Tempo

Last weekend we went into West End on two separate occasions visiting two separate cafes but ordering almost the same things!

The first review is at Tempo Cafe, which we decided on because we liked the sound of their all-day-breakfast and lunch menu, and there were plenty of people eating there.

We sat down on one of their cute tables out on the footpath as it was nice and sunny outdoors and I wanted to people watch. We were promptly handed the breakfast menu by the waitress. I enquired about the lunch menu however apparently they were doing their whole breakfast menu all day on Sunday... We were told we could have the lunch menu if we preferred, however elected to just order breakfast, even though it was 1pm. 

L ordered the Breakfast Burrito (approx $16.50) and I ordered the Meaty Big Breakfast ($18.50?). Drinkswise, L ordered a latte (with Grinders beans) as usual, whilst I elected to go for a Strawberry smoothie. Unfortunately they had run out of strawberries, so the waitress asked if she could make me up a concoction of strawberry syrup and blueberries. She sounded excited about it so I agreed to it!

Fortunately my made-up-smoothie was quite delicious, although was oddly warm....

L gave his latte a 6/10, saying that it wasn’t hot enough and the milk wasn’t well frothed. This was possibly due to it being left on the counter for a while before bringing it out, which means that the milk had a chance to separate. 

Our breakfasts came out within a reasonable amount of time after ordering, and they were certainly massive! 

L’s breakfast burrito contained scrambled eggs, rocket, aioli, avocado, bacon and although it was supposed to contain a chilli and tomato jam, was more of a fresh salsa on appearance. This unfortunately resulted in a bit of sogginess, which dripped out and created a huge liquid pool on the plate. They do get 10/10 for serving size though, the burrito was certainly generous and there was no problem with the taste. The scrambled eggs within were creamy and reasonably well done.

My big breakfast was large and mighty and I challenged myself to eat it all. On the plate was bacon, two poached eggs, white bread, half a roasted potato in its skin, homemade baked beans, mushrooms (which I didn’t eat as I am not a massive fan of them), a lamb sausage and tomato relish. 

The sausage was nice especially when eaten with the tomato relish. The potato in its skin was super crunchy and the homemade beans were really delicious. I don’t know why though, there was relish as well as the beans because they were fairly similar flavours and it created a lot of general orangeness on my plate. The bacon unfortunately was barely thrown on the griller for very long and needed a bit more cooking time, and the poached eggs were also not cooked enough, resulting in me scraping out “white goo”. I am not a fan of “white goo” in my eggs. I don’t know which is the lesser evil, overcooking or undercooking poached eggs?

Overall it was a more expensive sort of breakfast menu, especially when compared to surrounding cafes, however the serving sizes are definitely appropriate for the price. There are definitely some interesting breakfast and lunch choices. On the bad side though, I am glad we sat outdoors, because when we went inside to pay, the indoors was quite grotty, the floors were gross and the kitchen/drinks area was quite grubby as well.

When compared to our second visit to a West End cafe, I can certainly say which one I would prefer to eat at again. Tempo was neither outstanding nor bad, falling somewhere in the middle. 

Love,

C