Category: Café

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Bakery Café

Self Raised Bread Shoppe – Carlton NSW Restaurant Review

My recent wife has decided that my parents’ place is the optimal place for her to study, far away from the cats and other homely distractions, and so I took the opportunity to take us to a semi-local sandwich shop that had been on the radar for some time.

Sadly, the tart display case was near empty by the time we arrived, and so we did not have the opportunity to try the Cacio e Pepe tart, nor any number of other yummy-looking fruit tarts pictured elsewhere on the internet.

We instead had two sandwiches. The hoagie ($19), a cold sandwich of mortadella, salami, lettuce, cheese, beef, red peppers and a sauce that was allegedly mayonnaise but tasted more like Thousand Island was okay but not life-changing.

I enjoyed the ciabatta and especially the sesame seeds which added a nice dimension of flavour, as well as the generous serving of meats, however each bite of this $19 sandwich merely served to remind me of the excellent $15 sandwich we had from Ranieri’s Delicatessen nearer to home. Unfortunately while I have no specific complaints, this sandwich did just fail to amaze, and I do think that sandwiches should be evaluated in their broader context of their alternatives.

The fish burger ($17), featuring a panko crumbed hake fillet, melted American cheese, onion, pickles, and house tartare sauce between a milk bun was my wife’s choice. She quite enjoyed it with its flaky fish fillet and crispy panko crumb, however I personally felt that the tartare sauce could have been applied more generously, a la Kosta.

Again it was difficult not to draw a direct comparison to our nearby fish burger favorite, which in my opinion it falls short of.

Overall, neither of the two sandwiches I had blew me away. It’s a competitive market for sandwich makers out there.

Self Raised Bread Shoppe
45 Jubilee Ave, Carlton NSW 2218

Categories
Café

Plunge 46 – Summer Hill NSW Restaurant Review

I respect breakfast as the most important meal of the day, both from a medical standpoint as well as a cultural standpoint – the post night shift breakfast is probably one of the things that keeps me coming back to work. Despite my respect for breakfast as an institution, I don’t necessarily believe that breakfast should be limited only to breakfast foods, like eggs, beans, and more generally a simple lack of meats made in elaborate ways. So it comes as no surprise that I am an absolute sucker for an all-day menu.

My partner and I ate from Plunge 46’s extensive all-day menu, this morning in the middle of her run of night shifts.

We had this very lovely plate of corn fritters ($22), which is a very standard dish that my partner likes, but this rendition came with some excitement. As you can see from the photo, there was not a whole lot of batter on the corn fritters. The corn kernels themselves were quite visible macroscopically without need for any additional dissection, meaning that compared to others in its category this rendition was quite corn-forward and probably a bit healthier than its competition who are mostly completely encased in batter.

We enjoyed the sour cream, the slightly smashed avocado, the tomato and all the other bits involved, particularly the red liquid, which was somewhat of a salsa-like concoction. My partner was particularly pleased by the appearance of rocket rather than the more common wilted spinach, the two occupying opposite corners in her vegetable tier list. The fritters, topped off with a well poached egg, was overall a strong showing.

The tempura fish tacos ($17.50) that I had read about on the Google reviews before I went were somewhat less exciting (although my partner did enjoy them, to be fair). I found myself eating my allocated taco quite quickly without really being able to taste anything particularly different between the mixture of cabbage, avocado, tomato in this taco compared to the corn fritter dish. Apart from a slight hint of bitterness it was hard for me to really unpack any of the flavours in my little taco that I had, almost as if I basically ate my taco on autopilot without the ability or opportunity to really understand and enjoy it. Perhaps such an assessment is not entirely fair, but I do feel like if it were great, I probably would’ve paid more attention to it.

Luckily for this Plunge 46, there are still quite a number of options on the menu that I’d like to give a go, and it is quite likely that I’ll be back in due course.

Plunge 46
46 Lackey St, Summer Hill NSW 2130

Categories
Café Chinese

Park Cafe – Campsie NSW Restaurant Review

My PMR friend stopped by Campsie for an impromptu visit, and I found us a place to eat with record decisiveness and in record time. He very kindly allowed me to choose two Taiwanese dishes from their combination Western and Taiwanese menu, which is all available all-day long.

This Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice (卤肉饭 – lu rou fan) ($16.80) was really good, with a mixture of soy braised pork belly and pork mince, plenty of braising fluid as gravy, white rice, and a runny-yolk but solid-albumen sunny side up egg. The fatty pork belly was really soft and delicious, with the minced portions being more lean and providing textural contrast. The supplied braising liquid was enough to flavour the entire mound of rice, which was a generous serve and definitely enough if if you’re a rice lover. I enjoyed this, and may actually have to come back with my partner so that she can enjoy this too.

The Taiwanese Beef Brisket Rice ($18.80) was the lesser of the two dishes. It too featured an egg, which was not pictured on the menu photo, but lacked bok choy, which was. The meat was relatively tender, but the flavours and textures of the more lean beef and its composite sauce were less rich and indulgent than that of the pork belly rice. My friend agreed with me, but still enjoyed it. I will attach below a photo of the menu for photographic comparison of its components.

Park Cafe
Shop 5, 20-22 Anglo Rd, Campsie NSW 2194

Categories
Café

Peaberry – Croydon NSW Restaurant Review

We made just a quick stop at Peaberry between inspections as we engaged in Australia’s national pasttime.

We came near closing – tempted by images of fish burgers and smash burgers on Google Maps with only half an hour to eat. Sadly the burgers no longer existed on their menu, leaving us with these sandwiches instead.

The Frankie’s Pick ($12) was also my pick of the two sandwiches, featuring peppered corned beef, American cheese, American mustard, and a huge amount of thinly sliced American pickles from Mcclure’s between toasted Turkish bread. The choice of bread, and the bread to filling ratio in particular, I thought allowed for a high level of tanginess and tastiness without too much unneccessary density. A good package.

The Cuban ($12) was quite similar to Frankie’s Pick, but with triple smoked ham and sliced jalapneos in place of corned beef and pickles. My partner preferred this one over Frankie’s, but I personally would have preferred some roast pork a la the classics rather than just ham itself.

I’m sad about the lack of burger, which really did look good online.

The Peaberry Cafe
202 Elizabeth St, Croydon NSW 2132

Categories
Café

Little West – Haberfield NSW Restaurant Review

We spent like half an hour doing a post-walk stand-around waiting for a table at Little West, but we got to see a little cat after our meal, so it was kind of worth it to me.

The smoked brisket sausage roll ($10) was somewhat small in size, but made up for it with its good texture, both internally in the house smoked beef brisket filling, as well as externally in the buttery and flaky pastry. The house made bush tomato sauce was a bit tangier than your regular tomato sauce, almost similar to a BBQ sauce.

This banana & macadamia loaf ($7), toasted with a slab of cultured butter, did very little for me. At the very least I can say it was not too sweet, but I think overall it was not too anything in terms of taste.

This brunch bowl with house hot smoked salmon ($24 including a $7 salmon supplement) was wholesome and good, hitting the mark on a number of counts, including a good corn fritter, well poached eggs, and a varied smattering of fresh greenery. Little West’s commitment to making a bunch of different ingredients in house, where your usual café might just buy their smoked salmon from an external supplier, is pretty impressive, even if the quality of the end product does not differ noticeably from something off-the-shelf.

meow

Little West
Shop 2, 53-55 Waratah St, Haberfield NSW 2045
0482 078 099