Cafe 63 - New Farm

In my efforts to try out new brunch places on weekends, I stumbled along Cafe 63 along Brunswick Street, next to New Farm Park. Initially it was a bit lower down on my list of places to try, but the sign outside really caught my attention. Apparently for $3.50, you can get a coffee, with a free biscuit and a complementary bottle of water. In this day and age, I consider it to be a great deal and so we headed in to see what else we could get for breakfast.

The menu was very very long and had interesting peoples names for their items, which made it slightly confusing on our part. Nevertheless, the menu was very very long and comprised a large number of different options, which we appreciated.

We were also given complementary bottled water before we ordered, it was nicely chilled, and interestingly labelled with the cafe logo, which indicated specialisation as opposed to store bought.

There were a variety of spreads on the table, including jams, peanut butter and vegemite, this was in addition to chilli and vinegar for the lunch dishes. Other than Mcdonalds, I haven't been to any other places which offer such a large variety of condiments.

My first companion ordered the Stephanie Rice, which after its namesake was very healthy, containing an omlette with chicken, feta and spinach. The omlette was very very big, but it wasn't the fluffiest that we've had. It was served with two slices of wholegrain toast, which she put some of the condiments onto.

Another companion had the egg benny with bacon. Compared to the other dishes, this was considered the relatively small one (and also one with a very literal name). My companion enjoyed the generous lashings of bacon and the creamy hollandaise sauce, but she found the eggs to be more well done than she would have liked it to be.

My final companion ordered the Carbon Tax - It contained scrambled eggs with sausages, hashbrown and wholegrain toast. Again, the portions were really quite big to the point where she had to have some take away. The sausage were the skinless type, and the hashbrown was freshly fried and very crunchy, but the scrambled eggs could also have been fluffier.

I had "Deeps Breakfast", whilst I don't know who Deep is, it contained bacon, beef patty, pork belly, sausages, hashbrowns, grilled tomatoes, scrambled eggs and toast, with a cappuccino on the side. My companions definitely had some food envy when they saw my meal came. Whilst I enjoyed the sausages and tomato. However I found the pork belly to be way too strong in taste due to it being drenched in bbq sauce. Again, I've had better eggs, and the wholegrain bread was a let down for me (as a white bread eater). The bacon was nice and crispy, which I liked, and the beef patty was also a good meaty way to start the day. As for the cappuccino, it was quite a large cup, but a bit too acidic and burnt for my liking. The little individually packed biscuit on the side meant that I could take it away for later consumption, which I did.

Price Range: $15 - $20pp

Taste: 6/10
Value: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 7/10