Cafe Raeward
★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
800 Harewood Rd.
It was awkward... Sitting at a stainless steel servery bench while waiting for a table. The crash of cutlery and bang of plates and staff brushing past made the point: book, don’t gamble on a free table. On the other hand, it was a Monday lunchtime, with workers from the businesses on the airport side of the tracks filling the tables.
Mostly I was annoyed... At the guy who hogged a table of four, eating and drinking nothing and looking at a phone. I evil-stared but he wouldn’t budge. Much later, I saw three women join him. He had been holding the table for them.
This did show... The popularity of this cafe attached to a fresh food market.
The menu is... A good upmarket effort covering breakfast (7am to 11.30am) and lunch (11.30am2.30pm). It does justice to the exciting thought of the kitchen being able to help itself to the fresh produce and great deli items a few steps away. Lunch offers included an Indian curry, dukkah eggs, a beef short rib, and a chicken burger, but I picked fish and chips.
The beer-battered blue cod costs $23.50 and the fish was good, not ruined by deep frying. But the chips were big and bland, and the salad was barely dressed greens, kind of like a mesclun mix with some red cabbage dropped in.
Our other dish was pork belly ($21.90) with salad that included baby spinach leaves, mung beans, peanuts, coriander, cucumber sesame, soy, and hints of five spice. It was, as promised, an Asian affair, but it wasn’t particularly uplifting, just stuff bundled together. The menu said the pork belly was cooked sous vide, which was oddly honest because most restaurants keep quiet, hoping you’ll think they have a magical mastery of tenderness.
The coffee... Has a decent grunty flavour and nice acidity, and a regular flat white costs $4.20. It turned up hot and in good shape.