coffee

The Coffee Club, Hallett Cove

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date of visit: Sunday 8 July 2012

A long overdue note of our trip to The Coffee Club at Hallett Cove. The Coffee Club is a chain so you find them all over the place – we’ve actually meant to try the one at Marion before but not got around to it. I see that the chain’s website notes that there are stores not only in Australia and New Zealand but also Thailand, New Caledonia and China. That’s an interesting collection of markets there …

The Hallett Cove café is spacious and even has a few sofas scattered around for those with a bit more time on their hands. We perched ourselves at a table on the edge, given we were encumbered (as usual) with a shopping trolley. Yes, I hate shopping that much that I need the reward of coffee and cake to get me through it …

One thing I noted immediately is that The Coffee Club isn’t cheap and it certainly doesn’t believe in small portions. Our choices, a vanilla slice and a lemon coconut slice, were amongst the smallest things on offer. For the baby there was nothing really – all the biscuits were saucer sized. So I ended up buying him a (massive) slice of date cake. Do all café goers really want giant portions of cake?

Still, the coffee, cakes and service all passed muster. Nothing spectacular or exciting – and the cakes really weren’t worthy of their price tags. But also nothing wrong with the experience.

If you’re after a very generic, inoffensive, coffee and cake experience, then The Coffee Club will do. Just be prepared to splash some cash and eat a lot!

Coffee Club on Urbanspoon

Cafe Balthazar

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Balthazar

date of visit: Saturday 30 June 2012

So, I used to have a cat called Balthazar – I was naming cats after sizes of Champagne bottle (prententious? not at all – the current cats are named after physicists …). And when I spotted the newly opened Café Balthazar on Fiveash Drive I wanted to visit purely on that basis alone. Despite the massive renovations of the complex (now called Pasadena Green), Café Balthazar, which is very black, silver and sparkly, is easily visible from the road.

We used a trip to do a weekly shop as an excuse to check out the café. After a particularly unpleasant half hour or so in the supermarket, I was more than eager to have a sit down and a coffee and cake.

As I was dropping the shopping in the car, Andy was in charge of my coffee and cake ordering. This meant I had a coconut macaroon tart (yum!) and a cafe latte, which is my standard coffee ordering. However, Café Balthazar offers the discerning coffee drinker quite a choice, including filter coffee (yawn) and siphon coffee. I was pretty ticked off that I missed out on the siphon coffee because, as far as I know, I’ve never had it before. That – and the kit for producing it looks pretty cool.  I guess that’s an excuse for another visit …

The cafe latte was good – no reservations at all about it. I see that the coffee also gets the thumbs up over at Coffee Snobs. The coconut macaroon tart (which, judging by the broad selection of cakes, is probably bought in rather than made in house) was good too although I thought that the pastry was a little bit thick. Andy’s coffee éclair looked really tasty and must have been because I didn’t get to try any.

The baby’s high chair matched the décor (black and much more stylish than he’s used to!), and both the babycino and my tart got the seal of approval. The café seems very family friendly – there were plenty of other babies and children around (but, thankfully, NOT running amok).

In a wise move, the café also has an ice cream counter which opens directly into the supermarket entrance. I can imagine that in summer they’ll be doing a roaring business there!

Café Balthazar also does proper lunches and the food I spotted on other tables looked like good, solid servings.

The people of Pasadena should be thrilled to have this café on their doorstep. I always get the impression there’s not too much in Pasadena (I’m happy to be corrected) and the busy, happy vibe of Café Balthazar can only be a plus.

Balthazar Cafe on Urbanspoon

Angs Coffee and Special Teas

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date of visit: Saturday 7 April 2012

We live quite near to Marion and, while it’s fair to say I loathe the place, it’s incredibly handy if there’s any serious shopping that needs to be done.

One thing we rarely do at Marion is stop to have a coffee because food wise Marion’s offerings just aren’t that appealing. There’s the food court and then there’s quite a few places that sit out in the middle of the mall itself. You might assume that these are great for people watching (and they are) but they just don’t have a very pleasant atmosphere.

There is, however, one place that we do stop off at if we’re feeling like single serving coffee and cake. And that is Angs, which is downstairs near Woolworths (and near the excellent Cheese Monger – if you haven’t sussed them out before, you really should!). While Angs does have some seating out in the mall it also has a proper shop presence so you can sit inside, away from the shoppers and enjoy your snack in (relative) peace. Of course, you do get to listen to the coffee machine but any experienced café goer can cope with that!

The coffees are good and, as a bonus, you can buy beans or ground (to order) coffee while you’re at it. The selection is modest but we’ve always enjoyed the coffee we’ve picked up. The biscuits are fresh and appropriately crisp or crumbly and, last time we ducked in, the lemon cheesecake received a tick of approval from Andy. They also sell savoury food but when faced with cake or biscuit, why would you choose that?!

If you do need to escape while you’re at Marion, Angs represents your best bet.

Angs Coffee & Special Teas on Urbanspoon