Tag Archives: weekend

Black coffee, Cafe Review

Coffee at Espresso Boutique

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Long Black at Espresso Boutique
Long Black at Espresso Boutique

Right next to the train station. There are few places as good for a cafe as that, and Espresso Boutique’s location just next to Eagle Junction railway station is pretty spot on. It looks like a hole-in-the-wall cafe at first glance, at least until you go inside, or see the menu.

Espresso Boutique is a cosy cafe, with a large table dominating the space, and a number of smaller ones scattered around it. There is a bookshelf (with borrowable books) and a few small tables up against one wall with the specials board. The cafe also features a decent kitchen, and the lunch and breakfast menus reflect this. The big breakfast was not as full-on as it is at Campos, but the price reflects this as well. There was no trouble swapping out the eggs for extra mushrooms either.

Espresso Boutique Big Breakfast, minus eggs
Espresso Boutique Big Breakfast, minus eggs

Espresso Boutique serves Schibello coffee and does a respectable long black, and stocks T2 tea served in nifty teapot-cups for those people who like soggy leaves. Appropriately, above the counter there is an espresso menu, listing single shot, doppio and ‘con panna’, espresso served with a dollop of whipped cream.

The specials board looked interesting, with items like zucchini and sweet corn pancakes and a spinach, bacon and goat’s cheese tart. The food in the cabinet looked fresh and seemed to confirm Espresso Boutique’s claim that they sourced their ingredients fresh from the Brisbane and Clayfield markets.

Tea and the awesome cup
Tea and the awesome cup

We did not try the lunch menu, but it did look impressive. From the layout to small touches like bag hooks under each table, Espresso Boutique’s attention to detail was noticeable. It did not appear to be as much of a coffee specialist as some other cafes,  such as the Coffee Guy, but the cafe certainly succeeds as somewhere to grab a light meal on the weekend. I would be surprised if Espresso Boutique isn’t as good when you’re grabbing a coffee on the way to the train as well.

TL;DR

  • Great commuter location
  • Breakfast was good
  • Menu looks great
  • Cosy and attractive interior

Espresso Boutique
www.espressoboutique.com.au/
Shop 6, 260 Junction Road, Clayfield
Brisbane
PH: (07) 3357 6313

Black coffee, Cafe Review, Reviews

Gourmet Cellars at Sydney Airport

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Coffee at Gourmet Cellars
Coffee at Gourmet Cellars

Airport coffee doesn’t actually have to be good coffee. In fact the bar is set very low for food and coffee in airports. I suspect it has a lot to do with access to a captive audience waiting for a flight. When you are boarding in 30 minutes, you are unlikely to shop around much.

Gourmet Cellars in the Sydney Domestic Terminal is actually not too bad. The cafe is located just near a bookshop tucked away from the main concourse. As the name implies, they had a surprisingly substantial wine list, even if they were light on food.

The cafe uses Vittoria coffee and does a reasonable job with it. My long black was more or less OK, and was only slightly too bitter. Considering what some cafes do to Vittoria coffee, this was better than I was expecting. Unfortunately for me, their cake selection was poor to nonexistent and their food selection was just as slim. They did stock some biscuits and a few other nibbles, but nothing that appealed to me.

The seating was OK, but like so many other places in an airport, they were short on power points. The day a franchise makes power points available at the table for their airport locations, they will make a killing. Unfortunately for my phone’s battery, Gourmet Cellar was not going to be the one to start this.

TL;DR

  • OK coffee, not like you have much choice
  • Very light on food
  • I am sure their wines are lovely
  • Why don’t airport cafes offer patrons power points at the table?

Gourmet Cellars
http://www.airportretail.com.au/gourmet-cellars

Cafe Review, Reviews

No Coffee at the Sydney Tea Centre

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Tea Centre Tea and Cake
Tea Centre Tea and Cake

This may come as a shock, but I did not get a long black at the Tea Centre’s store in Sydney. It would have missed the point. The Tea Centre is a specialist wholesale tea shop. They have a number of stores around Australia, including three in Brisbane, and specialise in high quality loose leaf tea. There is also a Tea Centre store in Sydney, and unlike most of the others, this one has a tea room, with tea. And cake.

The Tea Centre is in “The Glasshouse” just off the Pitt Street Mall. After spending a good part of the day walking around Sydney’s inner city shops it was nice to sit down. Adding a slice of chocolate and almond cake and a pot of tea was a bonus. My girlfriend is a rabid tea fiend and long-term fan of the Tea Centre, so I let her choose.  We ended up drinking Stockholm Blend, which was pretty good.

The store certainly looked like a tea specialty shop. Tea and tea making apparatus filled most of the space, barely leaving room for a few tables and an upright cake cabinet. It seemed to be busy with customers both buying supplies for home and stopping in for a drink, but we were able to get a table and place an order without too much trouble.

Our tea arrived in a generously sized and rather attractive pot. The pot was large enough for four cups in total, and the cake was pretty good. While all three of the the Tea Centre stores in Brisbane carry the same great range of loose leaf tea, only one of them (Albert St in the CBD) has a tea room like the Pitt Street Mall store. I do prefer coffee, but if you drink tea, be sure to try out the tea from the Tea Centre. It really is very good, tastes way fresher than tea bags and contains no artifical flavours or preservatives (unlike rival chain T2).

TL;DR

  • I ordered tea, not coffee
  • Is mostly a tea shop, the tea room is an addition
  • Small range of cake, large range of tea
  • Is in Sydney

The Tea Centre
http://www.theteacentre.com.au/
“The Glasshouse”, 150 Pitt Street Mall
Sydney CBD
Ph: 02 9223 9909

Black coffee, Cafe Review, Reviews

Sip Cafe for Coffee in Teneriffe

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Long Black Coffee at Sip Cafe
Long Black Coffee at Sip Cafe

Seating both indoors and outdoors, slightly uncomfortable chairs and reasonable coffee. Most urban cafes are very similar and Sip Cafe in Teneriffe seems to fit this description too. Sip Cafe is on Vernon Tce, near the river. It is one of the small cafes at the bottom of the apartment blocks in Teneriffe.

The coffee was OK, exactly what you could expect from Di Bella. It was served with a chocolate freckle, which you need to eat sooner rather than later. As it turns out, chocolate melts when it is too close to hot liquids.

Apparently their breakfasts are not too bad, at least according to one of my friends who I was meeting there for coffee, and according to Sip’s Facebook page. This time we did not get a chance to test this for ourselves; as we had all eaten before we met up.

There actually isn’t anything wrong with Sip Cafe. The coffee is good, it has a fridge with a glass door and the usual drinks, and if you live in the apartments above it, the location is great. It is just that there is no real compelling reason to go there other than convenience.

TL;DR

  • The coffee was OK
  • The cafe was OK
  • There is not much more to say really

Sip Cafe
Facebook
Sip Cafe, 54 Vernon Terrace
Teneriffe
Ph: 07 3257 1799