Caffiend
5/78 Grafton Street
Cairns QLD 4870
+61 7 4051 5522
http://www.taste-y.com/caffiend/
My Cairns trip didn’t exactly start off swimmingly.
A 6am flight out of Melbourne is painful enough on its own, but try adding a sore stomach thanks to an evening of eating sweets at the Immigration Museum with fellow bloggers the previous night in addition to having to sit next to a fidgety Belgian backpacker who not only stank up the entire front section of the plane, but also couldn’t sit farken still for 3 and a half hours. Then add in 80% humidity, throw in a bit of casual wet season rain and a hotel transfer shuttle bus that ran late and you have a very cranky Libby.
Thank goodness, though, that our holiday improved as soon as I stepped into the hip City Arcade on Grafton Street, once I had dumped my bags at the hotel, and into Caffiend, probably the coolest café I’ve been to. Yes, in Cairns out of all places. I still had about two hours to kill before Marty’s plane arrived and we still had to wait for our rooms at the hotel to be ready anyway. Thus, I figured a nice sit-down with a copy of the Courier Mail and some java would go down nicely. It was pissing down rain (don’t let the above pic deceive you) when I sat down on Caffiend’s lone communal table after ordering a cup of latte ($3.80). Well, it was either that table or sit outside in the pouring rain or squish my already-cramped legs into one of the cute little tables (below). No thanks.
Clay Air Force One. Nice.
Cairns isn’t traditionally renowned for its coffee culture but lately, there has been a bit of a stir in 4870 and locals have seen a slow but steady increase in the number of decent cafés in the area. This is all thanks to a bunch of baristas from Sydney and Melbourne wanting to showcase their craft to the good people of Cairns and an ever-growing support of good coffee by the general population. Such factors have made Caffiend a hit with both local and tourists, something that owner Oliver James and his team of friendly and dedicated baristas (including championship award-winning barista, Nigel Giacomi) must be proud of.
As I waited for my coffee, I eyed the Yama cold brew drip tower sitting on my right. My latte was served by Oliver himself who saw me taking photos of the drip tower. What they do is pour ice cold water into the fishbowl-like vessel on the very top and the water slowly trickles through the freshly ground coffee in the middle, and the filtered coffee is collected into an empty bowl at the bottom. Oliver reckons that it takes, on average, 18 hours for the process to be completed, sometimes 16 and sometimes 24. The longer it takes the more caffeine you get in one shot.
Oliver was kind enough to let me try a shot glass of cold brew coffee made with single origin Costa Rican beans. I’m not normally a fan of drinking black coffee, but Oliver encouraged me to try it anyway. It was fantastic. The coffee had a very sweet and mild (almost diluted) flavour which made it very easy to drink. In fact, it was akin to drinking cold tea – perfect if you’re living in tropical Far North Queensland. Now, one sip of espresso is usually enough for me to declare a fatwa on caffeine for the rest of the day but this? Well, I could drink it all day and according to Oliver, so can most of the crew at Caffiend (can’t be a good thing!). Although this was the first time I’ve seen a drip tower, Oliver told me that there are actually heaps of places in Melbourne (Auction Rooms in North Melbourne, Sensory Lab at David Jones in the city) that have them which goes to show how little I know about coffee these days (to be fair though, I have curbed my coffee intake). I am, however, willing to bet that none of the Melbourne cafes bottle their cold coffees up in stubby bottles and sell them to customers (at $8.90 a pop) like the guys at Caffiend do. Genius.
Oh, and my latte itself? It was brilliant. Smooth, velvety with a lot of attitude, it definitely hit all the right spots. Watch out, Melbourne, Cairns is comin’ at ya!
I wasn’t hungry that morning so I didn’t get to try any of the breakfast or lunch meals available at Caffiend. My chance, however, did arrive on our very last morning in Cairns. After packing our bags, I dragged Marty to Caffiend to kill time before our 11:05am flight to the Gold Coast. With our tummies hurting with hunger, we set about ordering coffees (a latte for me, and a glass of cold brew on ice for Marty ($3.80) and breakfast.
Marty ordered Caffiend’s version of the big breakfast, the Morning Glory ($17.90). It came with two poached eggs, a very generous serving of streaky bacon, slow-roasted pumpkin, oven-dried tomatoes, crumbly chat potatoes and rocket salad. Apart from the pumpkin (which I thought was a pretty random addition), Marty and I enjoyed this dish. Every element was perfect – the bacon was sinfully crispy, the tomatoes so naturally sweet, the potatoes so soft on the inside and the eggs, man, the eggs! Marty declared this the best breakfast he’s ever had at a café, and that it was better than anything he’s eaten for breakfast at a Melbourne café.
I ordered the chilli eggs ($14.90), two poached eggs on sourdough topped with home-made chilli jam and coriander salad. On its own, I thought the chilli jam was a tad sweet but it mellowed when mixed in with the gooey egg yolk and the bread, with the lime-tinged coriander and rocket salad balancing everything out with a touch of sourness. It was fantastic. If I was to be picky, I would have tossed in bit of fish sauce into the chilli jam for a bit of umami but eh, this was the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time so I happily ate my breakfast. And I did steal a few streaks of bacon from Marty’s plate for that bit of saltiness.
Ooh egg pr0n.
We were both extremely happy with our meals and our coffees – Marty loved his cold brew so much that he ended up taking home a bottle. Marty and I had been talking about Melbourne’s food and coffee culture all week prior to Cairns, with Marty arguing that Melbourne’s coffee culture CAN be replicated in any city in Australia (do you agree? disagree? I would like to hear your thoughts below) and nowhere was this more evident than at Caffiend. Graffitied walls, check. Somewhat obscure location for instant cred, check. Cute and very, very competent baristas, check. Amazing coffees, check. Delicious food made with ingredients sourced from local farms, check. The only thing missing was the Melbourne wankery that is prevalent in a lot of inner-city cafés, something which even I would admit to not missing. Give me warm FNQ hospitality injected with a bit of casual steez anytime, man.
And on that note, my Cairns trip ended brilliantly.
The taco kiosk, called Paco’s Tacos, is supposedly named after a Mexican revolutionary. This seemed apt to me, seeing as Australia is currently going through a Mexican cuisine revival where people are so over Taco Bill et al and in response, we’re seeing good quality Mexican restaurants and cafes popping up around the Eastern states of Australia. ‘¡Viva la Revolución!’ I say! Paco’s Tacos is open for lunch during the week, with extended hours from Wednesday to Friday to cater to the end-of-week drinks crowd. I had a day off the other week and so did Dave so we decided to catch up over some tacos.
Mr Tulk is an oldie but a goodie, a place where I’d sometimes grab a delicious latte to take away en route an exam at the Royal Exhibition Building. Funnily enough though, I’ve never actually sat down to have breakfast there. This is somewhat strange for someone who loves libraries (the café is attached to the State Library of Victoria and named after its first librarian, Augustus Tulk – what a boss name!) and who spends most of her waking hours in the city.
The place was dead quiet when we rocked up just before 10pm. Understandable, because it was a weeknight and Gold Coastitutes tend to have early ones but on the other hand, it was Australia Day Eve so I did expect to see more people there. Oh well, more room on the communal table for us, I thought to myself as I sipped on the margarita which was refreshing and delicious, though the alcohol content negligible. As much as I like to diss Taco Bill, they do make the most awesome frozen margaritas – and they put plenty of alcohol in them.
Gotta love the really funky bottle – the beer didn’t taste bad, either.
We shared some soft shell tacos (three for $10.50). Given that places such as Paco’s Tacos in Melbourne charge $6.50 for arguably substandard tacos that fall into a limp, soggy mess as soon as you touch them, I thought the price tag was extremely reasonable. I’m not normally a soft-shell taco person (I go hard all the way – wahaha, that sounds duuurty) but I was glad that each taco shell managed to retain their shape. While Marty enjoyed his spicy pork chipotle and his spicy chicken guerrero tacos, both of which he thought were very good, I attacked my beef guerrero taco with intense ferocity. Packed with slow-roasted marinated tender beef, black beans with a healthy lashing of pico de gallo, it was a taco that I would happily hand over $6.50 in Melbourne.
We were both still a bit hungry after that so I ordered a serving of GYG’s famous nachos ($10.50), with beef guerrero topping. The guys at GYG use a gluten-free corn tortilla so don’t expect tasty Doritos-style corn chips, but rather something that’s a little more bland on the tongue. Doesn’t matter though, the chips soaked up the flavours of the black beans, beef, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo and guacamole brilliantly. It was a dish that could have stood on its own as a main and in fact, we couldn’t finish the whole thing so we took it home … and had it the very next day for breakfast. Strangely enough, the nachos tasted a LOT better after sitting in the fridge overnight before being heated in the oven for several minutes, as opposed to being served fresh from the store. Yum.
Located in the heart of Broadbeach, within walking distance of various nightclubs, Ming Palace has been serving Gold Coastitutes for a number of decades. This is evident in the outdated decor, the tired walls and carpet and the extremely full dining room of punters who looked like they had been coming to this joint for many years. As quasi-regulars, Marty and our friend, Amiee, often come here for late-night bitch fests over steamers of hot dim sum. On my visit here, I instinctively thought of Supper Inn back home – one, because it’s open until late and two, you have to actually climb up a long flight of stairs to get there. The climb at Supper Inn, however, is worth it but here at Ming Palace? Not really.
We played it safe by ordering har gow (prawn dumplings, 4 for $5.80). They weren’t the biggest and they had ridiculously thick skins to boot (good thing? bad thing? I say ‘bad’), with a decent-tasting filling that was generous on the prawns. This was probably the only ‘good’ thing I ate here, though.
Marty normally rates the siu mai (pork dumplings, 4 for $4.80) and I have to say that they were of decent size. Again, they were generous with the filling – the pork seemed to be on the verge of bursting. I didn’t like them as much as the har gow, though. The pork meat and pork fat ratio was off – they put too much of the fat in – so the filling emitted a bit of a nasty smell when you bit into it.
I made the mistake of ordering the next two dishes. In hindsight, I didn’t even know why because they’re not normally dishes I would order – I think it was because the yum cha menu was so limited and I felt pressured to order them. I don’t know. But anyway. First up, the deep-fried prawns (4 for $5.80). Oh man, they were awful. They obviously used the frozen stuff as was obvious by the lack of taste, and how dry the meat was (obviously from having nuked it in the microwave after they had fished them out of the freezer – and left them in the microwave for too long). I don’t understand the need to use frozen stuff when one, Queensland’s famous for its abundance of fresh, good quality seafood and two, they used fresh prawns in the har gows. Meanwhile, the batter was limp and tired – and not the least bit crunchy – and given the amount of oil that was left on the paper doily, the kitchen dudes had forgotten all about draining.
Our deep-fried scallops (4 for $5.80) fared much worse. Again, the frozen stuff was used and again, the whole thing – soggy batter and all – was just nasty, nasty, nasty. Yuck.
We were served a small selection of complimentary side dishes, including the obligatory kim chi (which was decent as far as kim chi goes – which isn’t saying really much since I’m not a fan of it), sweet potato and seaweed. I couldn’t fault any of them. We got also a bowl of miso soup each which I thought was quite strange because, hello?! we’re not in a Japanese restaurant?! But eh, whatever, it was free and tasted alright so why complain for?
We ordered some dumplings to start off with. First, a serving of steamed man doo (six for $6.50). The surprisingly robust skins held a pork filling that was tasty and married well with the sesame soy dipping sauce provided.
I normally prefer fried man doo over steamed ones so I was surprised to find that I actually liked the steamed ones better. Sure, the fried versions (also six for $6.50) were great and all but they could have done with a bit more crisp.
Our meals arrived pretty quickly after that. My dolsot beef bi bim bap ($10.90) arrived first, the contents sitting prettily and piping hot in a stone pot. There was the option of having the bi bim bap in a normal ceramic bowl for $9.90 but I believe that you can’t have a bi bim bap if it’s not served in a stone pot – the best bit is scooping all the crunchy bits of rice at the bottom of your bowl towards the end of your meal. Yum!
I have to say that this was the best bi bim bap I’ve had – and trust me, I’ve had heaps of them in Melbourne for it is my ‘go to’ dish whenever I eat at Korean restaurants. The portion size was perfect, and there was a fantastic ratio of marinated beef strips, rice and vegies. I eagerly mixed everything up – gooey fried egg and all – with the pepper sauce that came with it. I liked that the pepper sauce was not too spicy, and thus did not overpower the rest of the flavours contained in the stone pot. The whole thing was just fantastic; so full of beautiful flavours and colours. I was left feeling more satisfied than a Korean chick in a K-drama series who had just landed the hot guy.
It was a particularly rainy day when we rocked up to the restaurant, which was surprisingly quite busy for a midweek lunch sesh. Those of you who have been to a Sizzler restaurant will know the concept – you can pay for the salad bar buffet ($17) which gives you access to whatever you want from the buffet tables, plus a serving of cheese toast (squee cheese toast!), or you can select a meal from the list of mains which include calamari and chips, steaks and more, all of which hover around the $15-20 mark. If you’re ordering a main for lunch, you only need to chuck in a few coins to gain access to the salad bar. As for drinks, unlimited soft drink, coffee and tea refills are available for $3.50. Marty and I decided that the mains surely ain’t worth paying for, so we decided to go the salad bar option each, plus the option to get unlimited soft drink refills.
When I was a kid, I thought the then-$10 salad bar buffet was the best thing ever. What do I think of it twenty years later? It’s horrible. I mean, sure, I wanted to go to this place purely to take the piss, knowing that it wouldn’t be fantastic, and at no point did I expect anything better. But when you have pastas that are soggy beyond belief, salads which are not at all fresh AND made with limp, frozen ingredients, and a tired dessert selection, you’re better off using that $17 on two Maccas meals that will guarantee a somewhat satisfying lunch for two days. One thing that I was actually looking forward to was getting a big handful of pasta, and pouring both bolognaise and carbonara sauce on top and then mixing them together. Yes, I know it’s weird but it was a ritual that I strictly adhered to as a kid. For some reason, though, they didn’t have carbonara sauce – only bolognaise and napoletana was available. Bummer. They did, however, still have wedges available which I grabbed by the dozen. As for the salads, well Toto, you know that you’re in Queensland when the salad options are as follows: prawn and almond salad; watermelon, feta and pine nut salad; chicken, mango and almond salad; prawn and Tassie smoked salmon; tropical coconut fish. I can’t say that any of them were particularly decent (again, crappy ingredients and devoid of freshness) though Marty didn’t seem to mind them.
Yay cheese toasts! Sadly, they were smaller than the ones we enjoyed back in the 90s – and they were extremely soggy. Funnily enough, they were probably the nicest things I ate during this meal.
We ate about two plates each (yes, of pretty much the same thing) before we decided that enough was enough. Soon, we were headed for the dessert bar. I played it like a good girl and stuck with the fruits, though I did indulge in a bit of vanilla ice cream.
And because we’re kids at heart (okay, Marty more so than I am), we did the whole let’s-put-ice-cream-in-our-lamb-and-beansoup routine. So we did. I mean, the lamb and bean soup was pretty disgusting and it was going to waste anyway, so why not have a bit of fun with it before it gets chucked out? And so we added a bunch of other nasty things in addition to the ice cream. I couldn’t remember what sort of stuff we put in (nor did I want to) but thanks to Marty’s elephant memory, we came up with a list: raspberry soda, coke, bread and butter pudding, salt, corn and a receipt (don’t ask). God, we’re so mature. And yes, we both dared each other to have a sip of the soup – and yes, it was as awful as it looks.
