REVIEWED BY DE GROOTS MEDIAIf you missed the name above the door, the cakes on display at the front counter/bar give the clue. There’s a selection of immense cakes, each probably with enough calories to see you through a day or two. There’s carrot cake, and chocolate, and even beetroot for the gluten-intolerant. Otherwise, there’s a breakfast menu, and a reasonable choice of dishes from the fixed blackboard and a smaller blackboard with daily specials. This is a place for the hungry, not the merely peckish, although small eaters could make do with the decent coffee and a tasting plate.
The simpler dishes are usually better, while the larger and more expensive dishes tend to be exuberant in their ingredients. Soy and ginger roasted duck, for example, comes on a bed of little green lentils with sambal spinach, along with Asian greens and black fungus. Breakfast is a favourite here, at any time of day, but be hungry because the big one, which includes salad and smoked salmon along with the usual bacon and eggs, can be overwhelming. The mood’s casual with laminex or timber tables, painted timber floors, stripped brick walls and a changing art exhibition. The small wine list is fairly priced and an outdoor area out front is heated, and allows for smokers.
Rita Erlich