Sydney

The find of this edition is in Mornington. Yes, Mornington. Keep reading for details; but first, a detour to Sydney.

From Judy:
Driftwood Cafe, Cronulla Mall, Cronulla
Very good coffee, served hot.

Carlo’s Espresso Cafe, Forest Rd, Hurstville
Great coffee. Has won awards.

From yours truly:

Caffe Moravia, Burke Rd, Camberwell
Quite good coffee and atmosphere.

Turtle Bean Cafe, Poath Rd, Murrumbeena
Bar or cafe? Adequate coffee.

Expresso Drive Thru, Murrumbeena Rd, Murrumbeena
Cheerful service but awful coffee.

Cosmic Bear Cafe, Atherton St, Oakleigh
Nice. Good flavour, well presented.

Beetle Cafe, Dandenong Plaza, Dandenong
Very strong coffee. Not bad.

Malibu, Karingal Hub, Frankston
Food is okay. Coffee mediocre.

Avocado Blue, Main St, Mornington
Nice food. Coffee nothing special.

Coffee Traders, Blake St, Mornington
Excellent coffee. Highly recommended. Euphoria.

We start this edition in Goulburn, in rural NSW, and Oatley, in Sydney’s south:

From Jon:
Bryants Bakery, Auburn St, Goulburn
Surprisingly good coffee and ambience

Dolce Espresso, Letitia St, Oatley
Good to average. Nothing groundbreaking.

Centre Place is one of those cool alleyways between Bourke St and Flinders St that is chock-full of coffee shops and other good things. Most of them are tiny, particularly Jungle Bar, reviewed below.

Jungle Bar, Centre Place, Melbourne
Very good flavour, tiny cafe

Five, Centre Place, Melbourne
Decent coffee but slightly burnt

Bambini Barrista, rear 530 Little Collins St, Melbourne
Flavour not bad, nice top

Rive Gauche, Southgate Food Court, Southbank
Good flavour, generous loyalty card

Q11, Coventry St, South Melbourne
Decent, strong coffee. Good service.

I’ve been systematically plowing through Brunswick St in Fitzroy lately. It has a bunch of cafes, including at least two very good ones.

Don Vincenzo, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Decent coffee and funky atmosphere

Endis Cafe, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Coffee adequate but nothing special

Cafe Nova, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Cafe features good coffee, fireplace

Caffeine Dealers, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Very good coffee found here

And now, out to the ‘burbs. South eastern suburbs, specifically.

Nikos Quality Cakes, Portman St, Oakleigh
Very good coffee, nice cakes

Santucci’s, Koornang Rd, Carnegie
Good atmosphere, paintings, decent coffee

Figjam Cafe, Koornang Rd, Carnegie
Good texture and decent flavour

One other thing: I was recently emailed by the owner of Mozart’s in Gymea, who told me that it has changed hands and now serves much better coffee. I am yet to verify this; I don’t live in Sydney after all; but if any of you want to check it out and tell us of your experience, feel free.

Imagine the following scenario: You are minding your own business in the middle of a large city, when all of a sudden a terrorist attack takes place. What is the first thing you think of?

It is, of course, “What is the most appropriate mode of transportation for my cat in these circumstances?”

What? It isn’t? Why do you hate animals?

For those of us that don’t hate animals, a roll of the dice has an extended discussion on whether or not you should carry a cat in a pillow case during a terrorist attack, as advised by the NSW Government.

See also The cat’s out of the Go Bag at NineMSN for more information on this very important subject.

I recently returned from a trip to Sydney where I spent a few days surveying the cafe scene and just generally enjoying myself.

Day 1: Eastern Beaches

Clovelly Beach, pictured above, is the only beach in the world that you could fit in your pocket. That’s how small it is. In fact, I was surprised by how small these beaches are. Bondi is an average-sized beach and the others are quite small, particularly Clovelly and Tamarama.

Le Paris Go Cafe, Hall St, Bondi Beach
Good coffee and top atmosphere

Seasalt Cafe, Donnellan Circuit, Clovelly
Very good coffee by beach

I’ll also add that it was the most expensive strong latte I’ve ever had, at $4.10. But that’s Sydney for you.

Pool Caffe, Marine Pde, Maroubra
Top coffee at beachside location

There’s another pic for you, this time of Maroubra Beach.

Day 2: Sydney Harbour

Voodoo Espresso, Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney
Nice flavour, texture. Well presented.

Kinokuniya, The Galeries, Sydney
Books disallowed! Good coffee though.

Bar Zeppa, Knox Lane, Double Bay
Coffee commendable. Nice cakes too.

You may be noticing that I am giving all the cafes good reviews. Perhaps I enjoyed good luck, or it may have been that my parents were taking me around, but the standard was generally high at the cafes we visited.

Day 3: Newton & Leichhardt

Newtown is Sydney’s cafe and culture capital while Leichhardt is Sydney’s Italian district, although a poor cousin to Melbourne’s Carlton.

No new reviews from this day’s travels. In Newtown I had coffee at Campos, while in Leichhardt I stopped in at Berkelouw. Berkelouw is very good while Campos is THE place to be for caffeine addicts. Both of them were reviewed in a previous edition.

Day 4, plus some miscellaneous stuff:

Luxe Espresso, Westfield Bondi Junction
Top coffee. Best in centre.

From Jon:
d’ough espresso, Westfield Bondi Junction
Not good. Go Luxe instead.

From Judy:
La Promenade Patisserie, Ramsgate Rd, Ramsgate
Coffee okay. Food is nice.

Portions, Belgrave Esplanade, Sylvania Waters
Nothing special but not bad.

From Jon:
Fix, Sutherland
Good, apparently. And popular, too.

Quikfix, Domestic Terminal, Sydney Airport
Very good. Best at airport.

Remember to post reviews of coffee shops where you are in the comments, be they in Sydney or anywhere else.

Above photos from SkyCam and Tall Family.

QuikFix (or is that Quikfix?) is a coffee outlet at the Sydney Airport domestic terminal food court that I’ve reviewed before at Five Word Coffee Shop Reviews. Basically I was at the airport with my parents and asked them for their opinion on it. That led to the following review:

Quikfix, Sydney Airport
Weak swill. To be avoided.

Ouch.

Anyway, a little while after posting that someone left the following comment:

Ridiculous

Very disappointed and upset.
Im a fan of Quikfix and Allpress Coffee.
The fact that Quikfix uses over 130 kilograms of coffee a week proves that a) either people really do like the coffee….which most likely is the reason why Quikfix receive compliments every time i visit or b) that it is a nice coffee that even the most ignorant of customers would be unable to tell if it was using Arabica or Ethopian pea bean…it really doesnt matter, and The Ritazza bar has a view of concrete with one or two local small carrier planes….Quikfix without the seating area has a view of the entire domestic tarmac with added views that can span almost all the way to the international terminal…Quikfix also employ a vast range of employees, some still in the process of learning and being trained by Allpress….perhaps your coffee was made in a swift manner, by if you believe that the coffee is weak in taste you are wrong or perhaps you just tried a quarter strength soy mocha with 4 sugars to assist you in your critique…or perhaps the workers at Quikfix rejected your request at putting the sugars in for you…..whatever your reasons, perhaps taste again when your tastebuds have fully returned from the burning sensation received from the burnt griphandles of Ritazza Lounge.

Note the completely uncalled for bagging of Ritazza Lounge, the notion that if it’s popular it must be good and - oh yes - “the quarter strength soy mocha with four sugars” I supposedly had. (95% of the time I order a strong latte and do not add sugar, but I digress.)

I always welcome feedback, even negative feedback, and I promised to revisit Quikfix at some point. But since I don’t live in Sydney, this would take some time.

More recently I received an email as follows:

Having seen you’re review on Quikfix, I feel you need to reconsider, I
was at the airport on the weekend, and asked them why they’re coffee
was bad before, they said it was because their machine had broken down on them, but they now have they’re old machine back, so I ask you to go back to Quikfix and give them a fair evaluation.

Fear not, rabid Quikfix fans! I recently had the opportunity to give QuikFix another chance. The result? A high quality, well-presented strong latte. The flavour was spot on and there was fancy latte art to boot. I don’t believe I’ve ever had coffee this good at an airport before.

I’ve altered reviews before, but this is the first time I’ve changed the review 180 degrees - from crap to very good!

Bravo Quikfix for producing good coffee at an airport food court, where I’d least expect it.

MORE TO COME: A swag of coffee reviews from my trip to Sydney shall be posted on this blog shortly.

I was in Newtown recently when I visited the Gould’s bookshop on King St, a truly enormous store filled with cassettes, CDs, books and LPs, all second-hand. This was my second trip to the store and to Newtown. (Read about the first trip if you like.)

There were a few things I was looking for, all Communism related, for this store has a huge range of books covering all aspects of Communism. There are books on Marx and Engels, the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and all the isms associated with them. There are books that Stalin and Lenin had written (or ghostwritten). If you are looking for the Soviet Union Criminal Code (1971 edition) or a copy of the speech Stalin made to the 14th Party Congress, Gould’s is the store for you!

Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for, namely The Great Terror by Robert Conquest, The Gulag Archipelago Volumes 2 & 3 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU(B)), also known as the Short Course, which was the official history of the Party.

Now, there were several editions of the Short Course up for sale, but the edition I was looking for was not among them. I needed an edition that covered the Second World War but was published while Stalin was still in power, since later editions were revised to be more critical of him. Why? I was looking for the edition with Stalinist propaganda in it, to verify a quote that had previously appeared on this blog.

Never mind.

I did, however, manage to find a copy of “Triumph Of The Will”, the masterful and notorious Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl, on sale in a discount shop bargain bin for just $2.

If any of you are interested, the discount shop is located right next to Westfield Miranda on Kiora Rd. There are probably a few copies left. Happy hunting, or should I say, Sieg Heil!

What can I say about Sydney? If Melbourne gently caresses you, Sydney slaps you in the face, what with its traffic-filled winding roads and relentless sunshine. Anyway, with no further ado, here is the second installment of reviews from my recent trip north:

Pierre’s Patisserie, Turramurra
Nice French pastries, good coffee

Bonjour Patisserie, Railway Ave, Wahroonga
Nice food, coffee below par

Danes Gourmet Coffee, Railway Ave, Wahroonga
Flavour good. Just strong enough.

Café Laurella, Wahroonga
Nice atmosphere, coffee was disappointing

Berkelouw, Norton St, Leichhardt
Quite good café bookshop combo

Bacio, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney
This is good, not great

Fresco, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney
Just how I like it

Espresso Bar, David Jones Food Hall, near Pitt St Mall, Sydney
Good coffee. Needs more seats.

Arc, Circular Quay, Sydney
Notable coffee by the harbour

Campos, Missenden Rd, Newtown
Its stellar reputation is deserved

Urban Bites, 70 King St, Newtown
The coffee here ain’t bad

Cinque, King St (opposite Newtown Mission), Newtown
Good quality coffee is here.

Corelli’s, King St, Newtown
Nice old building. Good coffee.

Ritazza Lounge, Sydney Airport
Reasonable coffee with good views

Quikfix, Sydney Airport
Weak swill. To be avoided.

Bar Ristretto, Sydney Airport
The coffee here ain’t bad.

Loads more reviews here.

UPDATE: I’ve since revised the Quikfix review.

This is the first instalment of cafe reviews from my recent trip to Sydney. There are more Sutherland Shire reviews in the main list. 

Riviera Café, Cremona St, Como
Average coffee, very well located

Mozart’s, Gymea Bay Rd, Gymea
Nice sweets but coffee ordinary

Café Twelve, Gymea Bay Rd, Gymea
Reasonable quality coffee served here

Hairy Canary, Gymea Bay Rd, Gymea
Mediocre coffee unfortunately. Try elsewhere.

Hazelhurst Gallery Café, cnr Kingsway and Talara Rds, Gymea
Coffee good, service somewhat patronising

Vlasta’s, Gymea Bay Rd, Gymea
Coffee mediocre. Didn’t go back.

Deli Cucina, President Ave, Caringbah
Looks uninspiring, but reasonable coffee

Café De Keels, Tonkin St, Cronulla
Overlooks the bay. Coffee alright.

Café La Bay, Gunnamatta Park, Cronulla
Coffee ain’t bad. Seldom open.

Grind, Surf Rd, Cronulla
You won’t find better anywhere

Nulla Nulla, Cronulla St, Cronulla
My mum liked it, yesssss.

From Sarah:
Cafe 43, Gerrale St, Cronulla
Great coffee with beach views

Café Manna, Bundeena
Park, beach, kookaburras, decent coffee.

Just in case I didn’t make it clear, Grind in Cronulla is awesome. Should I make a Hall Of Fame on this site for the elite coffee shops - which I am thinking of doing - Grind will make the cut. Best coffee in Sydney.

On my recent trip to NSW, I went to Nelson Bay to see my grandparents. Port Stephens has, of course, been a popular tourist destination for some time now. Shoal Bay in particular has had several high-rise holiday apartment blocks built. But only recently has it gotten out of hand in Nelson Bay itself that high-rise developments have appeared in the centre of town, destroying the look and feel of the area.

At least in Shoal Bay these type of developments make some sense, as Shoal Bay has a very nice beach. Nelson Bay does not have a very nice beach. It has a proper town centre, a marina and dolphin watch cruises, all of which are pleasant enough, but people staying in holiday apartments there will have to drive to Shoal Bay to get to a decent beach. Where’s the sense in that?

We went to Soldiers Point for lunch. Soldiers Point has no beach, no decent town centre and no particular attractions to speak of apart from boating and fishing. Such things are not normally enough to attract bloated tourist developments (or else Lake Macquarie would look like the Gold Coast by now) but they are apparently enough to attract several multi-storey apartment blocks to Soldiers Point. What gives?

Never fear; I have returned

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I shall relate my trip to Sydney, and all the exciting things that happened.

I departed Sydney the morning after I arrived, to go to Nelson Bay area to visit the grandparents. At this time of year, everyone in Sydney decides to go north at the same time, a grand tradition that results in legendary traffic jams in country towns hundreds of kilometres away. People hire out holiday homes from Saturday to Saturday, with the result that all roads in and out of Sydney are completely clogged on Saturdays. Is this just a Sydney thing? I hadn’t heard of it earlier.

Anyway, after driving past a massive traffic jam at Hexham (fortunately on the other side of the road) we arrived in Nelson Bay, before heading to nearby Salamander Bay the next day to meet another grandparent. All very agreeable. That evening, on our way back, we got stuck in a 10km long traffic jam in the middle of nowhere on the Central Coast, 80km north of Sydney.

On Monday I visited Newtown. Newtown is very interesting. It has a great café scene, with the most well-renowned coffee in Sydney. It has at least one poetry busker, who will give you a photocopy of his poems for a donation. There is also a wide variety of music and book shops. Since my three favourite things are coffee, music and books I was quite happy.

In particular, I was most taken with the huge second hand bookshop. The first thing I noticed about this place was a large selection of second hand cassettes – yes, cassettes – on display along one wall. Then I turned around and saw a warehouse-sized floor of books, with an upstairs section along three walls. Not only are all the shelves packed full with books, there are large disorganized piles of them everywhere. Not to mention the extensive collection of vinyl LPs available.

I ended up buying a copy of Khrushchev’s memoirs, fond as I am of Soviet kitsch, of which the shop had rather a large amount.

I also saw the Sydney CBD, Cronulla and Bundeena during the trip.

While in Cronulla, I discovered the superb Grind café, which can hold its own with anywhere in Melbourne. When the owner of Grind found that I was from Melbourne, he recommended I try St. Ali’s in South Melbourne. That is the second time St. Ali’s has been recommended to me. I really shall have to check it out.

Will there be coffee reviews from my trip to Sydney? Oh yes, there will be coffee reviews.

Atheist biffo

In the comments to my recent post “The Atheist Delusion“, I have been having a slow-burning discussion on the topic with an atheist named Simen. If you have a point to add that I have missed, feel free to add it, and help me biff the atheists. Or maybe Simen has missed something, in which case you can help biff the Christians. Either way, there shall be biff.