I walked past Paleo Perfection Espresso Bar the other week, and after finding its Facebook page, I found out it was opening today. As mentioned in my previous post, they had a stall at the Bus Depot Markets selling chocolates, muffins and other sweet things. Their signage states no dairy, grain, gluten, peanut, cane sugar or artificial sweeteners are used. Over 90% of ingredients are certified organic and all sourced from Australian suppliers.
I walked over to check it out this morning. It’s a small cafe with only three tables inside, however there are more benches out the front and around the corner.
The fresh sunflowers and the honey coloured wooden tables and seats really brightens the place up (especially on a cool grey morning). I sat down to soak it all in. I felt very welcome in this cute warm and cosy cafe. There’s a ‘Living Paleo for Dummies’ guide in the cafe if you want to read up on the diet.
Help yourself to a cushion if you need a bit more comfort.
I was going to order my usual mocha ($4.20 for a small) but then noticed the affogato with coconut ice cream ($5) on the menu. I’d never seen that before and love coconut ice cream, so I thought it was a good opportunity to try it out.
I was expecting a scoop of coconut ice cream with a mini jug of coffee, however I got the opposite – a cup of coffee with a few chunks of ice cream floating on top. The combination of coconut ice cream with coffee is a win! Since I usually stick with my sweet mochas, this was a very strong coffee for me. Sugar was needed.
I had a look at all the organic sugars and sweeteners in the basket on the table. The fair trade certified organic coconut sugar (brown coloured sugar below) sounded perfect with my affogato. Two spoons of that went in.
There is no kitchen here so don’t expect to order any cooked food. However, they do have frittatas ($6) and sticky date pudding ($7) in the refrigerated display cabinet and you can have this served hot or cold. There are two types of frittatas written up on the board inside. Today’s options were the bacon and tomato, or the pesto, sweet potato and pine nuts. I asked for the latter to be heated up.
I was worried the pesto flavour would be too strong but it stayed in the background. I could really taste the sweetness of the sweet potato and the pine nuts on top gave this otherwise soft loaf of frittata some yummy crunch. A knife was not needed as I could cut right through with my fork. A light and healthy breakfast option.
Looking at the other sweet treats on the menu, I bought the chocolate and coconut muffin ($4) to go with a plan to share/enjoy it later in the day. I made the mistake of opening up the takeaway container to smell the muffin on the walk home and started salivating when I inhaled the sharp aromas of cocoa and coconut. I heated this up in the microwave as soon as I got home. It tasted exactly how it smelled. Lots of cocoa powder and coconut flakes. I’ve had better chocolate muffins (non-Paleo) but was impressed with how moist and soft this was. How is it so moist without any dairy products?
Paleo Perfection Espresso Bar offers foods particularly catered to those with allergies. Although no dairy is usually used, I noticed you can choose to have organic full cream or skim milk in your coffee, along with soy, coconut and lactose-free milk. At one stage, there was a queue out the door. Thumbs up for the friendly smiling staff which really makes a difference in the food industry. An advantage of having no kitchen is that it’s not a long wait for your coffee or muffin. I’ll try the paleo hot chocolate next time.
