Greasy Spoon

A greasy spoon cafe - these were 1950s staples, before Costa and Starbucks ripped up the high streets. This one in Old Street was delightfully rough around the edges and no frills in style. We wandered in because it was packed with people tucking into lunch. Clearly they liked this cafe, as the wall behind the counter was earmarked with over a hundred pictures of customers grinning from beneath bowl haircuts, 60's bobs and 80's perms.

We squeezed into a freshly vacated booth, with neon yellow walls and mint green trim, a well worn formica tabletop, peeling lino floors and chatted over large mugs of piping hot tea and chunky chips doused in salt and vinegar. Grinning all the while.

Fi

Lady of Leisure

I’m going to be working for the next nine days straight, so I decided that I needed to indulge in a spot of luxuriating laziness today.

Starting off with a visit to the Sweets Workshop, I broke a sweat just taking a mental stock-take of all the gorgeous art I wanted to buy. My heart (and future pay packet) was robbed by Kate Banazi’s series of Victorian Gents.

As I was on my way Bourke Street Bakery, I passed a place that my sister and I have been calling the ambiance café. With a pair of antique winged-back chairs upholstered in lime green velvet sitting on the sidewalk – we’ve been meaning to check it out for months now.

Already savoring the thought of richly bitter coffee and buttery pastry awaiting me, I suddenly decided that I needed to mix things up. Turning the car around, I headed back.

I still don’t know it’s actual name – so I’ll continue to call it the ambiance café. But it wasn’t the industrial meets granny chic setting that justified its namesake – it was the super friendly staff. Booty shaking to Beyonce and experimenting with tangy fruit juice concoctions, they bubbled with chatter.

Even though I was stuffed from a Portuguese Chicken burger, like any practiced lady of leisure I had enough stamina for a spot of afternoon tea.

The Tea Parlour hasn’t been opened long, but it has the feels like stepping into a little old lady’s sitting room. A cozy affair of mismatched chairs and soft armchairs, the vibe is deliciously feminine with crystal chandeliers, silver candlestick holders, fresh roses and china tea sets. Surveying the scene is a stuffed peacock.

A soundtrack of Kanye West and The Kinks reminds me that I’m still in Redfern and not at a CWA meeting.

It felt like I was performing highway robbery when I was charged only $6 for two enormous homemade scones, served with generous dollops of jam, lashings of freshly whipped cream and washed down with a massive pot of Chai.

It felt delightfully decadent to sip from china cups...and so worth the painfully stuffed belly ache that followed.