Breakfast Series - Deedot Coffee House

http://www.deedot.com.au/

Who would have thought that visiting a suburban cafe for breakfast would cause such a divide?  Last weekend, we decided to get out of the city and visit The Rare Pear (see post here), but in doing so, exposed a simmering competition.  Located within sight is another Holland Park favourite cafe called Deedot Coffee House, and it seems as if it has as many fans as The Rare Pear.  I needed to get along and check out Deedot to settle the neighbourhood debate, once and for all.

There is a strip mall of shops along Logan Road, which went through one of those council rejuvenations a few years back.  The idea was to pretty up parts of Queensland suburbs with the lure of making them attractive to retailers.  I'm not sure that its effects were immediate, but there is no doubt that a few years later, there seems to be the type of energy in a suburb that brings a couple of cool little cafes to the same strip.

We'd seen how busy Deedot was the previous week and resolved ourselves to an even earlier start to ensure we secured a table without the dreaded long wait for a table.  If we'd thought it was cold on our previous visit to the area, we were assaulted by an even colder morning, not great when you're up so early.  I even had to pull out my leather bomber jacket from storage, just to make sure I'd stay warm.  It's funny how things go, there were hardly any diners when we arrived at Deedot but the Rare Pear just up the street was going gangbusters!  We easily secured a table of our choice and had a look over the menu.

A very chirpy waitress (especially for that time on a cold Sunday morning) came over, welcomed us and then let us know that we could order inside when we were ready.  Straight up there was a difference with the Rare Pear, which had table service and in a way, going to the counter to order ensured that we didn't have to wait. Mmmm, that's actually pretty good for us, because, I have to admit, I'm pretty impatient some times!  The all day breakfast menu had a pretty good selection of traditional and contemporary breakfast goodies that included baked beans and chorizo (tempting but I'm not a beans guy).  After making our selections, I made my way to the relative warmth inside the Deedot and placed our orders.

Deedot is pretty much an outside cafe, with the bulk of the inside of the cafe for serving and kitchen. This isn't a bad way to go in Queensland, where it's warm most of the year, but on such a cold morning, I would have loved to have been dining in a warmer spot.  It was a hive of activity inside, coffee machine going like crazy and sizzling sounds coming from the kitchen, I was actually a little reluctant to leave and head back to our table.

Drinks arrived a short while later and SC's half strength latte from 'Uncle Joes Coffee' came presented in a cute little orange ceramic cup instead of the expected glass that most lattes are presented in these days.  SC was just as happy holding the cup to warm her hands as she was in drinking the well constructed coffee.  As cold as it was, I still went for a mango smoothie and while I reflected on my sanity for my choice, was pleased to see a huge and delightfully mangoey smoothie that had chunks of real mango.  I wasn't as quick to drink it though this weekend, and was funnily enough waiting for it to warm up a bit!

We needed to be quick with photos when the food was presented, especially since it was so cold that SC's leaky tears (from the cold) were turning to ice fairly quickly (no, not really).  SC ordered the eggs benny, so she could do a direct comparison with the Rare Pear's, which came with a couple of poached eggs, baby spinach, creamy hollandaise and ham all stacked atop of turkish bread,  The eggs benne looked more like two, with matching stacks piled high on a plate.  They actually looked pretty good, and mostly were, but there were a couple of issues.  Firstly, one of the eggs was over cooked (the other was good) and didn't have a very runny yolk but the major issue was the ham, which was really thick and more akin to bacon.  SC didn't really love the ham and ended up pulling it out of the stack and leaving it aside.

I'd gone for the bacon and eggs on sourdough, scrambled of course, with a side of herbed roma tomatoes and garlic butter mushrooms.  My breakfast came presented on a bread board with the scrambled eggs piled on top of the bacon and toasted turkish bread.  It's not my preferred way of getting eggs and bacon, so I pulled the bacon out and placed it aside.  My eggs were pretty good, steaming hot (even in the cold) and nice and creamy.  The bacon was good too, but my absolute favourite on the board was the ramekin of garlic butter mushrooms, which were seriously yummy (even though I've been garlic boy all day).  I could easily have had a triple serving of the mushrooms and still wanted more.  I probably didn't think the roasted tomatoes were roasted enough and they still had that raw tomato feeling about them and the herbs were a bit strong, perhaps needing to be cooked out more.

We'd shivered through our breakfast and reflected on our two breakfasts on Logan Road at Holland Park.  There were good elements from each breakfast and some things that could have been better.  I have to say that Deedot seemed to have a bit of a vibe about it that made it, for me,  a cooler place to hang out.  I really loved the mushrooms and eggs and thought that Deedot had the edge for my breakfast there.  On the other hand, SC thought the eggs benne from the Rare Pear was much better, with the sweet potato and haloumi fritter kicking it over the edge.

I'd found service at Deedot to be great, with our waitress coming around to check in on us and ask how our breakfast was going and as we were leaving, how it had been.  I generally like table service, but for breakfast, can see the merits of counter service, which allows for a quick start and an even quicker get away.

If I had to split the two cafes, I'd say Deedot had it by a whisker for me, but if you'd asked SC, she would definitely have said that the Rare Pear was the better cafe.  While that doesn't help in splitting out the two cafes, it probably does bode well for residents of Holland Park.  You have two great little cafes there.  Embrace that and hope that a third comes along soon, then a fourth and so on :)

@FoodMeUpScotty

Some native Australian plants at our table

My Mango smoothie had a little too much ice and not enough ice cream but was really tasty never the less

The eggs benne were ok but that ham was super thick and cooked like bacon, it would have been better served as traditional ham

My bacon was under my eggs, not a real problem but I did pull the rashers out to eat separately

Pretty much only outdoor tables - great in summer but so cold in winter!

Yeah, Deedot does mushrooms well

A little bit of a garden setting for one