Welcome to Maylands. My new café-brunch place to begin exploring.
Chapels on Whatley is situated right across the road from the Maylands train station.
If you like tea and can appreciate gorgeous art, antiques, treasures and porcelain tea cups and pots in an oriental setting – then this place is certainly your cup of tea.Chapels on Whatley offer a huge variety of black, green, herbal and fruit teas. Big jars of tea leaves and dried herbs line the shelves of the café, allowing your eyes to wonder and imagine the creations that could enter your teapot.
Here you can indulge in bottomless tea for only $5.50!
Big open shelves are filled with colourful, gold-rimmed, rose painted pots and cups for sale, each individual and intricately beautiful in design. Soaps and gifts are offered on selection in this brick-walled vintage/oriental feel of a café.
The front count boasts delightful looking treats of scones, cupcakes, macarons, biscuits and all a sweet-tooth could desire. The café stretches out to a courtyard dining area, lit up with large red umbrella/camisoles that shade each table.
Chapels on Whatley seemed to excite my imagination with all its trinkets and hidden treasures.
We were seated and after being so engrossed in conversation and catching up, we had 3 or more waiters come and ask us if we were ready to order to each time we replied “oh sorry! We haven’t had a chance to even look at the menu yet!!”
The breakfast menu itself features a fusion of Asian delights such as Kim Chi Pancakes and Sour Salad, muesli, eggs, and a variety of bagels.
Finally we forced ourselves to stop chatting and browse the menu to make a selection. I ordered a latte and Char ordered a pot of tea that the waiter described as being most like “English Breakfast” – Keemum Black Tea.
For brunch I ordered the “Eggs served on New Norcia’s Fig and Fennel Sour Dough Toast” $14.95. I added an extra of smoked salmon for $3.50. The eggs are served either poached/fried/scrambled and with sweet grilled tomatoes.
I like that you can add any extra to your meal for $3.50. Yes it still is $3.50, so you would hope to get more than a few slices of mushrooms for example but there was none of this “we can not substitute anything or this extra is $3 and this extra is $4,” which was refreshing for a substitute-queen like me. :P
The Fig and Fennell toast was something that interested me a lot, I love the fact that a toast with a sweet dried fig in it, can be eaten with savoury eggs and salmon.
The meal was presented beautifully, with three toasted pieces of Fig and Fennel toast, two roasted half-tomatoes, two poached eggs, my extra of smoked salmon and some butter. I found the portion of smoked salmon to be very generous considering it was an “extra” after all. It lifted the meal, and gave it that class that smoked salmon can really only provide. The tomatoes were juicy, plump and sweet. The Fig and Fennel toast was a pleasure to eat with its crunchy texture only broken by chewy bits of dried fig adding an extra element to the bread. The fennel flavour was not to my knowledge pronounced but the flavour did not lack at all, and I found the toast to be a favourite of mine.
The only negative would be the eggs being slightly overcooked…as I sliced into the yolk, there was no food-porn of gooey golden egg yolk bursting open and spilling over my plate…but a more underwhelming hard yolk that could only mean the eggs were overcooked. I was not put off one bit by this, mainly because I’m not a gooey-yolk-nazi of sorts and was enjoying every other element of the meal that this failed to faze me.
Char ordered the Craquelin, $9.50, which seemed to hit the menu a little left-field as this Belguim delight could not have been more out of place in this oriental themed café. However this sweet yeasted bread was described quite perfectly by Char as “similar to a brioche.” The golden dough was slightly crunchy on the outside and had bursts of sweetness as you bit through the buttery goodness and tasted the sugar that lightly coated the outside. The Craquelin was paired with a salted butter and a gorgeous rich mixed berry jam from Western Australia. All-in-all it proved very moreish and delightfully spoiled your tastebuds.
The Craquelin went beautifully well with a big pot of tea and I felt slightly in admiration of the class of Char’s overall meal as she oozed an understated English charm through her ever-so-elegant breakfast.
After deciding it would be both illegal and morally wrong to steal the gorgeous gold-rimmed porcelain pot and tea cups decorated in roses…I felt the need to take yet another wonder through the outside garden/courtyard and indulge in all the treasures that lines the shelves of the café walls.
As I glanced around the café, I noticed plates filled with gorgeous breakfast creations and many happy customers munching away.
The service was wonderful, we were served immediately, and our meals came out in no time at all.
Chapels on Whatley seemed to evoke a relaxed charm and zen-like aura in which I immediately promised myself to come back. With Maylands soon to become my new stomping ground, I have a sneaky suspicion Chapels on Whatley will also become my new local.
Highs: Bottomless tea – what up!!
Lows: No yolk-oozing photo opportunities
Overall: 9/10
Will I return? Definitely.
