Cafe Reviews

Coffee by the Beans (CBTB)

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Home made berry crumble
Crumble that’s worth going out of your way for

date of visit: Monday 9 October 2017

Being out at Lockleys at an unholy hour of the morning (especially for school holidays) meant that by 10ish I was on the hunt for the nearest coffee. I was quite surprised that Google offered a very generous selection of quirky, indy coffee places along, or very near to, Henley Beach Road.

CBTB happened to be the nearest and while I failed in trying to convince a small person to walk there we were really lucky and got a park right out the front. On this note – the address is Henley Beach Road and Google tried to send me down Rowells Road, but you are better off turning on to Douglas Street. From here, you will spot the café immediately AND, gods willing, you’ll also score a park.

The café is quite small but seating is maximised by the use of long tables and benches rather than smaller, individual tables. We walked in around 1030 and it was busy but there were plenty of spare seats. About half an hour later, this situation had changed and it was really busy. While a lot of people were waiting for takeaway coffees, I’d still recommend turning up earlier rather than later.

Even though it was busy, the staff were very friendly and welcoming and before long we had a choc-chip biscuit in hand, an order for a babycino and long black underway AND a small slice of homemade berry crumble.

And, if I hadn’t ordered that berry crumble, I probably wouldn’t be writing this. One of my (many) bugbears is cafés that only serve food that comes in portions the size of my head. Sometimes – in fact, most of the time – if I want a snack, I want exactly that. A snack. Something small to tide me over til whatever I’m eating properly next time. So this small slice of crumble was exactly what was called for. What was even better was that it wasn’t ludicrously sweet.

I also liked that, as we were eating in, my coffee came in a proper coffee cup (Master 6’s babycino was in a paper cup – probably to avoid any small child related carnage) AND Master 6’s biscuit wasn’t massive either.

CBTB is not, by a long stretch, close enough for it to be my local, but the crumble alone makes it worth a detour!

Coffee by the Beans (CBTB)
Shop 3, 394 Henley Beach Road
Lockleys SA 5032
ph: (08) 8443 4007

coffee by the beans Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Gelatissimo x Trolls

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
gelati
Poppy’s Frosting & Branch’s Cupcake

disclaimer: I was a guest at the gelato masterclass

A couple of weeks ago I was invited up to Gelatissimo at Norwood to a gelato masterclass which also celebrated the launch of two limited edition Trolls flavours.

For some reason, I’ve always been under the impression that gelato is non-dairy based (unlike ice cream). However,  I have been wrong. Sorbet is water-based, gelato is milk and cream-based and ice cream may be milk and cream-based or it may be custard-based (in which case it also contains eggs). At Gelatissimo, the range also includes sorbets – so if you don’t eat dairy, you can still enjoy an icy treat.

We started with a quick run down of the theory of making gelato, before being shown the ropes. The Gelatissimo stores all make their product on-site and in the Norwood store, the action takes place behind a wide window, so you can get an idea yourself.

Gelato is made by mixing the milk, cream and sugar at temperature (in order to dissolve the sugar) before cooling and adding flavourings.  It is then churned at near freezing temperatures in order to both set the gelato and ensure there are no crystals.

gelato machine
Where the magic happens

While gelato is hardly health food, Gelatissimo does keep one eye on nutrition and there’s an emphasis on using natural products. Despite its very scary purple appearance, the Trolls-inspired Branch’s Cupcake gelato is actually coloured with beetroot! Quite a few of the standard flavours use Stevia in lieu of extra sugar and where possible, natural flavourings and colourings are used. The great thing is that the staff in the Norwood store (at least) were across all of this, so you can quiz staff about their product and they will actually know.

We sampled the two new flavours – Branch’s Cupcake and Poppy’s Frosting. I was really scared by the purple of Branch’s Cupcake (purple and blue are two colours foods are just not meant to be!) but I really enjoyed it. Not sure I can nail a flavour description for you – Gelatissimo describes it as ‘cupcake’ so I guess that kind of vanilla and cake batter vibe is what you should expect. I really wasn’t a fan of Poppy’s Frosting. It’s described as a bubblegum flavour but to me it was more along the lines of banana or banana sweets. 

As these are limited edition flavours, if you want to try them out you should do so during the school holidays. But never fear if you do miss out, as Gelatissimo has a very impressive range of flavours to choose from!

Gelatissimo Norwood
1/198-200 The Parade
Norwood SA 5067
ph: (08) 7225 4320

Cafe Olive, Seacliff

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Sausage roll
Sausage roll, chips and a small hand – no respect for the art of the blog!

date of visit: Monday 16 January 2017

During the school holidays I had this idea that it would be a great opportunity to visit loads of new places with Master 6.  After all, we had six long weeks to fill and various forms of social media were full of parents (mostly mothers) bemoaning the extended stretch of time and the traumatic requirement to entertain children.

I can only assume that these people have a very different idea of what constitutes ‘entertainment’ to me. I did some preparation before the holidays – I will ‘fess up to that – but by the end of the break, we most definitely were not running out of things to do (in fact, we had to put in a bit of an effort to use up some vouchers I’d bought!).

Master 6 loves the beach so one warm morning we headed off. We were planning on hitting the beach we always go to, but I decided, last minute, that we should go to a ‘new’ beach – variety being the spice of life and all that.

Seacliff is not exactly new or undiscovered but we had our swim and then headed up to the Esplanade to grab something to eat. Master 6 spotted the pub but our last experiences there have been pretty average (to say the least!) so I steered him towards Cafe Olive, right next door.

It’s a very cute, airy cafe – there are seats on the footpath, as well as inside in an enclosed verandah AS WELL as inside the building proper. There are bench seats, normal tables and even a SWING.

It’s green, it’s cool, it’s casual – it feels really beach-y and creates a very distinctive vibe from the pub next door.

A lot of the cafe’s products are made in house. Master 6 ordered himself an iced chocolate (decidedly, the largest drink known to man – far bigger than his head) and one of the house-made sausage rolls, served along with chips and salad. I ordered the spinach and feta tart.

Spinach & feta tart
Spinach & feta tart

You’ll see from my photo that there might be an argument for the tart suffering from the dreaded soggy bottom but I love pastry so much that didn’t bother me. What I did like was the balance between cheese and spinach was spot on. So often, you order some spinach and cheese pastry and it’s overwhelmingly (and sometimes inedibly!) salty. Not so here!

The sausage roll was also delicious – however, Master 6, by now sated by the iced chocolate, had a bit of a wobbly moment because it didn’t look exactly as he’d been expecting. He had been hoping for one (or possibly more) of the bite size sausage rolls, just like the ones produced by his grandmother and our family friend, Trevor. This was just too big!

Of course, this didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the chips or the salad.

I was really impressed to find a venue with so many goodies made in-house – especially things like pastries which so many places just buy in. The coffee was good, the iced chocolate was rated excellent (this may be due to size …).

Definitely a venue I’d head back to. In winter, it would be stunning to sit in the warm and watch the sea!

Cafe Olive Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Cafe Olive
1/220 The Esplanade
Seacliff SA 5049
phone: (08) 8296 8824