I'm not sure if you've noticed but breakfasts in Brisbane have been creeping up in price. Slowly but surely, the humble breakfast in our fair city is becoming quite an expensive proposition. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, the quality of breakfast has also risen, to the point that Brisbane is now the centre of the known universe for the weekend breakfast (true story!).
A lot of the cafes and restaurants I've visited for breakfast have been in the mid to high price range, with a recent breakfast hitting seventy bucks for the two of us. While that might seem a little exorbitant, it was a lovely breakfast..... but it was still seventy bucks. Our latest breakfast adventure was at the opposite end of the spectrum and was one of the best value breakfasts we've had in a very long time.
I'd had Soul Bistro on my radar for a little while but we'd never quite got around to visiting, that was until recently. Located on the corner of busy Milton and Baroona roads, Soul was on of those little spots that you'd normally drive past a thousand times before realising that it was there. We had a reasonable idea where the cafe was and cruised on over just in time for Soul's 8am opening. In years gone by, when we lived around the corner in Bardon, we'd seen the little shopfront change hands a heap of times but Soul has been in existence for around six years.
Soul Bistro at Milton is run by Terry Leung who previously well known for running another local restaurant called Food and Soul restaurant in Auchenflower. Terry had previously been the group executive chef for the Pig'n'Whistle group but felt it was time to strike out on his own. Terry's philosophy is about providing fresh and affordable food, fighting inflation with creativity and providing an enjoyable experience.
Arriving right on opening, we waited a few minutes for the team to finish preparation of the dining area and were told to take a table where we felt most comfortable. It was a surprisingly warm morning for the middle or winter, so we decided that we'd sit outside and take advantage of beautiful sunny weather. We were given a couple of menus to look over and had our first glimpse of the incredibly good valued meals on offer.
First thing first, we ordered some drinks, with a half strength latte for SC and an intriguing banana, coconut and white chocolate smoothie for me. Arriving in a tall glass, I thought my smoothie was going to be more of a milkshake but one sip of the beautiful concoction had me sold. With heaps of fresh banana adding to the texture and flavour of the smoothie, the coconut milk worked wonderfully with the white chocolate and provided one of the best smoothies I'd had in some time.
The breakfast menu at Soul Bistro is fairly traditional with the usual assortment of option but it did have a couple of interesting looking contemporary dishes, such as the spanish chorizo and meatballs bake as well as the quinoa and corn hash.
SC had been contemplating the eggs benne for a while but at the last moment changed her mind and selected the sour dough french toast which came with fresh banana, dried cranberry and goji berry compote, pistachio ricotta and supposedly topped with maple syrup. I say supposedly because initially the french toast was a little dry and there was no evidence of the sweet maple syrup. When our waiter came by to see how we were going, a quick request for the missing maple syrup completely transformed the dish. The french toast was cooked well and the mix of fresh cream and big banana slices helped make the breakfast both sweet and fresh at the same time. Not a fan of the dried goji berries, which were quite tart and quite an interesting addition, SC scraped them aside.
I went for the incredibly well priced and jam packed big breakfast which came with 2 eggs scrambled, 2 bacon rashers, a homemade apple and pork sausage, mushrooms, duck fat roasted potatoes, toast, grilled tomato, homemade baked beans and an OJ. It was a complete breakfast with just about everything you could ever want (except is needed chorizo) for only fifteen bucks! The unfortunate think about a super cheap price is that there is a little bit of a trade off with quality, with my bacon being a little salty and the pork and apple and pork sausage being a little bit lower quality than I'd normally like. The apple and pork sausage was interesting, but I found the apple to be a little bit over powering. Otherwise, it was a filling and satisfying breakfast that really didn't hurt the hip pocket.
Eating breakfast at Soul Bistro showed us that you don't have to spend fifty bucks plus for two for breakfast, with the total breaky spend being under thirty bucks! Surprisingly with such a good value breakfast, it was really quiet with only one other customer coming in for breakfast while we were there.
I'm not sure if it's the location of Soul Bistro, but sitting at the end of the Milton shopping strip is not the most glamorous of dining spots, especially with the Bardon and Paddington breakfast spots so close. Soul Bistro has been around for around six years and has a reasonable reputation and a pretty damn high rating on Urbanspoon, so perhaps it was just a quiet morning.
Keeping in mind chef Terry Leung's philosophy of keeping things interesting while not being super expensive, I did enjoy our breakfast at Soul Bistro, especially my great smoothie. If you're looking for a decent feed for prices from the 90's, then you might want to get in and check the place out!
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| Such a sunny morning - beautiful Queensland |
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| My smoothie was interesting and very tasty |
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| The OJ that came with the breakfast tasted like Tang though |
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| A dollop of fresh cream makes everything better |
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| It was pretty quite on the morning we visited |
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| Soul Bistro is tucked away at the Milton Shops - did you know it was there? |
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