Picnick View Cafe



We actually had plans to somewhere else but spontaneously decided to come here (as we were running late). I remember reading about this somewhere last year and wondering where the location was. I used to do volunteering here with Cancer Council and did one of my placements here last year so I knew the area well but I had no idea this cafe was hiding here the whole time (it’s because you 
can't see the name of the cafe from the street). It's completely hidden, all I could ever see was Campos coffee.


We sat down after ordering food and looked around at all the hipster elements of this cafe. They have a lot here, it's pretty much packed with stuff. We waited for a while and started wondering why the food wasn't coming. We found it quite difficult to sit outside (it was a really hot day) and there was no arrangement inside (it's a really small cafe).

Seating area
Word!

Soon after, one of the staff came and told me my dish would take another extra 20 mins because they need to roast it. I was getting a little impatient but then again, I thought it's a good sign at the same time as it means they're preparing it fresh?

The other dish we ordered came right after this but my friend refused to start without me so we ended up taking a million pictures and ‘shooing’ flies. There were just way too many!

Filo pastry with spinach and feta with salad ($14)
Finally, my food came, after what seemed like forever in the heat! We took some obligatory pictures and started eating. I ordered roast vegetables which had pumpkin, eggplant, capsicum, carrot and mushrooms. The good thing was, it tasted delicious so we kind of forgot about the long wait. I would’ve liked it a notch better if the egg was poached (I find boiled eggs boring and old fashioned!)

Roast vegetable salad with boiled egg ($16)
But the other problem was we needed to be ‘shooing’ flies while eating (only if we had a swatter on us!) Multitasking while eating wasn’t easy but we managed to keep almost all of the flies off our food (we saw this as a great achievement considering how hot it was!)
The filo pastry was done well, spinach and feta make a beautiful combo and it was no different here. 
Add caption
Overall, we had a pretty good time, would’ve been better if we could be inside on a hot day like this (without the flies). I reckon we could’ve eaten more peacefully. It's a nice little cafe with reasonable prices and good food, I would definitely recommend a visit if you happen to be in the area. 





Popular posts from this blog

International Congress of Behavioural Medicine | Melbourne

Image
My flight faced major delays due to severe thunderstorms in Sydney. We had to wait for over two hours, most of which were on the plane so it was incredibly exhausting. Thankfully, the weather in Melbourne was much better. It was pretty cold and windy, it felt nice to get out of the scorching heat :) Leaving behind a stormy Sydney After reuniting with the bestie, we went out for dinner to a local Malaysian restaurant close to our home. Sweet and sour prawns with rice  Nasi Lemak Pineapple fried rice and seafood stir-fry I had one whole day to myself before the conference began on Wednesday, and we wanted to make the most out of this.  Oh, hello there, new friend! We had breakfast at Myuna Farm which was a few mins from our house. I loved their veggie focacia.  Brekkie at Myuna Farm  Veggie focacia ($9) Sweet treats at Myuna Farm Next stop was archery, my bestie has been an archer for sometime now, and we have been wanting t
Read more

Last day of uni (Black Star Pastry + Grill'd)

Image
Last Friday was our last day back at uni, it was kinda sad but more exciting at the same time! We had made plans to celebrate afterwards at Newtown.  I've seen so many people raving about the Strawberry Watermelon cake at Black Star Pastry so that's we decided to settle for dessert. We finished uni at 4, got a little speech from our lovely coordinator, took a year group photo and set off on the walk to Newtown. It was kind of early for dinner so we decided to have dessert first. We got to Black Star Pastry at 5:01 and were devastated to see it had already closed! We were late by a minute (they close at 5). Despite our efforts of knocking on the door, the staff inside did not open up to apologize. But while looking at the door we realised there was another pop-up store at Town Hall. We had to decide whether we would chase it or leave it, and we chose to do the former, for obvious reasons! We desperately wanted that cake! We went to Town Hall and took a while to f
Read more

Black Star Pastry (Strawberry Watermelon Cake)

Image
Some of you might know about the desperate attempt I made last year for the Strawberry Watermelon Cake (see previous post at  Black Star Pastry ).  Yesterday I had the privilege of tasting this cake at a party. I got super excited as I’ve been wanting to try this for almost a year now. I was so tempted to just skip the mains but I patiently waited for dessert time and made sure I left space for the cake :P In the meantime, I went to take a close look at the cake (could not resist, for obvious reasons) and I was amazed at how magical it looked. It was constructed beautifully starting with a layer of almond  dacquoise followed by cream, then a slice of watermelon with cream,   almond  dacquoise and cream again. Finally, it was topped with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals. It was a quite a delicious cake but unfortunately, it did not meet the expectations I had. I liked certain elements, such as the lightness of the cream layers, fresh watermelon and the
Read more

(Un) Organised October

Image
This month has gone by way too quick! (Okay, I know I said that last month too but this month went even quicker) It started off with me madly writing my results, then doing discussion. Discussion took me about a week :/ I was rushing to finish my draft because I had to send it to my supervisor and leave enough time for feedback. I allowed myself two weeks time (which I thought was too much, at the time!) But I was so glad I did this later because it can take a couple of days to get feedback as supervisors are too busy to read it in one go. Anyway, now let me move onto the other fun things I did. Starting off with the most important highlight of the month: I WENT TO CENTRAL PERK!!!! I was so bogged down with writing, I almost didn't realise it was finishing and made it in the last weekday after handing in my draft. I had to wait for about an hour but I would say the wait was worth it because I'm such a 'friends' obsessed freak. Getting my butt on that cou
Read more

Marvellous May

Image
This was probably my best month this year because I had my first ever conference/ mini holiday. But it didn't start off that great, I had to learn how to use a software called Stata for statistical analysis. I struggled a lot in the beginning because I had no idea how to set up the data or what code to use. (Stata has a command interface). It took me a really long time to figure out what I needed to do. I went through a long process of trial and error and seeking help when I got stuck.  The first part of the analysis didn't take as long but the rest of it took me longer than I expected. I had set myself a deadline to finish it before I leave for the conference (but failed). However, the good news is, it finally worked in the end! I felt super accomplished after getting all my outputs. I think I'm slowly learning to be persistent! I thought I would be ready to write up after this but turns out, I still have to do another quality and tool validity assessme
Read more

Mad March

Image
Wow, I honestly can't believe we've hit the first week of April. I've gotten quite behind with blogging (as you can tell from my late March post). It has been a somewhat crazy but productive month for me. The good news is that I have finally managed to submit my research paper from last year. It was really nice to get it out of the way because now I can focus on my PhD (until I hear back from the reviewers again, at least!)  With my current research, I'm progressing quite slowly (systematic reviews take a long time unfortunately). I'm up to reading my bunch of full texts. I tried to be slightly more environmentally friendly with this SLR and minimizing the number of papers I print. It becomes hard after staring at the screen for a while so I ended up printing approximately half of my full texts. That's probably all the main updates, study wise. Here are all my March eats :)   One pan lemon herb salmon and zucchini Zucchini and lentil pasta
Read more

Dynamic Duo December

Image
It's that time of the year, December has always been a month that has me feeling nostalgic. Maybe because I'm away from a very special girl who means more than life to me.  It's her birthday today so thought I'd go down memory lane and write a thing or two about her.  We met at school in 2007 but we were aware of each other's existence before this :P I distinctly remember the first couple of months because she was so kind to me and she would always compliment. She became one of the sweetest girl I knew.  We pretty much clicked from there on. Someone in our group even named us 'dynamic duo'. We got closest in year 11/12 because we had the same subject combination which meant we were together literally all day. I've heard people say, excessive company of someone leads to conflict and I've experienced this with other people I've known over the years, but we have never had any serious fights. We've held some small grudges wher
Read more

Five things I love about being a dietitian

Image
I've been thinking about writing this for a while now but thought I'd leave it for something special like Dietitian's Day (which is today) And here we go :) 1.    You are legally allowed to spend more time thinking about food.  The normal, acceptable amount for a person is 10% (according to experts), with exceptions for people if their profession involves dealing with food. If you're thinking more or less than this, your dietary habits may not be considered so normal. But as dietitians, you're allowed to obsess about food, and it's totally okay! ;) 2.    You always have something to strike up a conversation. Have you ever been in an awkward situation where you’re trying to carry out a conversion, but not sure what topic to pick? It can be a struggle when you’re connecting with new people. Talking about food is a good starting point because it's something we all eat; each and every one of us has something to share about food (likes/dislikes).
Read more

Bodhi Restaurant/Bar (vegan) + Le Pain Quotidien

Image
I had a reunion with some of my old uni friends. The perks of meeting up with old friends is, it feels like time hasn't moved at all when you meet them! I can't believe it's been almost two years since I saw them properly. It's crazy how quick time flies! We have been trying to meet up for sometime now, but everyone is busy with either work or study so it's really difficult to fix on a date. We set this date back in early July and we all kept our word :D We chose this place so we could accommodate for a friend who is vegan. This was my second time eating a full vegan meal so I was quite excited to see what vegan dumplings would be like! The staff were very friendly and organised. We were served with water and sauce soon after we sat down. Bodhi works just like any other yum cha place, the food keeps coming around and you pick what you like. However, the downside is you can't say yes to everything so you have to turn down some. I started off with satay
Read more