juice

It’s our last breakfast on the quest, and a chance to catch up with old mates. As we’ve got closer to the end of King Street we’ve had a flurry of activity with lots of people wanting to fill up the dwindling supply of Quest berths. The previous night we had an enthusiastic catch up session with John, Pauline, Jill and Roy. We didn’t have any room for them left on the Quest, so we met up in the Rocks instead, at the Lord Nelson, and had an extremely jovial time. And a bit of a hangover the next day, which made me regret the ease with which I had agreed to that third bottle of extremely drinkable New Zealand Sav Blank. Pass the paracetamol please.

By the time I got to South End Cafe I had perked up a bit but was still feeling that weird lack of temperature control that seems to come with hangovers – or is that just me? Anyway, I was a bit early which gave me a chance to have an excellent flat white to settle things down a bit.

South End is a popular cafe, full of what looked like locals having breakfast or getting takeaways. The front room is quite large with windows on two sides and there is a second room out the back for overflows if needed.

Pete and Mindy (last seen at Lentil As Anything) were our Quest guests for this outing, stopping in for breakfast on their way to the airport to pick up their daughter who has been doing work experience in Fiji (in my day you only got to go to AWA in North Ryde). They arrived just before Strop, who had come straight from a community rain-garden planting session. In between explaining just what a rain-garden is, we managed to order a round of juices. Pete wanted something with ginger, Strop and Mindy had beetroot, apple and something with ginger, and I had orange juice.

Alarmingly the juices came in jars (hipster alert) but were very pretty and colourful as well as being highly tasty (so I am going to hold off slipping into full anti-jar-rant mode, but as Uncle Carl says, no one ever thinks about the lids, the real victims in this situation).

Food ordering was quite an extended process. Pete has some quite particular dietary requirements. He is allergic to red meat and to dairy. This is not some kind of airy-fairy gluten-free wannabe shit, this is full on anaphylactic carry-an-epi-pen-or-you’ll-die-if-some-arsewit-cooks-the-mushrooms-with-the-sausages territory. So it was great to see the waitress taking it very seriously and checking how things were cooked when she wasn’t sure. She also worked out the cheapest way to order the breakfast that Pete wanted. This turned out to be the Vegie breakfast with a couple of substitutions, to replace the haloumi and the mushrooms. All the service was very good, but this aspect was a standout. And Pete survived the meal, so you can’t say fairer than that really.

Mindy went for a bacon and egg roll, Strop ordered the pea and haloumi pancake, and I had the South End Brekkie (big breakfast equivalent).

The chat ranged far and wide, covering holiday destinations, Fijian markets, all the nasty diseases ticks can give you, the density of foxes in urban areas (8/km2 if you were wondering), and where the best trout are at Fryingpan Arm. Pete drew a napkin map for the sake of clarity. X marks the spots.

The food was good, although I was a bit disappointed that the olives with my brekkie were standard stuffed olives, but on the other hand I had sausages as well as plenty of bacon AND haloumi. One of Pete’s substitutions turned out to be very nice home-made baked beans. Strop commented that she couldn’t really find the haloumi in her pancakes (she could have had some of mine), but they looked great – very green – and the peas with caramelized onions were delicioius. Nothing was left over so it definitely passed that test. We followed up with coffees and tea. I can’t comment on the tea, but the coffee was really good. I would go back again just for the coffee.

It is really heartening to find so many good cafes at the far end of King Street. It is certainly worth a walk in the morning sun to check them out.

Strop was worried. “There’s never anyone in there anymore. It used to be popular, but now its nearly always empty.” She was right, for a long time now Astino’s has looked pretty empty whenever we’ve ambled past. It’s a cafe with a big room and large windows onto King Street, so it takes quite a few punters to make it look busy. When we first moved to the area it seemed to be popular, but not anymore.
So we arrived for breakfast without particularly high expectations. Our first surprise was that there were no tables outside. In my memory Astino’s always has tables outside, full of people sipping coffee and trying to converse over the noise of the traffic. Not today. But there is a blackboard outside. Specials. Smashed avacado on bruschetta. Poached eggs with stuffed hashbrowns(?), bacon and eggs on brioche. What’s going on? We were expecting bog ordinary brekkies again.
All of the customers are occupying the tables lining the windows onto the street, leaving the rest of the big room empty. Strop and I join this trend and squeeze onto a corner table at the front. It’s a beautiful sunny autumn morning, and King Street is its usual noisy, entertaining self. In light of the fact that Astino’s has menu items approaching the interesting on its shortish breakfast menu, I have decided to break the cafe suite rule and ignore whatever version of the big breakfast Astino’s do. Also, this is my second breakfast for the morning.

We start with a couple of coffees – which aren’t brilliant, it has to be said. Not awful but… this is Newtown, there is a lot of very good coffee around (although as we are finding, the best stuff is not actually on King Street). Our food arrives quickly which is good, and appropriate given that the place is not exactly heaving.
Strop’s smashed avacado is a very tasty mix with lots of coriander and red onion. My bacon and egg on brioche is exactly that, with a generous (possibly too generous) dollop of very nice tomato relish. Yum. By the time we have finished our food it becomes obvious that our juices are not going to come without some prompting.
The waitress is hand-over-mouth apologetic. “I forgot. I’m so sorry. Do you still want them?” Well, yes we do, that’s why we ordered them. They come quickly, with more apologies, and they are good. We are refreshed. We decide to forego a second coffee and leave on a orange-and-pineapple-juice-induced high note.
While I go outside to try to take a photograph without looking too uncool, Strop pays, which is only fair.
Strop has a habit that freaks me out: engaging people in conversation. She’ll talk to anyone and it worries the hell out of me. Luckily, I’m safely out on the street this time. While it is a risky habit she’s got, it does mean that she finds stuff out. This time she’s found out that Astino’s has just changed hands! And soon they will close for a week for a makeover!! We clap our hands with glee. Maybe new Astino’s will be wonderful.

644 South End Cafe – nearly there!

284 – Astino’s – We live in hope