the salmon salad I didn’t really like the hummushuka with slow cooked lamb ($28). Not being the biggest fan of of shaks to begin with, this particular shakshuka appealed to me even less than normal, with a tomato sauce that was sweeter than usual, a very standard bread, and unfortunately quite unconvincing lamb for the $8 supplement atop the $20 base price. The one redeeming factor of this shakshuka were the again excellent eggs. Having said this, my partner, who chose this item from the menu, did enjoy this dish.
A soy cap for $4.40 is refreshingly reasonably priced these days!
COMMENTS I don’t think I’ve ever stanned for a salad this much in my life. Make sure to make your partner bring her Eastern Suburbs standard-issue North Face down jacket or pay the price.
We were baited to Firestone by the promise of some truly delicious looking Korean-Italian fusion food on their social media accounts. It turns out all that stuff was on an old menu. This is what we found instead.
I will start with the best dish of the day, the Truffle Mushroom Risotto ($21.90). This vegetarian dish was packed full of different types of mushrooms and truffle oil. It was creamy and umami, and even though it was vegetarian I did not miss the meat at all. Additional sliced or grated truffle was on offer for a supplement, however we declined. While it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, this dish was very good. I can recommend it.
The Chilli Dog ($12) was chilli only in so far as the sauce was chilli. There was no chilli con carne component, which is what you would expect to get if paying $12 for a hot dog named “chilli dog”. A no go.
I was really not a fan of this miso salmon benedict ($18.90). Unlike most miso salmon dishes on the streets of Sydney, this particular miso salmon was raw salmon, thick-cut, marinated in miso and mirin. It had a too-fishy flavour that kind of repulsed me. The rest of the eggs benedict was absolutely fine, but the salmon left a taste in my mouth that I can still recall to this day (about two weeks down the track).
This iced soy taro latte ($7.70) was solid. Not too sweet. Quite refreshing.
Standard teal cup large soy cappuccino. ($5.50) .
VERDICT A tough sell. Perhaps their Hornsby branch has a more enticing menu.
Another weekend, another brunch. This week’s victim was Coffee Trad3rs, a large, family friendly cafe with plenty of interior decoration and a pan-Asian inspired food menu.
This short rib burger was pretty good, if simple. The beef rib was tender and plentiful, though without much variety in flavour throughout the dish I did get a bit bored towards the end. The chips were freshly fried and good.
This miso salmon soba salad is the latest in a string of recent miso salmons for me. Excitingly, this was served with soba and a light salad rather than the standard rice. While the salmon didn’t do that much for me (I thought that the miso-ness of it was a bit too subtle), I really enjoyed the fresh salad and the cool soba, which had a great slippery mouthfeel.
Not one to say no to fried chicken, my girlfriend had to order the Taiwanese fried chicken cubes. This was similar in concept to large fried chicken but served in bite sized pieces, I imagine to fit the needs of the various children around the place.
Some kind of white drink.
I thought about not including a review for this item due to not having a very good photo for it, but I just have to mention the milk tea swiss roll cake. The flavour of this creamy swiss roll perfectly simulated that of a pearl milk tea, with the light and delicate sponge melting into the mouth almost as if it were liquid. It is a top tier dessert, to be sure.
SUMMARY I think that most of the food at Coffee Trad3rs is quite reasonable, and there is a certainly a broad Asian-fusion menu with constantly evolving specials on offer. If you’re in the area I’d definitely recommend giving them a go – if you’re far away though, I wouldn’t necessarily say drive across the city for it. Overall good. Avoid if you hate families and kids.
Coffee Trad3rs Castle Hill 1/8 Victoria Ave, Castle Hill NSW 2154 (02) 9894 7876
