A New Start, A New Cafe

The first week back in full time work, after all this time off, has been a bit of a shock to the system. I'm lucky in that I have flextime, and my supervisor is quite happy if I start work at 9.30am. Also, I never got into terrible late night habits during my time off - a lot of the time builders were arriving at 7am. But I'm out of the habits of planning meals and doing some dinner prep in the morning.

So last week we had simple dinners. One leftover curry; one mixed grill with steak, sausages and oven chips; one quicky pasta with a pre-made tomato sauce and some cauliflower, capsicum and sausage pieces chucked in; one pide from the Dickson TurkOz - the best pide in town, IMO!

And I bought lunch three times, all from Cafe Momo. This little cafe is right next to my new job, less than five minutes walk away. It caters to a range of tastes, with a hot box of chips and pies and such; a sandwich bar; and a sit down cafe with some full meals and a short wine & beer list. There's inside tables, a pleasant little deck out the back, and a small room that can be closed for a private group of maybe a dozen. There are some pictures on their website; I snaffled one showing the approach that I take, walking in from the back. Pretty!

The prices are very reasonable compared to town. Once I had a chicken and avocado salad sandwich ($5.50 I think) which was nicely fresh and well filled. Another day I took in some fruit, and supplemented it with a pepper steak pie ($4). It was a good pie, made in house, with big chunks of lean meat and a lovely golden pastry top. The pastry bottom was a bit soggy, though.

And I had a sit down lunch with my friend F, who works across the road. She had a Thai beef salad ($16), and an iced chocolate heaped high with cream. I had zucchini fritters ($14.50), which you can have with smoked salmon or roast capsicum. I chose salmon this time, and the serve was generous. The fritters are those standard blobby shaped ones, Turkish restaurant style, drizzled with yoghurt and served with mixed leaves. They were cooked well - no soggy insides. F's salad looked good, too: plenty of beef and beansprouts, and made a bit substantial with noodles. I'll try that one sometime soon.

I also bought a muffin one day when I missed breakfast. That was due to chasing down our wandering sick cat, and then making him take pills and coaxing him to eat. But I wasn't rapt with it - too cakey for my taste. I don't like muffins to be too much like cupcakes, I prefer less sugar and a more solid style, given some guts with bran or wholemeal flour. Cake for breakfast is just wrong. Next time that happens, I'll just get a vegemite sandwich on wholegrain.

I'm pretty pleased with Cafe Momo, despite its minor flaws, and I'll certainly be a regular there. The coffee is decent, too. It's not the greatest, but it's not too bad. A little on the weak side, it's overly light and sweet in flavour. But hey, at least it's not burned or cold or obviously stale. Canberra is not strong on great coffee, unfortunately. I count myself lucky to find a drinkable one out here in Bruce.

Cafe Momo is at 14 Thynne Street, Fern Hill Park, Bruce. They are open Mon-Fri 7.30am to 4.30pm, and Sat 8am-2pm.