The places you find as a local...

"What is there in Adelaide?" Sydneysiders and Melburnians always ask me when I talk about going there.

I could tell them about the lovely McLaren Vale winery overlooking a gorge that has one of the biggest vineyard dogs in the country and an excellent owner-barista.  I could remind them about the South  Australians' record on Masterchef Australia (3 out of 4 grand finalists in 2 seasons is definitely a heck of a strike rate), envy those who can get their hands on a slice of Maggie Beer's pheasant pie in the Barossa, enjoy roast hazelnut gelati while sitting in the sun off Rundle Street, gawk at the abundance of marbling on South Australian red meats at Feast Central Market, lick my fingers of dripping sugar syrup from Indian sweets off Gouger Street, and consume fresh oysters & salmon sashimi at a fraction of the price one would pay in Melbourne.

This time though, my trip was quite strictly personal.  One day with friends, one day with family. My friends, wonderful as they are, used their day with me as a day of food.  Food, caffeine, and more food. :)

First, Jam the Bistro on Wright Street, a mere 5 minutes' walk from Adelaide Central Market.  A rather bright, colourful cafe with plenty of weekend newspapers and magazines scattered around the place including the Saturday Age.  I decided to skip the blue swimmer crab omelette on the menu and went for the breakfast special of spanakopita omelette which was accompanied by, of course, a Vittoria cafe latte.  In Adelaide, one mainly drinks Vittoria, Perfect Cup or Rio under various guises.  Service decided to leave us alone after serving our orders so we could keep laughing over old stories and previously untold secrets despite cleaning our plates long time ago and with the continuing stream of customers coming into the place.

Then a trip to Glen Osmond Road, where we visited the South Australia representative on the Australian's Best 14 Coffee Places 2010; the Coffee Barun (jolly striving micro-roaster cafe on Main North Road, though I do think they have overstretched themselves by offering a full breakfast and pizza menu without a proper kitchen) and Rio Coffee (responsible for supplying Cibo) were both given "highly commended" status.

Bar 9 takes its coffee quite seriously - one blend for milk-based coffees, one blend for black coffees, and one barista's blend that changes every so often.  Supplied by 5 Senses, the two baristas are happy to do siphons and pourovers anytime but will also feature every other type of coffee making style when they get the chance.  On this day, they were concentrating on the three key ways of coffee making as we know them given the bustling trade they were doing.  I would have been keen to see if they could do a good Turkish coffee.

ML tried his first siphon coffee (the Brazilian on the list - walnut!) with a White Blend piccolo as his chaser (again, his first piccolo ever, followed by a second piccolo offered on the house when he spilt half of the first one). I had the barista's blend in a piccolo (ah, body) followed by the Bolivian in a pourover.  The hot chocolates here also got the nod of approval from our non-coffee drinking Mrs ML. 

Definitely.  Must.  Go.  Back.

High from caffeine, we opted to have a quick Malaysian lunch near David Jones before going home to rest.

Night fell, and it was time to go out again, this time for dessert on Goodwood Road.

Eggless is one of those night-time dessert cafes that is almost buried in the suburbs (in this case, the Methodist church next door is responsible for the carparks, and the movie theatre opposite the church had some signs of life, just barely)  It does not rely on conventional publicity, instead relying on steady word-of-mouth marketing to get its clientele.  In other words, the kind of place I used to frequent during my tertiary days.  On this night, the cafe was already almost full even though we arrived just 10 minutes after business commenced for the night, and so ML had to endure the cold air that would blast in whenever the automatic door slided open.  This happened a lot on the night - that sliding door may as well have been a revolving door.

True to its name, nothing on the menu involved eggs.  There were five single origin coffees for the french press (Jaspers Coffee because they "are the only ones who can guarantee fair trade, organic, steady supply for us", the Malaysian half of the partnership explained), eight teas in loose leaf form, and an Asian drinks section.  Most people, including us, opted for the (I presume) famous home-made teh tarik, which was quite tasty though I did think it was a touch over-priced.

Resisting the Asian dessert menu (even if hot homemade black sticky rice with coconut cream did tempt, especially when it was being served to other tables), we pondered over the Western dessert section and the chalked specials on the wall.  To keep things interesting, the dessert platter changes on a monthly basis and subject to availability.

Dessert platter of the month - Turkish delight and pistachio sorbet with Persian fairy floss, black sesame panna cotta with toffee and kiwifruit, pear and honey cheesecake & green tea tiramisu.  I do think the cake was the most successful dessert and the tiramisu a close second.  The pistachio pieces in the sorbet were too rough, undermining the delicate intent of the dessert piece, while the panna cotta was too soft and initially reminded ML of duck pate...

By the time we left, there were three groups of five huddling outside under the solo upright gas heater waiting for a table.  Again, I remembered what it was like in university, the importance of turning up to places like this early in the night to secure a table.

Only in South Australia, will night-time dessert cafes, not bars or fine dining restaurants (yes yes, Kenji is the exception , do not remind me), own the hottest tables in town (it once was the case in Brisbane as well with Freestyles Desserts, but they went franchise-style and lost quality as a result)


Bless those sugar-high, winery surrounded, sober appetites.##