Elbow Room Espresso, Chatswood

Although cafes such as Houlihan's have been serving the Chatswood community faithfully all these years, I'm glad that something like Elbow Room has set up shop. It certainly injects freshness to the tired list of breakfast places around the area. Tasty brunch, decent prices and gorgeous plating makes this a new favourite.



I can't say much about the coffee because I've recently developed a severe intolerance, but there is a wide variety of coffee extraction methods to choose from - including the use of a cold drip, V60 coffee drips or an Aero Press coffee maker.

Elbow Room Espresso Menu

I liked the banana smoothie for the frothy texture and generosity of honey, though I think it would have been better served a few degrees colder.

Banana smoothie ($6.00)

 The green power was a juice jam packed with healthy-sounding ingredients - kelp, spinach, dulse seaweed and alfalfa were married to apple, passion fruit, plum and lemon. Though it's indeed very green, I could mostly taste the plum/ apple combination. All vegetable flavour was pretty much annihilated by the sugary sweetness - not a bad thing if you're looking to indulge, but not great for anyone trying to minimise their carb-intake!

"Green power" ($5.00)

The Boy ordered the elbow room de hot dog - a fancy hot dog with chorizo, fried egg (with runny yoke!), mustard, chipotle, tomato salsa, and gherkins on the side. 

Elbow Room de Hot Dog ($12.00)

I'd requested the eggs benedict - two lightly toasted slices of sweet brioche with a generous portion of salmon, 2 poached eggs, spinach, and (of course) Hollandaise sauce. The harmonious presence of the mustard seeds and dill were the finishing touches that brought a huge smile to my face!

Eggs benedict on brioche ($16.00)

Om nom nom

We'd also ordered a side of mushrooms. They'd pan fried a mix of ordinary (field?) and enoki mushrooms, which were really nice with the cracked salt, though I was expecting the portions to be a bit bigger than what we received. Not that it mattered in the end because our mains were so filling we pretty much waddled out with food babies.

Mushroom side ($3.50)

Le Monde, Surry Hills

There has been much hype around Le Monde regarding its breakfasts, and though I entered the premises with the intention of selecting a breakfast item, I found out that I was too late for breakfast (which finishes at 12pm). At least they serve coffee at all hours. The decor is simple and clean, while the journey to the toilets requires a toilet key and sends you on a quest through a small carpark, up a flight of stairs, and into a quiet building. Thankfully this was during the day, or I would have been quite disturbed by the isolation - so, for the ladies, you might want to visit Le Monde in a group of a minimum of 3 so that one person can mind the table. In any case, I've gone on a tangent and this isn't why I cringe at the thought of this visit.

The coffee is aromatic and beautifully presented but I don't understand the hype around it. At times, my flat white tasted quite bitter, to the extent that I questioned whether it was burnt (probably not, but the sensation was somewhat unpleasant). I think Mad Spuds' coffee was lovelier.

Flat white ($3.50)

For lunch, I ordered the prawn linguine off of their specials board. This pasta dish came with cherry tomatoes, spinach, chilli, lemon and grana padano cheese. There was so much potential for a great hearty dish - the prawns were cooked to the point of being springy yet still moist, the texture of the pasta was firm, and the mild chilli made the pasta quite tangy. Sadly, they went overboard with the lemon juice. Each mouthful of pasta was overpowered by sour lemon, which made it difficult to make good progress on the meal.

Prawn linguine ($16.00)

All in all, the bitter coffee and sour pasta sauce are discouraging me from coming back. However, in all fairness, their strengths have been purported to lie in their breakfast menu, which I have not had the chance to sample yet. Hopefully my next visit will be a lot more enjoyable than this one.

Mad Spuds Cafe, Surry Hills

One day I decided to embark on a trip to Le Monde. Alas, it was a Sunday. It turns out that Le Monde is closed on Sundays. Instead, I headed to Crown Street to partake of the organic potatoes from Robertson* (where they filmed Babe).

Crown Street, that strip of trendy cafes and bars, was packed, with sizable lines outside various shop fronts. Mad Spuds was no exception, and we had to put our names down to wait our turn. There's a cute stationery/ card shop right next door, though, so we browsed around to kill time.

*: I just realised why there's a big potato in Robertson.

Signage

After about 15 minutes' wait, we were led inside to be seated. The interior is quite small but turnover seems quite high and there's a bit of outdoor seating. The waitress serving us was really friendly but I think we gave her a fright when the two of us decided to order 3 mains (not realising how generous their portions are).

The coffee arrived soon after. I must say that even though the spuds are the main attraction, the coffee is kind of amazing. My flat white had a really strong coffee aroma and taste but lacked the bitterness that I often find accompanies that amount of coffee flavour. It was creamy, rich, and made me want more. I later learnt they were given 2 coffee cups in the SMH good cafe guide. Definitely seems well-deserved.

Cappuccino ($3.50)

Flat white ($3.50)

My choice of dish was the 'boxty' - a potato pancake with mustard, bacon, avocado, fried egg, apple puree, white sausage, and what seems to be a dash of curry powder or paprika (tasted more like curry powder!). The boxty was crisp and formidably filling, tasting astonishingly nothing like your typical potato. The bacon was fried till dark and crunchy (the way I like it), and they were generous with the slabs of avocado. The egg yoke was half runny and the apple puree contributed some sweetness to the otherwise savoury dish (which I could actually have done without, but if that's the traditional way, who am I to comment). The white sausage patty was meaty and felt like mince, making the entire dish rich and full of carbs and protein. I should have been content with sampling one dish for the duration of that visit. Alas, I'm a committed glutton.

Boxty ($16)

My brunch buddy had a  vegan dish, which was a stack of tofu, avocado, corn bread, potato and lentil, and many many Boston beans (with a slightly Mexican twist), and crispy quinoa puffs. It was tasty, but I think I preferred my tower of food because of the greater variety of ingredients.

Vegan brekkie stack ($16)

Finally, we shared a dish of twice cooked potato skins. At the time of ordering it, we thought that potato skins would be like crisp cut French fries - a mere snack and easy to share. When the plate of spuds arrived, I felt dismayed at the fear of not being able to do it justice. We managed to get through most of it (with a lot of trouble), so thankfully we didn't waste too much.

The taco flavour refers to the Mexican style of making the spuds. The dish consisted of 4 halves of potatoes with crispy skin on the outside and supporting chunks of mozzarella cheese, beef (spiced but it wasn't spicy), chilli sauce and coleslaw. It's definitely a main and deserves the respect of people who order it as a main.

Taco potato skins ($15)

 And so our brunch ended with our stomachs completely filled to the brim with starchy goodness. My conclusion? I would totally go back for the good coffee, excellent service, and cheap (and filling and aesthetically pleasing) food.