Concrete Jungle Cafe

I love the open-ness of this cafe, with big glass door and windows, and very modern decor and lighting. They have copper accents on the chairs and some lights. Some chairs were just stools while others you could lean back. Maybe having a mixture of different style table and chairs is the new thing. Bonus points to the waitress as she assumed we wanted the drinks and food to come out at the same time. Normally I have to ask, since I prefer taking a photo of the food with the drinks (I mean, who doesn’t?)

food spread

 

Berry booster smoothie: mixed berries, coconut yoghurt, mama powder, chia seeds, milk-$9

I normally don’t order smoothies outside of home since I can technically make them if I have time. For the price of this one, I don’t think there’s anything special about it. It wasn’t sweet, but didn’t have enough berry or coconut flavour either. Quite pricey for a smoothie and it wasn’t super pretty either. 

The coffee on the foam sunk really fast and there wasn’t enough foam, but had a nice bitter coffee taste without being burnt. 

Blueberry and lemon hotcake, topped with ricotta creme, maple syrup, coconut flakes, berries-$18.50

The hotcakes looked very similar to Harry’s Bondi, but just missed the mark. The hotcake was a bit wet/not fully cooked batter to get a nice crisp outside and fluffy inside. It was more on the sweet side, but loved how you could taste the lemon in it. I don’t think you can have a hotcake these days without edible flowers. Harry’s Bondi also had larger pieces of blueberries.

Nourish bowl: beetroot hummus, cucumber, sweet potato corn fritters, kale, avocado, cherry tomatoes, quinoa, sesame and tamarind dressing-$19.50

The corn fritters were quite small for the price, but it had an interesting taste as they used sweet potato. The flavour wasn’t super prominent so don’t expect too much sweet potato in it. Beetroot hummus could have had more of a punch to it. I liked how they coated the avocado with sesame seeds. I though some of the kale was more towards to oily side.

Blue majik smoothie bowl: blue algae, pineapple, banana, coconut water and coconut yoghurt, topped with blueberries and housemate granola-$17.50

The smoothie bowl had a lovely vibrant blue and so pretty to look at! It’s nice and refreshing thing to have during the summer. It wasn’t that sweet which I prefer, and good crunch from the granola. Decent amount of blueberries in the bowl as well. 

Good Fat

When I heard Sydney was going to have an avocado cafe, I knew I had to go. Albeit, it is a pop up for the month of November, but it's quite a nicely done pop up. Earlier when I came back from my spontaneous to Europe this year, saw a post about an avocado cafe opening in Amsterdam and felt like I missed out, but so happy that Sydney had it's own. People normally ask what I put in my sandwiches, and most of the time it's avocados.

food spread

Left-The smooth avocado: avocado, banana, mango, mint, milk-$8

Right-Avo green smoothie: avocado, banana, spinach, cucumber, lemon, milk-$8

You could choose between Chobani yoghurt or different types of milk, but did not realise until after the drinks came. The drinks both tasted really similar, but I guess I was expecting a bigger hit of creaminess from the avo. The smooth avo drink wasn't really sweet and couldn't taste the mango either. The other smoothie was more refreshing because of the spinach and cucumber in it. The drinks  were thick but not like those asian avo shakes, but not too thin so that it was watery. Embarrassingly knocked down pretty much half of the smooth avo drink, but you can tell it's still thick enough to not crazily spill everywhere like water would...

Avoschetta: Fresh Avocado, roasted cherry truss tomatoes, with whipped feta on harvest grain sourdough and house made pistachio dukkah-$15

Can't go to an avo cafe without getting avocado toast right? (Insert can't afford to get a house deposit jokes). I do have to admit they were a bit stingy on the avo here, it's more 1/4 of an avo...The sourdough crust was a bit hard and chewy, so ended up using my hands to eat the bread. The tomatoes were really sweet and juicy though. Would have liked a bit more feta. I liked the slight crunch from the pistachio dukkak.

Good fat fritters: Golden fried shredded potato & zucchini fritters, dukkah coated Avocado, cured salmon, avocado hollandaise-$16

The fritters were really nice, not too oily or potatoes, but wished they were bigger in size. Couldn't really taste the avo in the hollandaise, although it was less acidic than your average hollandaise. Avo helped give some creaminess to the dish. Decent portion of salmon on the dish.

The Avo-licious Pig: Sweet miso glazed pork cutlet with broccolini & spinach, Avocado and mango salsa-$19

A good chunk of pork cutlet, with a nice sweet miso glaze. Probably would've liked a bit more miso in it though, but the pork was relatively lean. Loved the addition of the sweet yet slightly tangy mango salsa with some greens, and creaminess from the avo. This dish was quite filling and hearty in comparison. It's $20 on the online/printed menu, but they charged $19 on the receipt.

Avoconetto: Avocado ice cream, shaved dark chocolate, sweet pumpkin shortbread cream, praline, drizzled with salted caramel in a waffle cone-$6

Some of my favourite things on a plate: avocado, ice cream and edible flowers. Love the creaminess of the ice cream without being too sweet or overly powering with avocado, a really good balance of everything. Someone should make a market for avocado ice cream in supermarkets. The praline gave the dish a nice crunchy texture. The salted caramel was more sweet and couldn't really taste the saltiness in it. Its $9 on the online menu, $8 on the printed menu, and they charged $6 on the receipt, which is quite a bargain, compared to other ice creams I've had. Wouldn't mind ordering this again if they do set up a permanent store in the future.

menu

recipes

avocado wall paper

cute cushions

Beanie Cafe

I love discovering and trying out new cafes, especially out West. Beanie Cafe is a short walk from Parra Westfield situated under some office towers. I love the natural lighting which fills the super spacious cafe. It's under new management with friendly staff, and of course good coffee. They offer a lunch special each day of the week at around $10ish, also have 10% off for WSU students (any uni student will know we live on discounts haha). There are so many items on the menu!

food spread

Capp (regular)-$3.50

Coffee had a lovely aroma and not overly bitter. It had a good drinking temperature and the right amount of froth. Price is average compared to the city (unlike in the Hills where it's almost impossible to find a good cup for this price)

Passionfruit cake 

Bits of passionfruit seeds inside the cake. Not too sweet even though there is icing on it. It was a tad buttery and crumbly, but it's a nice sort of arvo treat.

Chicken salad: grilled chicken, avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, greens, with a mango dressing-$16

This was my favourite dish, mainly because of the mango dressing which we both thought was amazing. First time having a mango dressing. It had a nice sweetness to it which complemented that perfectly grilled chicken. Chicken quite moist as well. The salad ingredients were very fresh and again, the mango dressing just tied the whole dish together.

Beef nachos with beans, sour cream, guacamole and cheese-$12.50

Generous amount of toppings, with the beef not overly salty or spicy either. Loved the guacamole tomato which helped keep the dish fresh. Can't go wrong with nachos. 

Penne Arabiata with olives, chilli and napoletana sauce-$16.50

Pasta was cooked well with a good hit of chilli. I am still slowly building my chilli tolerance, but I can appreciate the chilliness in this. So many olives which made eating this dish feel even healthier. I actually prefer cream based pastas, but I didn't mind this tomato base since it wasn't overly acidic but had the sweetness from the tomatoes.

 
Smoothie: mixed berries, frozen yogurt, milk-$6

The texture was quite thick from the frozen yogurt, but it gave the drink more flavour, rather than adding ice to make it thick. A refreshing drink for a summer day. It's pretty decently price for the amount you get.

Matcha frappe

cakes

coffeee

Thanks for the invite! Hopefully I will be back to try their other dishes or  breakfast menu.

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)