Queen St Cafe, not to be confused with Queen St Eatery, also on Queen St in Berry, is a quiet cafe tucked towards the back of an indoor arcade with what seems like a high tea focus, unusually with very large plates, and an assortment of unusual chairs (not photographed). We took advantage of my temporary residence in Nowra to explore Queen St Cafe’s non-high tea offerings, an all day lunch menu.
These is the lobster po boys ($30), which featured much bread within which was stuffed southern fried lobster tails, slaw, frie donions, shallots, coriander, and hot sauce. For an additional $2 (a total of $32 for this large plate of moderate food, our house fries were upgraded to truffle fries. This was no doubt an expensive choice from a menu of expensive choices. We do like a good lobster though, and this deep fried lobster did fulfill that craving. They did I think overuse the mayonnaise and probably also oversalted everything. The chips were fresh, which is what you would expect at this price point.
The Japanese pancake ($20) with cabbage, broccoli, carrot, red onion, wakame, sesame seeds, a poached egg, ginger, tokatsu sauce and mayonnaise was Berry’s local take on an okonomoyaki. Whilst there was a bit more flour that I would’ve expected from a usual okonomoyaki and they had run out of bonito flakes for the day, the flavours of this dish were actually quite accurate and pleasing – a mixture of salty, tangy and umami. It was honestly pretty good, though they could have standed being a little more light handed with the sauce.
COMMENTS At the end of the day, there are a lot of options for food in Berry. Whilst Queen St Cafe was not bad, it wasn’t what I would recommend if you only had time in town for one or two meals.
Queen St Cafe
94 Queen St Shop 5, Stan Burt Arcade, Berry NSW 2535
(02) 4444 4612
