ANZAC day led me to appreaciate having a day off on Wednesdays during the week.
This was an opportunity to catch up with some girlfriends over coffee/brunch, when we would otherwise have to had been at work.
As much as I love the food at The Beaufort Street Merchant, we avoided eating/getting coffee here due to the excessive price increase they slapped on all the meals due to the public holiday.
I appreciate staff need to be paid more, but how much is too much for a coffee in Perth…when do we draw the line and admit that a latte is a latte…and I just felt ripped off paying nearly $5 for a cup of milk that I could just as nice quality with my Nespresso Coffee machine at home… and $6 for a soft drink!? Take away the ice and the size of the glass, this was hardly bearable.
We decided to wander down Beaufort Street and came across Daily Planet café – attached to the Planet bookshop.
This café had a nice rustic feel, with red bricks, tall ceilings and funky wall art to amuse your eyes. Although Planet Café wasn’t entirely full of customers, the first thing I noticed was the staff rushing around hectically as if there was mayhem in the kitchen.
We seated ourselves and brought another chair over from a table and sat here for a good 10 minutes before I managed to catch a waitress running past us, trying ever so hard to avoid any eye contact with us in the small hope we would not want to order anything. I slipped in a “could we please just grab a glass of water” quickly as she looked at me with her hectic eyes, disappointed she had yet another table to attend to…
After another 5-10 minutes we hadn’t received our water and I asked her again before she apologised for forgetting and plonked down some glasses and ran away before we could order any proper drinks or food. The rest of the staff were the same, walking past in a rushed manner never making the mistake of making eye contact with us.
Again I nearly startled a waitress when I interrupted her galloping path to the kitchen to ask if we could order some food. She hesitated before asking us what we would like.
I ordered the mushrooms, ricotta, roasted tomatoes with rocket and pesto on toasted sourdough. $15.50.
After a fair wait, My meal came out. Being the rocket lover that I am, I initially noticed my meal had spinach leaves and not rocket and goats cheese, not ricotta. This didn’t faze me, as the dish still looked nice. I cut off a slice of the toast, realising it was hardly toasted at all…expecting a crunch of toast, I just cut through bread… I then noticed how dry the meal was, the mushrooms, although oily were just sitting on the bread with two slices of tomato. There was no real flavour or dressing to bring the whole meal together. I remembered seeing “pesto” on the menu and asked the waitress if this was supposed to have pesto on it, she admitted this was correct and instead of bringing me out some pesto to drizzle/spread on my dish, she took my whole meal away….but ….but … I was so hungryyyy!!
She brought another dish out not too long after and I noticed this has the correct rocket not spinach leaves and pesto drizzled over the dish. This actually made a huge difference and although the dish was a lot smaller than I hoped, it actually tasted pretty nice.
The goats cheese on the side was enough to feed 8 goat babies and I hardly put a dent in the bowl of goats cheese on my plate. This was the only remaining ingredient from my meal.
With two small field mushrooms, two slices of roasted tomato, some rocket, goats cheese and a tiny slice of bread…It was a small but satisfactory meal.
I could have done with more, but that's just classic Lisa.
Overall, it’s hard to give an accurate review of Planet café due to the fact it was a public holiday. I don’t know if the staff are as unhelpful during normal days, but I just felt like I was being a nuisance ordering food.
The setting was lovely, the café itself was a cute little haven with the quirky brick walls and cute tables and the menu had a lot of vegetarian/vegan options which I really liked.
Overall, the service was terrible, but I’d be willing to come back and try this café on a non-public holiday to see if there is any difference.
Highs: The vegetarian options
Lows: The terrible service
Overall: 6/10
Would I return? Possibly, it wouldn’t be my first choice.
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