Restaurant and food reviews from Perth, Australia

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Sayers, Leederville

Who likes coffee? Ok... Who likes a great casual cafe/coffee shop to hang out with friends over some good breakfast or lunch and a hot beverage? Hey, there's a few of them in Perth with more popping up all the time but surely Sayers deserves a mention. Most of you coffee drinkers who live or work quite centrally probably already know about Sayers or even have been there so perhaps this post is nothing new.

But here I was, having been up that morning since 5:30am out to catch the sunrise and through much running around had only made it to breakfast at about 10am - where does time go by? 10am is not too bad a time for breakfast but unfortunately it's at about Sayers' peak Sunday breakfast crowd meaning I'd have to wait for a table.


Sayers isn’t very big for how busy they can get. Whilst there are al fresco and inside seats available, the tables are quite tightly packed to maximise space. Further in is the front counter, where you have to make your order and payment, that contains some refrigerated display items such as cakes and quiches.

The menu, apart from the coffee/tea offerings, is split into a breakfast and lunch. The breakfast menu at least seems to start with the core café style breakfast offerings and then expands on this with more gourmet selections that ultimately mean you have quite a bit of choice in your order. The use of items such a free range eggs and some local suppliers adds to the quality of the food Sayers provides.

Full breakfast - $22

The full breakfast came with your choice of poached, scrambled or fried eggs, potato cake, three beans, grilled tomato, field mushroom, Italian sausage and bacon. Knowing that the full breakfast was going to be pretty “full” on, I chose the poached eggs.

I thought the poached eggs were a great choice. I was quite impressed that the poached eggs were cooked to my liking – with the egg white cooked through and the egg yolk completely runny. I tend to find that many places tend to cook the egg yolk such that when you break the egg yolk not much yolk runs out. Being placed on slices of toasted ciabatta, the runny egg yolk was easily spreadable onto the bread slices evenly.

The potato cake was pretty much what the name suggests – soft potato presented like a small cake that was savoury but only lightly flavoured (including only a moderate amounts of salt which is good for me). The three beans, half a grilled tomato, field mushroom, and Italian sausage were pretty standard fare, whilst the bacon was cooked nicely but if you like your bacon crispy – perhaps not. As I’m not a big fan of bacon it didn’t bother me either way.

Wagyu beef oven baked egg - $19.50 (partially eaten in this picture)

With oven roasted tomato, spring onion and cheddar open omelette, and lemon scented rocket.

By inserting the word “Wagyu”, the thought of the highly marbleised beef is meant to incite good feelings right? But of my experiences in Perth, I am quickly reminded that I don’t have many great experiences in Perth that capitalise on the taste and texture of Wagyu beef.

Saying that, this dish didn’t have a lot of Wagyu beef in it and tasted like a pile of omelette in a mini Teflon pan that had been baked. OK, maybe that didn’t sound so good but it tasted pretty good. The omelette’s taste was enhanced by the oven baking, and the overall density and slightly dehydrating baking process made this stand out from a normal breakfast omelette. Whilst overall a good dish, it did feel a bit rich to be eating the whole omelette.

The oven baked egg with ciabatta bread (as served)

The omelette was served topped with the lemon scented rocket, and two slices of ciabatta bread.

Short Macchiato - $3.50

I ordered this the traditional way – not topped up. As a short macchiato, it had a dash of milk and slight remnants of crema.

The taste of the short mach was slightly bitter and had a noticeable but mild sour taste. Whilst this blend that was slightly sour is blended into milk based coffees with the added sweetness inherent in milk (a la cappuccinos, flat whites, café lattes, or even your macchiatos topped up), it isn’t my preference for short mach or espresso but was nonetheless overall not bad.

Cappuccino - $3.70

OK, so I had two coffees. My body seems to be immune to caffeine these days anyway and I can sleep right through it.

Obviously containing a fair amount of milk, this is where in my opinion Sayers’ beans seem to work better for my taste. In the cappuccino the sourness had pretty much disappeared (yes, I have had coffees before where even a cappuccino is sour). Not a bad coffee, though I felt it was a bit too mild for my liking. Otherwise, coupled with the good food and the buzzing and happening environment it’s actually ok overall - and with the amount of people who come here for coffee, surely many consider Sayers to produce decent coffee!

Cake - $7

I’m told by someone in the industry that the cakes at Sayers are pretty good and are house-made. So despite the consumption of copious amounts of breakfast food, I had to have a piece of cake. The cakes on offer seem to vary from time to time. I chose the chocolate cake.

The chocolate cake did indeed taste house made (or not factory made). Very chocolaty, lightly moist, and sweet but not too rich that it became too much – the cake delivered on a decent coffee shop/café style cake.

Overall, Sayers is a popular café that serves up some decent breakfast and lunches. I quite enjoyed the food there having a slight upmarket twist on normal breakfast food.

Points to note: Sayers can get very busy so if you come at peak times, be prepared to wait. Sayers is a cafe/coffee shop with tea, coffee and a bit more range and hints of gourmet than similar places

Go for: A very popular cafe/coffee shop complete with coffee, good food, and in-house made cakes.



Sayers
224 Carr Place
Leederville WA 6007
(08) 9227 0429
http://www.sayersfood.com.au/

Trading Hours
7 days – Breakfast and Lunch


Sayers on Urbanspoon

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