The Butcher's Block

This is the 'it' cafe for locals in this area, and I was finally in the area to try this cafe out,

We arrived at around 12pm, and got a seat out at the back without waiting. We came out at around 1.30ish, and there were heaps of people waiting, but mainly families waiting for the big tables since it was school holidays.

Entrance looks small...

It's actually a narrow but long cafe and quite a lot of seating. The tables aren't too squished together. They actually grow some chillies, some veges and fruits around their garden wall.

menu (the menu online doesn't have prices...)

drinks

large capp: $4

Marsala chai (spicy): $6

We expected the food to be expensive here, since this is in the north after all. It's similar toWild Pear Cafe in Dural where the prices are at least $20 and average $25, whereas in the city you can get a decent dish for around $15. Surprisingly the drinks are quite cheap in comparison t6o the food (and relative to other cafes haha). You can get a smoothie for $6.50 and it looks quite big and they have at least 4 flavours. I decided to get the chai this time since I saw the person next to me ordered it, and it looked quite cute. It comes out on a wooden board, the milk is already added into the tea, and there's around 2 cups from it. First cup I didn't let it soak in the spices for longer, second cup I poured definitely was more flavourful. Loved all the spices here. They also put a dash of honey into your cup beforehand.

No coffee art here for this capp, and the coffee was more on the weak side and not as much froth. It was quite hot as well and may be slightly burnt (I prefer my coffee not too hot, more of the drinking temp hot). Hot water here cost $2, the most expensive by far. In The Rocks, almost all restaurants/cafe charge $1 for hot water, so $2 is pretty ridiculous. Pretty sure they want you to just spend that extra $1.50 for a regular coffee...

foood

The Butcher's Burger: beef brisket, wagyu beef mince, jack cheese, onion rings, smokey bbq sauce, fries-$20

the meat!

Almost every table ordered the burger (or the quinoa salmon salad), so it looked like it's a must try, and so glad we ordered it. The meat had so much flavour. Liked how they use different cuts of beef here. The cheese used reminded me of American burgers...Onion rings sounded cool in a burger, but they weren't that special. Probably would have like a little bit of salad to lighten the burger. The fries weren't that great and there wasn't any sauce/aioli (ended up dipping it in the leftover pasta sauce and it was delish). The chips were kind of flat and slightly hollow. Our batch was more on the borwn side compared to other people which were golden brown.

Crab, lobster and prawn pasta: capellini pasta, fresh herbs, saffron, cream-$29

Probably one of the best pasta's I've had, and for a cafe, this is definitely good quality. It did take a little longer to come out, but I guess it's expected. The night before someone was cooking lobster on Masterchef, and then I had a lobster craving especially since I haven't had lobster in ages. Was going to get the lobster tail and in hindsight glad I didn't since it was quite a small bread roll and lobster tail. Pretty sure they use the rest of the lobster for this dish, as there were heaps of generous pieces of juicy lobster scattered throughout. There was actually less crab and prawn...so yes, well worth your money. Pasta was cooked al dente (: Seems expensive for cafe food, but in restaurants, a pasta is normally over $25+. Saffron the most expensive spice in the world, and loved how it added a sweetness to the sauce. 

The pasta was definitely a lot more worth compared to the $33 crispy skin smoked salmon. Yes, crispy skin is hard to perfect, but looking over at the table next to us, the salmon was tiny, smaller than Devon Cafe's Breakfast with the Sakuma's and more expensive as well. The salmon was only accompanied with salad and nothing else.

So if you're ever in this area up north, make it your lunch location (: