Melbourne

Eight reviews in this edition, starting in Carlisle St, then Clayton, then the CBD - and one in Sydney’s Tamarama Beach for good measure.

Cafe Vous, off Carlisle St, Balaclava
Good flavour, arcade setting. Recommended.

Cafe Qua, Carlisle St, Balaclava
Another good quality Balaclava cafe.

Caffe Corso, Clayton Rd, Clayton
Alright. Strong enough, at least

Gardenia, Clayton Rd, Clayton
Okay coffee. Nice looking cakes.

Cafe 201, 201 Spring St, Melbourne
Adequate coffee, with good top.

Unnamed lunch and coffee outlet, 628 Bourke St, Melbourne
Competently done take away coffee

Ortigia, 443 Little Collins St, Melbourne
Very nice coffee and lasagna

And now we have one review from a coffee shop in Sydney’s beachside suburbs:

From Judy:
Tamarama Beach Cafe, Tamarama
Good quality, strong beachside coffee.

Where to go for edition 22? Fitzroy has a number of interesting cafes I haven’t tried yet. They even have a place called ‘Caffeine Dealers’. Arouses one’s curiosity, does it not?

224 cafes on the Five Word Coffee Shop Reviews main list.

The twentieth edition of five word goodness.

Tutti In Piazza, Melbourne Central
Adequate coffee in food court

Avintji, Federation Square
Average coffee in great location

The next batch of reviews were all conducted in one afternoon with my friend Tim, who brought his laptop with wireless card along to see where he could pick up Internet access. (Nowhere, as it turned out. But he did find one connection labelled “You can’t steal my Internet.” As indeed we couldn’t.)

The Pantry, Church St, Brighton
Decent coffee and good food

Pera, Church St, Brighton
Average coffee; dark, brooding interior

Limonatta, McKinnon Rd, McKinnon
Closed at 3pm; no review

I’ll return to Limonatta at some point. I wish every cafe would open until 5pm or later. I often go to do reviews in an afternoon only to find the cafe is shut.

Cafe Roco, McKinnon Rd, McKinnon
Comfy seats and adequate coffee

The longest running five word coffee review series in the blogosphere continues! 

Café Bastille, Clarendon St, South Melbourne
Good coffee. Also liked food.

Shine, Kingsway, Glen Waverley
Decent coffee. Nice looking staff.

Café Andiamo, Degraves St, Melbourne
Not bad. Degraves Espresso better.

Mag Nation, Elizabeth St, Melbourne
Magazines, mediocre coffee, paper cups.

From Trent:
Filter, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Nice. Not open early Wednesday

From Judy:
Miss Marple’s Tea Rooms, Mt. Dandenong Tourist Rd, Sassafras
Coffee okay. Devonshire teas good.

A café in Brighton has a big sign out the front advertising cappuccinos for 60c. Have I been there yet? No. I’m a bit scared to. For 60c, could it possibly be any good?

What is the point of offering 60c cappuccinos in Brighton? First of all, Brighton is Melbourne’s 3rd richest suburb, so it’s not like they can’t afford the standard $3 for a cuppa. Second of all, Brighton’s best café (Au Citron) is just across the road, and Brighton’s second best café (David’s Shop) is only a few doors down.

Are they offering 60c cappuccinos in the hope that you will take pity on them and buy lunch as well? If so, it will backfire as everyone will assume that 60c = crap. Are they simply attempting to get people who wouldn’t normally stop there to try their coffee? If so, and their coffee was good, they would get good word of mouth on that basis at the normal price.

I suppose that if their coffee is good then word will spread faster this way. It will have to be good to compete with the likes of Au Citron.

I found some top cafes for this installment, plus some average ones. Give them a try yourself, although perhaps not today. Given that it is Friday the 13th, you might not want to leave the house.

Caffe Ortica, Southland Shopping Centre, Cheltenham
Okay, but not Southland’s best

Nutmeg Tree Café, Station Rd, Cheltenham
Okay, but better is nearby

Sweet Lovers, Central Ave, Moorabbin
Drinkable, strong enough, nothing special

Sweet Lovers was featured on Melbourne Coffee Review recently, as well as this blog. It’s basically a cake shop that also does coffee. Nothing wrong with that, but if the coffee has improved, it still has a way to go. The cakes and desserts looked nice but I didn’t try them.

Au Citron Café, Hampton St (near South Rd), Brighton
Impressive. Top coffee, classy atmosphere

Dendy Deli, Church St, Brighton
Looks good, coffee only OK

Sass Café, 142 Bridge Rd, Richmond
Top coffee near Epworth Hospital

Bourke Armoury, Bourke St (near Spencer St), City
Adequate coffee. Good, well-priced food.

Which brings the total number of reviews past 200! Woohoo!

Submit your own. Add further comments if you like, as it is difficult to cram everything into five words.

Peter of Melbourne Coffee Review didn’t think the coffee at his local café was up to snuff, so he badgered the owner into getting a different brand of coffee.

That is already more coffee initiative than most people would show, but Peter didn’t stop there. After some more cajoling, the café owner sent his staff away for more training.

The result? Not perfection, but much better coffee.

I’ll have to try Sweet Lovers in Moorabbin for my next batch of coffee reviews.

I have a soft spot for bookshop/cafe combos. In this edition, there is two of them, and more besides:

Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar, 66 Bourke St, Melbourne
Unique setting. Disappointing coffee. Sigh.

Mary Martin Bookshop Cafe, 108 Bourke St, Melbourne
Good coffee. Books. I like.

Book Talk Café, Swan St, Richmond
Old, new books. Good coffee.

7 Grams, 505 Church St, Richmond
Nice. Intriguing flavour. I’ll return.

Torch, Swan St, Richmond
Good coffee, friendly staff. Recommended.

Degani, Bayside Shopping Centre, Frankston
Decent coffee. Nice atmosphere too.

What religion do people follow in Australia? Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Buddism? Hinduism? Atheism? The answer is none of the above. Sure, there are some followers of all those religions in Australia, but the Official State Religion is something else entirely.

No, the only state-sanctioned god in Australia is that of Bunjil the Eagle, who guides us beneath his sacred feathers and pecks out the eyes of evildoers. In recognition of this, the Victorian Government commissioned a new statue to be built in Bunjil’s honour.

This pic shows Bunjil perched above Wurundjeri Way, watching out for evildoers, or just keeping an eye on the traffic.

Bunjil photo above is from http://www.melbourneinphotos.com. Used by permission.

Because coffee is everything.

From Sarah:
Literary Latte, High St, Woodend
Books and coffee. Good stuff.

Zou G’s, Centre Rd, Bentleigh
Bentleigh’s best. By a mile.

Cafe at Healesville Sanctuary, Healesville
Average, but Tim liked it

Eludae, Maroondah Hwy, Healesville
Cakes, slices excellent. Coffee not.

Need any more motivation? These coffee pics will get you drooling.

That depends on his policies, of course, but it just so happens that a vampire will be running for U.S. President at the next election. He has promised to impale Bush and drink his blood. But not only Bush; his hitlist includes Dick Cheney, Fidel Castro and O.J. Simpson.

Fine by me, so long as he impales James Blunt.

But not everyone likes vampires. Were you worried that former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic might come back from the dead? You weren’t the only one. Never fear; the vampire hunters are on the case. They dug up his body and drove a stake through his heart.

Phew. Now we can all breathe easily.

JEWS REALLY ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE: Kosher Coke, made especially for Passover, is now available for a limited time.

WE DON’T EXIST: PZ Myers of Pharyngula thinks noone in Melbourne has Internet access. Go there and tell him otherwise - you could get some tickets to the Science-ology show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival for your trouble.

NEWS TO US: “It turns out there are no such things as unicorns — and even if there were, they wouldn’t drive trucks.”