Rifo's Cafe

Rifo's Cafe - 933 Albany Hwy, East Vic Park

Breakfast Served All Day from 7pm, 7 Days a Week

Fully Licensed and BYO

Well it has been a long long time since I have been out for breakfast - my sister was my usual breakfast partner and she has moved to Port Hedland and any time I tried to arrange a weekend breakky/brunch with friends it failed because they are mostly messy booze hounds. (love you guys).

I finally made a pact with my friend Mr Peter Baby that we would go out on Sunday for breakky! We decided to drive to Vic Park and our first choice was closed (weird for a Sunday?) and then we saw Rifo's Cafe. I knew of Rifo's in Maylands, so I was keen to try this out. The cafe still has the same retro look and feel the Maylands one has but it's a lot bigger inside.

We were seated quickly even though the cafe was very full with some large tables. Water glasses were placed on our table... no water. We were both starving and commented how delicious everything looked on the menu! They have all the standard breakfast fare as well as some not so mainstream items like Fillet Steak and Eggs (a bit roadhouse .. but I did consider it), which comes with tomato, roasted eggplant and capsicum and toast. Also the Slacker Sandwich seemed tempting, which was a continental roll filled with bacon, egg, cheese and BBQ sauce.

We thought the prices were a bit on the high side, especially when they are charging $25 for a big breakfast! Everything else was about $11-$16 on average.

Mr Peter Baby decided on the Eggs Benedict and a pot of tea, I chose to have a cappuccino and The Hippy Chick, which is your standard vegetarian "big breakfast" option with baked beans, spinach, toast, tomato, asparagus and hash browns. We also both ordered juices. The waitress told us that we had just ordered after the very large table so our FOOD would take about 20-25 mins. I thought that was good of her considering some places can just leave you to wait.

We were prepared to accept the wait on the food but we soon got annoyed when we realised our coffees and juices weren't coming out in a hurry either. 20mins for drinks? Pathetic. I was watching the girl at the machine and I wasn't seeing a lot of drinks being run from the counter. I had to ASK for some water to come to the table while we waited (remember we had glasses put on our table when we arrived). Eventually my juice came out.. then a couple of minutes later Mr Peter Baby's juice came out. Another few minutes my luke warm, flavourless cappuccino was put in front of me... aaaaannnnnd a bit longer still - out came the pot of tea. I asked Mr Peter Baby how her tea was.. the comment was "it's not hard to fuck up tea is it?"

Our meals came out and mine was almost stone cold except for the hashbrowns. The toast was like eating a piece of biltong and the spinach was soggy. The asparagus was cooked quite nicely though and I love heinz baked beans. Mr Peter Baby at first commented that her Eggs Benedict were nice until she actually realised that she should have ordered maybe some more eggs, sauce or muffin with the half a pig of ham they put on the plate. She did say the hollandaise sauce was nice though.

I don't know whether it was a case of the large table that ordered before us somehow comprised our meal quality or the chef was having a bad day... but we were very unimpressed by our Rifo's experience.

The wait staff were nice and friendly, the all day breakfast is a bonus and it was a beautiful day to go out for breakfast with my friend. Pity about the food!

Monza

Monza - 147 Oxford St, Leederville

Breakfast served from 9am - 5pm Saturday, Sunday & Public Holidays

Licensed - fully licensed plus $7 corkage for BYO

Looks are deceiving... like a classy yet modern design of a restaurant making you think the food will also be worth eating. My sister and I parked in Leederville with the idea of just walking down Oxford st and deciding where to go. We walked past Monza and from across the road we both said "It looks nice", and decided to go in.

I knew it was going to be bad within the first minute. I asked a the barista if we just sat down or??? (since no one came up to us when we walked in). Her answer was "just sit over there". Motioning towards one of the many empty tables they still had on a Sunday at peak breakfast time.

We sat down with our menu's (which we got ourselves) and looked over the uninspiring choices. There was nothing special or different that caught my eye. Although, the prices were actually very reasonable with toast at $5.50 up to $18.50 for the Monza Big Breakfast - Two eggs on toasted sour dough, bacon, oven roasted tomato, mushrooms and home made baked beans.

The waitperson came to take our orders and at first I thought she was deaf and was lip reading as she kept asked me to repeat my order about 4 times and weirdly held a fixed gaze on my face while I was speaking. She didn't write the orders down, which began to worry me as she also asked my sister to repeat her order as well as getting it wrong when she repeated it all back to us. I ordered the Vegetarian Breakfast with scrambled eggs, toasted sourdough, mushrooms, avocado, roasted tomato and home made baked beans. My sister ordered the Monza big breakfast. To drink I asked for a "fresh" OJ and was told the juices weren't fresh they were from bottles... even though the menu clearly says"fresh juices". So we both ordered a pineapple juice and me a cappuccino and my sister a latte.

The coffee's came out.... wrong. My sister got a flat white but I got what I ordered. The coffee was very bitter, like they had used International Roast. They were also watery.

I don't know what others thoughts are on this, but if I have finished my coffee AND my juice, then I have waited too long for my food. My sister is very patient and even she started to comment on how long it had been. I saw a table that were there before us get up and ask where their meals were so I knew ours still weren't coming any time soon.

Did the chefs not prep properly? Was there an issue that morning? Did they get slammed early on with an influx of customers? Whatever the reason.. waiting 45mins for breakfast is unreasonable.

Our meals came out and I wish I could say it had been worth the wait. How hard is it to make scrambled eggs? My eggs were bland, not scrambled.. more like a slab of egg on toast. The "homemade" beans that we both had were dry, floury and tasteless. It was like their chefs had run out of salt. My sister commented "it's not hard to cook bacon I guess". We both said in sync "the mushrooms were nice"... well at least there was a small positive!

So if you like mushrooms.. maybe Monza is for you. For the rest of us - don't be deceived by Monza's good looks... keep walking down Oxford st for something better.

Etro Bistro

Etro Bistro - 49 King St, Perth

Breakfast served from 7am - 11.30am Mon-Fri and 7.30am - 3pm Weekends

Licensed - Yes

I was lazing in bed on Sunday morning after a big Saturday of drinking and debauchery and I heard my sister get up and go to put something in the microwave. I jumped up and saw it was friggen PIZZA! Luckily I stopped her and suggested we go out to breakfast, thankfully she agreed! We decided to head into the city to check out Etro Bistro on the trendiest street in the city - King St.

We arrived at 10.30am and surprisingly found it to be quiet considering it was great weather, peak breakfast time and free parking was still available in the city. We easily got a table outside, which I found them to be a little too close to one another. It's irritating to overhear the conversation of a group of cyclists 3 tables down as clear as if they were sitting at the same table.

The waitperson came out quite quickly and took our drinks orders. I like this style of service - first thing in the morning, you want your coffee, OJ, milk etc straight up! She left us to look over the menu which is split into savoury and sweet options. I don't think I have seen this before? It's a nice touch.

The prices were a little on the high side... as in a few dollars more than the usual prices I see around town. Prices range from $4-$5 for muffins and croissants up to $21.50 for Smoked Salmon Benedict - smoked salmon, poached free range eggs, baby spinach, avocado mash and of course hollandaise.

I was trying to decide between getting the Marmande Omelette - free range eggs, champagne ham, cherry tomatoes, swiss cheese, chives and French Toast in Cinnamon Sugar - sour dough soaked in free range egg mix, caramelised with cinnamon sugar - served with maple syrup and extra for cream cheese (I would have gotten cream cheese as well!). They both sounded so delicious! Overall the menu was very well thought out with a nice selection of meals to suit every body's taste.

The waitperson came back with our coffee order and I decided to order the Marmande Omelette and my sister ordered Eggs Benedict with a side of bacon.

The coffees were fantastic.. I have been having a good run lately! Our meals took a little longer than expected, but the table of cyclists ordered before us so it was understandable.

My omelette was awesome! It was light and fluffy with a nice buttery taste. The ham and cherry tomatoes were really nice. My sister commented that her meal was also nice. The hollandaise was beautiful and creamy. The presentation of the meals was amazing and something I noticed straight away. They had small salads as garnish but the small lettuce leaves they used were arranged in a fan formation. Great attention to detail!

I think Etro is another place you could have a "power breakfast" at with it's CBD location and plenty of room inside for larger groups. The service was also excellent with the wait people being friendly and attentive. I would definitely go back to this great King St location!

Soto Espresso

Soto Espresso - 507 Beaufort St, Highgate

Breakfast served from 7am - 3pm daily

My friend and I both had Friday off work and decided to enjoy the beautiful clear winter morning with a breakfast at Soto Espresso. This cafe is one of the popular places along the Beaufort st strip for coffee and it's not hard to see why when you take that first sip of one of their well made cappuccino's!

The menu is on a big blackboard near the counter where you order. I would recommend finding a table BEFORE ordering on busy weekends! The cafe is set out with quite a lot of room to move, which I like. There are several small tables outside on the foot path as well. We sat inside on the couches along the wall, near the open cafe style window. I don't remember being bothered by the Beaufort st traffic at all. I also noticed they have a selection of board games!! I think this would be more suited to a lazy "coffee and cake" type setting though.

The menu has a nice selection of meals that range in price from $5 for toasted New Norcia sourdough to $19 for the big breakfast. This is pretty much the standard rate for breakfast in Perth! They have eggs on the menu, every which way possible - benedict, florentine, norwegian. I noticed they had a good range of vegetarian options. One that caught my eye and I nearly ordered was the "Mushroom Breakfast" - field mushroom, persian feta, asparagus on ciabatta. I just LOVE persian feta!

I ended up ordering the Bruschetta, which was tomato and feta on thick garlic toast with a pesto drizzled over the top. My friend ordered the pancakes, which came with berry compote, double cream and.. of course syrup. We also ordered our cappuccinos and I ordered a fresh OJ.

The coffee's were great! I'm not sure if it's just me.. or if there really is a lack of proper training of Barista's.. but finding somewhere that does good coffee is becoming increasingly difficult. The coffees we were served were smooth without a hint of bitterness and a good temperature. The OJ I ordered was definitely freshly squeezed - no artificial sweet taste and it has just a hint of citrus tartness on the back of the tongue. YUM! I noticed that Soto do a decent range of freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices as well.

Our meals came out quite quickly, which was nice. Soto was fairly quiet but they seem to have an efficient operation going.

My bruschetta was delicious. The garlic on the toast wasn't too over powering that I left with breath that would kill a vampire and the basil pesto added a nice touch of flavour. The tomatoes were tasty as was the feta. My friend described his pancakes as "clouds on a plate" as well as having the right balance of everything. The berry compote was sweet and not at all tart. The double cream was delicious. The serving sizes were just right - not too massive yet not so small you are left wanting.

I would definitely recommend Soto Espresso to anyone looking for a quick breakfast before work or a lazy weekend brunch with breakfast served until 3pm!

The Wild Fig Cafe

The Wild Fig Cafe - 33 West Coast Drive, Watermans Bay

Breakfast served 6.30am - 11.30am daily

Licensed - BYO $2 per person corkage

A huge storm front couldn't keep my sister and I away from breakfast at The Wild Fig Cafe on Sunday. We had discussed during the week whether to book or not and after reading on the website that they keep some tables free for "walk ins", we decided not to. Let me tell you now - BOOK!! We arrived around 10am, which is of course peak breakfast time. There were no tables and the friendly maitre de suggested we wait at an outside table (considering the weather, this wasn't an option) or we could have a couch seat. We took the couch seat, which has a coffee table in front of it and a view of the ocean.. so it wasn't all bad!

The first noticeable thing about Wild Fig is their promotion of Fair Trade. This is the new "in fashion" trend for cafe's but I have been looking at Wild Fig for a while and as long as I can remember they have been promoters of this. They also donate $5000 a year the hunger project. The cafe is relatively small but they fit a lot of people in there without it feeling over crowded. If you get a seat at the front of the cafe you will get a nice view of the ocean and the morning seaside joggers/walkers - who look rather fit!

The menu is comprehensive with a good selection of originally named dishes. Prices range from $5 for toast with fig jam (your choice of sourdough, olive or pumpkin eye) up to $19 for the "Big Fig" - free range eggs, sausage, field mushrooms, tomato and toast. There are a number of dishes that catch your eye purely because of the name. Like "Eggs on Fire", which is scrambled chilli eggs, bacon, spinach, sweet corn sour cream and sourdough. Then there is the selection of sweeter options such as "Goldilocks" - porridge with toasted almonds, blueberries, vanilla figs, poached pear, honey & maple; "Bananarama", which comprises of caramelized bananas between a pancake stack with mascarpone cheese, chocolate shavings & caramel sauce. If those few snapshots of menu options don't get you drooling, I don't know what will!

There is also a healthy selection of juice combos, smoothies, teas as well as the interesting "Dandy", which is the dandelion caffeine free coffee alternative that is apparently popular in Byron Bay.

I had already been drooling over the menu on the net and knew what I wanted. My sister had wanted the same thing... but she sacrificed her choice for the benefit of the blog! I ordered the "Grizzly Bear Pancakes" (Canadian pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs and maple syrup) along with a cappuccino and a vanilla milkshake. My sister ordered the "Big Fig" breakfast, latte and a mango and passion fruit smoothie

The coffee came out first followed by our "milk" drinks. The coffee was great and perfectly made - smooth and at nice temperature... I can't stand luke warm coffee! My milkshake was a standard vanilla milkshake but it had swirls of honey around the glass which added a bit of extra flavour. My sister straight away commented "wow, they've used real fruit" when she tasted her smoothie.



My meal was gorgeous. The pancakes were light and fluffy, the scrambled eggs were flavoursome and oh.. so creamy! There was just the right amount of nicely cooked bacon and don't get me started on the heavenly thick maple syrup, which I shamelessly poured all over my bacon topped pancakes. When I asked my sister how her breakfast was she could barely speak through mouthfuls of those creamy scrambled eggs about how great her meal was. Sometimes the traditional "big breakfast" at some places has a tendency to be a plate just piled high with food, which seems like a waste. The Wild Fig chefs seem to have the portions just right so you feel full without feeling like you've wasted food.



The Wild Fig almost made my number 1.. if it wasn't for the extremely rude cashier girl, who "told off" one of the waitresses in front of customers and then spoke to me with a very short tone of voice.

I do feel I have to make special mention of the maitre de... she was so friendly and accommodating to everyone. It seemed like nothing was too much trouble for her... which how a GREAT maitre de should be. I highly recommend The Wild Fig cafe and I am hoping to return there in the summer to enjoy that ocean view minus the storms! Also keep an eye out for their yet to open Swanbourne cafe - "The Naked Fig"!

The Beaufort St Merchant

The Beaufort St Merchant - 488 Beaufort St Highgate
Breakfast served 8am - 12pm weekdays, 8am - 3pm weekends and public holidays.
Licensed - yes. Great selection of wines!

Last night I went to bed wondering if my sister would be home from down south so we could go for breakfast today. I was glad to wake up to her being home and wanting to go to "The Beaufort St Merchant" like we had been talking about for a while!

We arrived at peak breakfast time and luckily got a table outside quite easily. I thought that sitting outside on Beaufort st would be noisy and unpleasant but I found it to be ok, and I hardly noticed the traffic at all. Although sitting there at 5.30pm might be a different story - but who cares if it's not breakfast time! "The Beaufort St Merchant" is half cafe and half gourmet food and wine merchant. We had a browse around the shop at the back and there were soooooo many yummy things I could have bought. But... back to the breakfast!!

We looked over the relatively small but gourmet breakfast menu and began tossing up between a couple of the menu items. It was already a difficult choice! Did we go for something familiar or something a little different? There was the usual toast selection at $5 up to the "Big Belly Breakfast" for $18, which was toast, eggs, chipolatas, bacon, balsamic tomatoes, mushrooms and beans. There is also the vegetarian option available. Then there was the different menu items like... "Spanish Breakfast", which consisted of chorizo, potato, spanish beans, roasted roma tomatoes, grilled eggs and dipping bread; "Mushroom Bruschetta" which was made up of enoki, portabello and shitake mushrooms, rocket, danish feta and pagnotta and for those with a morning sweet tooth there is the "Breakfast Trifle", which is layers of poached fruit, oats, seeds, nuts, maple syrup and yogurt - YUM. Hopefully you can see why it was a difficult choice for us.

You have to go up to the counter to order at this cafe. The guy behind the counter was very friendly, despite trying to make coffee's, take orders and tell waiters where to take drinks. I was impressed he held it all together! I ordered the "Mushroom Bruschetta", a cappuccino AND vanilla milkshake (I'm addicted to milk ok?). My sister ordered the "Spanish Breakfast" and a latte. The milkshake came out quickly and was the standard fair vanilla milkshake which I gulped down! The coffee's were next and were very disappointing. There was barely any coffee flavour and it seemed like they had run a few too many coffee's through the one filter. The conversation around the bad coffee soon disappeared when our meals arrived... WOW! The "Spanish Breakfast" was served on a wooden paddle board... and looked absolutely delicious. My "Mushroom Bruschetta" was piled high on the plate with swirls of balsamic reduction on the plate.

We tucked into our meals and my sister commented a few times on how great the chorizo from Mondos tasted. I had a bite and it was soft with a slight smokey flavour. The beans had the "spanish" flavour with paprika and tomato bases and my sis tells me they were delicious! My meal, despite having no tomato was still very flavoursome with the fresh rocket, danish feta and the soft mushrooms. I thought it might have needed the tomatoes for the 'sweetness' but the mushrooms seemed to take care of that. We both cleaned our plates completely and felt full and happy!

I would definitely go back to "The Beaufort St Merchant" for breakfast... and it would have made my top three if it wasn't for the coffee. The food was fantastic, staff were friendly and it offers a little more with the shop at the back of the cafe.

The Imp Cafe

The Imp Cafe - 863 Albany Hwy East Victoria Park
Breakfast served from 7am - 12pm Daily.

After hearing so many great stories about The Imp Cafe after it opened a while ago, I thought it was about time that I paid it a visit! Bambino and I arrived a bit after 11am, expecting for them not to be serving breakfast anymore and we were pleasantly surprised to find they serve until 12pm!

We sat down in the small cafe with it's interesting "industrial" cross "retro" look decor. I actually liked the look of the exposed brick wall, the polished concrete counter and retro cake fridge. Looking over the menu, I straight away start to giggle at Coco Pops and Fruit Loops appearing on there! 10 points for originality! I remember being a kid and mum saying "No" to Fruit Loops at the shop and me thinking "when I grow up I am going to eat them every single day". I think it is a great menu option idea, as I am sure there are parents who take their kids out to breakfast and there is never really a "Kids Menu". Most children would love this and it's only $4 a bowl.

The prices on the menu range from $3.50 for the Muffin of the Day up to $19 for The Imp's Big Breakfast, which has toast, eggs, tomato, beans, mushrooms, hashbrowns and bacon. There is the usual breakfast options on the menu as well as a lot of lighter options such as Tomato and Feta on toast, avocado on toast, mushrooms and spinach on toast with marscapone cheese. It's nice to see these kind of options for a change as I usually find that having breakfast out means choosing from stodge, stodge or fruit salad. The Imp also offers the full range of Fiori coffee's as well as San Pellegrino drinks and fresh OJ, apple or carrot juice.

Bambino ordered the Imp's Big Breakfast with poached eggs and a fresh apple juice. I ordered the Hangover Roll (omelette, bacon, tomato, spinach, jalapenos and chutney in a baguette) with a fresh OJ and a cappuccino.

The coffee and drinks came out quickly. The coffee was beautiful! Really smooth and well made. The juices were very fresh and the fruit they used was nice and sweet. Our meals came out within a reasonable time and unfortunately this is where things started to go down hill...

Let's start with the positives. My Hangover Roll was really nice. I loved the jalapenos! The only annoying thing was I found it hard to eat an omelette in a baguette as it kept slipping out, so I quickly changed to using my knife and fork. The chutney that came with it was very tasty! Bambino's meal looked interesting. The beans had a lovely mexican spice flavour, the hashbrowns were a ball shape, field mushrooms instead of the usual button mushrooms.... and then... the smallest piece of bacon I have ever seen. It was not even a full rasher, I wouldn't even say it was half a rasher and it was cooked to a crisp! I told Bambino to complain and he said it didn't matter and that "bacon is fattening anyway". It wasn't until he got to his poached rocks.. I mean eggs.. that our opinion of The Imp went completely down hill.

The eggs had most likely been pre-poached and then put back in too long to heat up for them to be as hard as they were in the amount of time it took for us to get our meals There is no way that those eggs were cooked from fresh upon receiving our order. Pre-poaching is a common and acceptable practice for cooking eggs when chefs are serving SHIT loads of people as it saves time. For a small cafe such as The Imp, I didn't really see a need for it. The other possibility is that the chef just left them there from before receiving our order and forgot about them, yet still served them up. The same goes for the bacon. There is no possible way that the bacon was cooked from fresh from when our order was placed. It takes a quite a while in the pan to get bacon that crispy. I asked Bambino what he thought overall about his meal and his comment was "average at best". He didn't even finish it. At $19 a serve, I would have expected better.

Is this is yet another cafe that is quite possibly riding on its initial successes and rave reviews but hasn't quite worked out how to cut corners WITHOUT cutting quality? Cantina 663 is another example of a cafe riding on great first reviews... and for the record readers.. I will NEVER be reviewing Cantina 663 in this blog. I refuse to go back to the place.

Was it a case of we were the last few orders through before change of service to lunch? Was the chef just having a bad day? Regardless of any of this, it's no excuse for the tripe that was served for The Imp's Big Breakfast. At least the staff were semi-friendly.