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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

Paper Plane Cafe – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Though self-professed lovers of brunch, my partner and I tend to find ourselves looking more for lunch than breakfast. Cafes with all-day menus tend to be more our style, and we had hope that Paper Plane Cafe, next to a convenient if expensive parking lot in Parramatta would be up our alley.

This Midnight Cuban Sandwich ($18), served with bad boy fries definitely tends close to the lunch category than breakfast. The sandwich was ok – a little dry in places, but happily saved by the ample amount of mustard within. The bad boy fries I felt were too much potato, and I would’ve loved to have been able to order this sandwich on it own.

The Veggie Plate ($22) was a nice plate of vegetables, both ruined and added to by our addition of chorizo ($4). All elements of this vegetable and meat plate played well with each other. Nothing special, but a very reasonable thing to order in the absence of any other inspiration.

Coffee was fine. I liked the novelty spoon and matching mug.

I had the Truffled Eggs ($14.50) on a subsequent visit with a group of 7 colleagues after a run of night shifts. There remained an unfortunate lack of free parking in the area, and I spent an additional $6 for parking in the Parramatta Council Eat Street carpark. These eggs were pretty solid, and I think the addition of some truffle flavouring did enhance them compared to our previous experience. The sauteed portobello mushroom was good but minimal in quantity. The chorizo satisfied my salt and carcinogen craving and the intricate slicing to maximise surface area to cooking was also beneficial in portioning it out into bite sized pieces whilst eating. Overall quite a solid breakfast for under $15.

General Thoughts
Paper Plane Cafe isn’t my favourite place in Parramatta, and yet I keep finding myself back there every few years, just to see if it has improved. The food I would say is passable but not standout. I felt the service was somewhat disinterested. Overall I would call it a miss, but there’s nothing extremely wrong with it if you’ve exhausted all the other nearby options.

Paper Plane Cafe
5/2 Horwood Pl, Parramatta NSW 2150
0412 796 176