Speedos Cafe

Pro tip: Go Coogee to Bondi not the other way around like I did last time, since there's so many choices to eat whereas there's not much at Coogee.

Decided to go Speedos Cafe since it was a good way to complete walking across the stretch of Bondi Beach. At first it looked closed since the entrance was hidden behind construction, but I called earlier to see if they offer breakfast at lunch, and the more popular breakfast options are available later in the day, so we went. It was packed at around 1.30pm. Seating is very packed, we shared a table with other people. There's a massive mirror on a wall of the cafe, to make the place seem bigger. Many people have just come from the beach, so don't expect it to be super clean. The water came with plastic cups (which could have been cleaner).

looking out

drinks station/cashier

 

Coconut Chia Pot: Cocowhip, blueberry, strawberry, melon, veganola, macqui-$17.90

multiple shots because this thing ain't cheap

Detox cleanse (right): coconut water, blueberries, banana, pomegranate, green tea-$9.90

Being Bondi an iconic place, you don't expect food to be cheap, hence a drink it almost $10 where as other places it's around 7/8. The drink was pretty big, but couldn't really taste the banana/pomegranate. Coconut water was prominent in it, but personally there was too much foam on top, so the actual drink isn't as big as it looks. 

It was my first time having chia and granola at a cafe. I have the ingredients to make the whole thing at home, but once you buy something (even just 500g) things expire quickly, and I can't use it fast enough...The cocowhip which is a vegan yogurt was amazing! The Nudie coconut yogurt is too thick and has a weird coconut taste, but this yogurt was similar to frozen yogurt. Although my pot was lacking some fruit compared to other people's, and there were no nicely lined up strawberries inside like in other people's insta pics....still tasted delicious and healthy :)

I decided to ask the waiter to recommend a second dish since i didn't want to have the 'bowls' of smoothie since the chia pot and drink had similar ingredients. Many people in the cafe got the burger, but I have other places on my list to go to get burgers...So she recommended to get the salmon, and probably my worst food decision ever this year...

Seared salmon fillet with zucchini noodles, brown rice, smashed orange vegetables-$23.90

We already finished the chia pot, and still and to wait for at least another 15min, so in total, over 30mins for this dish, worse decision ever. There was another table who ordered the salmon, and came in just 10mins before but had the salmon come to their table at the same time as us. Most likely since the chefs were busy making the burgers, and only make the salmon dishes if there's more than 1 ordered...I think the stuff would be prepped beforehand, but maybe the plating and cooking different components made it take overly long. Unfortunately you could taste the salmon wasn't fresh (which sucks because the sea is on it's doorstep and you'd expect it to be fresh), and was mostly overcooked and slightly dry. The skin wasn't really crispy either. The zucchini noodles is just zucchini sliced thinly, the smashed veggies was similar to a puree. The pomegranate weren't juicy enough...but I do have to commend the brown rice, normally only Asians can cook rice properly, but this cafe managed to make the rice not hard (unlike most other non-Asian places...)

FAKE cronuts

If you didn't know already, Cronuts is trademarked by the inventor Dominique Ansel in NYC. Every other places cells fake stuff, and shouldn't be called cronuts, but as if his team has time to track down all the small cafes which uses the name...it's mainly for chains like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. I couldn't bring myself to buy one of these for $9.90. The real ones are $5US, and when I went last year with the slightly better exchange rate it was $6AU. These ones I think aren't baked on site, may be decorated by them, but not that fresh. The toppings are all just sweet, whereas the real ones have complex flavours (only one flavour each month), with the best texture and some filling inside. I have yet to have a fake cronut, I've only had a Zonut (Zumbo's take on cronuts), but he invented it before other cafes made fake cronuts, and he's is also trademarked. The Zonut is actually quite different from the cronut, where as I think fake cronuts are just sub par to the real thing. 

Tl;dr, I don't want to disappoint my taste buds with fake cronuts and 'destroy' my memory of the real cronut lol. (Although there might be a time when I actually have a fake one before I have another real one)