Aubergine Gourmet Foods

Aubergine serves reliably top notch coffee & breaky so when Mike & I first discovered it a couple of years ago, it quickly became a favourite.  After several visits we decided that it was just too child-friendly – by 8:30am it is full of young families which is all very nice & it’s great that there are quality places that welcome this demographic, one day I’m sure we’ll be very grateful.  But we’re not there yet & as parents – sometimes complete strangers – often tell us, make the most of the DINK time!  So when we spontaneously woke up on a Sunday with the sparrows (I think we had breakfast excitement – a condition from which we often suffer), we seized the opportunity to have breaky at Aubergine sans screaming kiddies.

It was bliss.  There were only a few other people there, we had our pick of the papers & the natural light at that time of the morning was beautiful.  The coffee was as good as ever.

I don’t think the menu has changed since we last visited, which was probably almost a year ago.  No complaints about that from us.

Mike had the beans in toast.  The beans are served in a fresh, toasted bun with bacon, wilted spinach & a perfectly poached egg.

I don’t think I have ever gone past the bircher muesli with vanilla yoghurt & rhubarb compote.  It’s one of my favourite bircher muesli breakies in Perth & given how long it had been since I’d last had it, I wasn’t about to branch out on this occasion.

I love the doggy photo wall.  In addition to being child-friendly, Aubergine is also very dog-friendly.  There’s always at least a couple leashed to poles or tables out the front & water is provided.  You’d have to be a pretty pampered pooch to successfully secure tidbits since the food is so delicious.

Aubergine Gourmet Foods

231 South Terrace, South Fremantle.

Open from 6:30am to 3pm Monday to Friday, 6:30am to 4pm Saturday & Sunday.

(t) 9335 2115

The Crowded House

I’ve been talking up The Crowded House in South Freo since I first went there early on this year.  Since then I’ve been back several times for breaky & once for lunch.  I have really enjoyed the food, ambience, service, coffee & of course company on each occasion.  So I was excited to go there for a good catch up with my favourite foodie friend on Saturday morning.  I love to enjoy food with people who love food.

The Crowded House is quite literally a house – you enter the front door & have your choice of sitting in the smaller room to the left or the larger room to the right of the entry hallway.  The smaller room leads to an outdoor area which wasn’t in use when we were there but I think becomes another service area during the warmer months.  Having sat in both indoor areas, my preference is for the smaller room as it’s quieter but there’s more action.  It contains the (sectioned off but visible) barista/bar area & you can see into the kitchen through a hole-in-the-wall window.  The plated up meals appear on the window’s sill for a brief period before they’re served which is handy for meal previewing if you can’t decide what to have.

Choosing was no problem for me because I have developed an inability to order anything other than the tomato & toast, which is probably in my top 3 breaky meals at the moment.  A piece, no, slab of TCH’s delicious bread (made in-house) is toasted & piled high with roasted tomatoes, goat’s curd & basil then drizzled with vinocotto & oil.

Davina chose the quiche with confit potato, pine nuts & goat’s curd, which she enjoyed but not in the way that I enjoy the tomato & toast.  In hindsight I should have insisted that she order the tomato & toast (it was on her shortlist) as it’s a clear winner & I was hoping that her first TCH experience would be as great as all of mine have been.  The quiche wasn’t as flavourful as it should have been & the salad was overly salty. Overall, the meal wasn’t bad but unfortunately it wasn’t great.

TCH’s delicious loaves of still-warm bread are strategically placed in another hole-in-the-wall window right next to the register – how could you not add one to the bill on your way out?  Davs & I added two.

The Crowded House

25 Douro Road, South Fremantle

Open from 7am to 3pm Monday to Friday, from 8am to 3pm Saturday & Sunday.

Also open for dinner from Thursday to Saturday.

Licensed.

(t) 9336 4147