It’s been a while since we’ve ventured into the multi award winning Town Café. Seriously. This place gets an award for something at least a couple of times a year. Their last accolades came from the “Delicious Magazine Produce Awards” in the form of the award for best use of local produce by a restaurant. Pretty good effort I say. Oh, did I mention that one half of the husband wife team that run/own this place is Katerina Kanetani, ex pastry chef at Pier when it was a three hat experience, and the very same Katerina Kanetani who in 2007 became the first pastry chef to take out the  “SMH Good Food Guide Chef of the year”. Husband Karl has also cooked at a heap of great restaurants including Tetsuya’s in Sydney. These guys are the cream of the crop, as the saying goes (not that it really makes any sense to me). They are the blue ribbon bull at the local show (now that makes sense to me). They are the kid who has just found his dad’s porno collection (more sense). They are winning

Now with the whole “top of your game winning heaps of awards” scenario comes the expectations. Expectations of a great meal, great coffee, great service and the great wall of china… maybe not the wall, but there are expectations to be sure.

So we wander in, immediately running into to a few old friends. That’s always nice but really has nothing to do with this story. The place is full out the front so we head straight to the back courtyard dining area. We have this little patio to our selves, and I dare say this has more to do with the close to zero temperature and not so much to do with our pet carnie’s outrageous body odour. This was certainly a nice change.

Straight up, the staff were attentive. Even though we were the only people out back the waitress still paid us every second of attention we were due. They were happy and looked like they were genuinely enjoying themselves… and not because they were drunk or taking prescription medications of dubious origins. I like places like that.

The coffee was fantastic. No probs there at all.

My initial glace over the menu left me feeling like it needed a little something more. There was nothing jumping out at me. Nothing punching in the face with it’s “eat me now” fist. Nothing begging me to supple it’s ample bosom or… or… where am I?

Town Café! That’s right.

Jennee ordered the porridge, which was absolutely cracking. Oats, barley, chia seed, dried fruit deliciousness. And it seemed like it would probably be quite good for you too. I dove head first in to the home made baked beans with pork and pepper sausage and sour dough toast. The toast was great. I think I have mentioned before that I am a fan of char grilled toast for breakfast. The sausage was great also. Made by local guys “Hayters Hill” it was damn tasty, peppery goodness. My only qualm about the sausage is there was only one of them and it wasn’t huge, and we all know there is nothing worse then being left yearning for more tasty sausage. Which brings me to the beans. They lacked the depth flavour (sounds wanky I know but I’ve got nothing else…) of slowly oven-baked beans and tasted more like quickly cooked stovetop beans. And there was some lettuce on the plate which had defo seen better days.

As I paid the bill I couldn’t help but notice a pile of friands, right there in front of my face daring me to eat them. Calling me a pussy. Taunting me. Saying that I have a stupid face. So I just ordered a couple of those little suckers and let my face retaliate by eating the shit out of them. They were delicious. Pussy indeed…

Worth a go, even if it’s just for the coffee and cakes, but I think the real eating starts when this place opens it’s upstairs dining area at night, aptly named Uptown, with a seven course degustation menu to be not to be messed with.