I’m No Food Blogger, But…

or No Alex I Am Not Turning Into One Of Those People, What Do you Mean I’m Too Old!

My mother likes coffee shops!  I think its a vestige of her teaching career, teachers are mad on coffee shops, and wine but that’s another story.  Anyway if I am really good and really polite and I don’t fight with my kids in public too loudly she will take me with her.  And one or more of the brats, which makes it so much harder to not fight with them.

Any hoo the point is there have been a lot of disappointments.  Icecream specialists aside, hooray for icecream.  But you can’t live on icecream.  I know, I had a few days when food prep became too much and shopping was not happening and I may have lived on chocolate & lollies.  I got a bit jittery and … well its not as fun as you’d think.  There were a couple of outlets that sold nice food with little or no places to sit and eat, and one gorgeous place where the cakes were nice.

So we are constantly on the look for somewhere new. And yesterday, OMG, jack pot!  Across the road from a group of shops containing two coffee shops, a Chinese restaurant and a fish and chip shop there are some of those fancy apartments on a park.  Underneath the apartments there is a newish coffee shop; Miss.

 

 

We walked in and were greeted and seated, it was so beautiful.  I loved the look of the place.  We were given menus and placed our orders at the counter.  The menu had plenty of variety and the prices were really good for a coffee shop, and cheap for a place this nice. Having just returned from Writer’s Circle we all slipped to the Ladies Room one by one.  Washing my hands in the gorgeous little room I was captivated by a pretty little candley thing and first thought ‘if the food isn’t garbage I must blog about this place!’

The luxurious seating, marvelous decor and superb view really made me want to share this place with you.  But I wanted to ask permission, I refuse to lie and recommend a bad place, and I think most people consider the food an important part of the experience.

 

But I couldn’t resist looking around, noting that a small boy, it is school holiday time here, was quietly concentrating on the colour ins or puzzles that are provided, there’s another good point I thought.  And I remembered it said dog friendly, even more points dog happiness being more important than child happiness.  The kid’s menu section looked good too, not just nuggets and chips etc but kid friendly.

Drinks arrived, Alex’s was some kind of iced coffee, she loved it.  Mine was a smoothie, orange, mango and banana; naughty me I’ve forgotten the name,  With my hyper sensitive palate I can tell you the banana was ever so slightly preripe and the orange juice was unsweetened, possibly fresh but most likely a very good brand.  Meaning it was a very healthy, fresh drink.  It was a tiny bit tart on first sip, but I live on Coca Cola, lemonade and sugar slightly moistened with tea so I am not a good judge.  It was delicious with the meal, but it was so thick, creamy and filling that it was the only thing not completely finished when Mum decided it was time to leave.  But it was thoroughly enjoyed, I just couldn’t scull it, when Mum decides to go she just goes, she doesn’t mean to she just does.

 

Moments later Mum’s hot coffee was dropped off.  Quickly followed by my Wrap, Alex’s Burger and Mum’s Brownie.  Just in case I took photos, Alex started teasing me about being one of those people who photograph their food, Mum joined in.  They suggested I am way too old to be one of those people.  I do not like Alex.

 

First bite and I was in heaven, second bite I realised hooray I can blog about this place.

Alex and I had both ordered from the All Day Breakfast menu.  With my food aversions and sensory sensitivities its hard to order so I settled on a safe sounding Wrap, scrambled eggs, bacon, rocket and onion jam.  The eggs were perfect, the rocket fresh, the bacon was really tasty, the wrap was tasty and crisp, but the onion jam, it was so great and it just lifted the other ingredients.  Remember this recommendation is not coming from a normal person.  I am a sensitive palated freak who hates almost all coffee shops because of lack of freshness, veggies, fruit and bakery, artificial flavours except coke, too much fat in pastry, too much flour, pepper, cheese, fridgey taste to milk etcetera ad infinitum.  If I like food, it is good food.  I couldn’t even taste the pepper, there must have been pepper because of the burning pain aftertaste, I taste pepper as a burning pain.  But it was mild and an aftertaste, so it really did not impact my enjoyment, eating frequently hurts.  But they have a thingy on the bottom of the menu that says something like they cater to special needs; vegetarian, allergies etc, so next time I might ask for no pepper at all.  But I must say again, fantastic wrap, delicious, fresh, lovely.

Alex’s burger was black.  I had avoided the burgers because the menu said char grilled buns and I wasn’t sure what that meant.  The burger was completely black but when I saw Alex eating the top part of the bun with just a little sauce I knew it must be good, Mum had some and liked it, I missed out because I had a mouthful of wrap and it disappeared too fast.  It was a breakfast burger, bacon and egg with no meat pattie, Alex loved it.  Alex and I both gobbled down the salad garnishes too.

Mum ate her entire Brownie by herself.  When I told Gavin she finished it he said ‘Wow, it must have been good!’  So indeed it must have been good, I wouldn’t know, I didn’t get any.  I have had bites of lots of bad cake but no, she eats all the good cake herself.  She also didn’t complain about the coffee, Mum loves to complain about coffee, so there’s another tick.

We were a little surprised that Alex’s hash brown didn’t arrive.  Then we were told that it had burned and a replacement was being cooked.  The lady was very apologetic, we all had the same reaction ‘what great quality control’.  Having been served burnt, cold, ruined food at three times the prices we were impressed not upset.  When they arrived, they were delicious and disappeared again before I could cadge a taste.  By this time Alex knew I was going to blog about this.  My dining companions were selfish food hogs.  I don’t know if two was the serving size or an apology present we were only expecting one.

So having been told recently that when mentioning others on the blog it is best to have permission, not my kids or husband I own them, I asked the lady if she would mind if I blogged about her cafe.  She was really enthusiastic and helpful.  I think she was so pretty posed that I asked her not to bother pretending to make something.

Alex was enthused by now, blogging is acceptable, I’m too old for food photos, but I am allowed to blog.  So she helped take photos (you can tell they are the bad photos).

Then a pair of ladies at an outdoor table had a cute dog and after watching it for a while we all had to go out and pat it.  We asked of course, always ask, the human and the dog is most polite, and we were allowed to pat the softest, sweetest little dog, who turned out to be a girl.

We were outside and Mum is an unstoppable force so we left.

This is the best eating out experience I have had in years.

Come to Aveley, go to Miss, you will be forever grateful!