Bleeding Heart Cafe

Bleeding Heart Cafe
http://www.bleedingheart.com.au/



90% of the time, I'll wander out of clinic at lunch time with no idea where I want to go. Often, we'll then walk into our familiar hangouts like Coolbeans out of habit. The clincher is that afterward, I'll start spotting food that I realized I had wanted all along. But obviously, by then it'll be too late because I would have already eaten.

I assigned a job to one of my lunch buddies: "Take note of this place. And this place. Next time I am wondering where to eat, remind me."

Only the next day, that exact scenario cropped up and she rose to the occasion spectacularly. Bleeding Heart Cafe was one of those places I wanted to try so we stepped in to check it out.



The thing that attracted me to this cafe is the building it's in. It's a large historical building with a huge veranda and partially hidden behind a canopy of trees. I never would have known it was a cafe if it wasn't for the attractive retro blackboards arranged around the front, notifying passers-by of menu items like muffins and ice-cream spiders.


Upon entering the cafe, I was caught off guard. Rather than a comfy, hippy interior like I expected, there's a counter on the left with some sweet goodies in the display cabinets but the rest of the room is expansive and spacious with a few modern leather lounges. There's also an entry into an art gallery at the back of the room.

We ordered simple. My friend was grabbed in by the ice-cream spider. I originally just wanted a coffee but couldn't resist the vegan carrot cake.

Vegan carrot cake

Everything sort of came at the same time. I dug right into the carrot cake. Mmm... delish. Exactly what carrot cake should be.

Carrot cake texture shot

Moist, dense, carroty. More importantly, the frosting was of the cream cheese variety and it was sweet and cheesy. Boy, do I love carrot cake.

Latte

Coffee was normal - didn't strike me as being amazing but I haven't marked off the coffee here as below par either.

My friend wasn't as stoked with the ice-cream spider as I was with the carrot cake. I also didn't manage to take a focused shot of it because I was too distracted eating my carrot cake (hey, sometimes, I just can't make the necessary sacrifices). There was a range of soft drinks to choose from for drowning the ball of ice-cream and she had gone for lemon lime and bitters. The conclusion was that this does not compliment vanilla ice-cream.


I like the concept of Bleeding Heart. It's always nice trying a cafe with its own philosophy because that quirkiness is often reflected in the variety of food, service and ambiance. We sat on the inside of the building in the luxe sofas, which was nice but a bit of a conflict with my image of the cafe (based on menus, posters, website etc). Next time, I'll probably chill on the veranda. I love decks in general but being seated on one in the city has glorious rarity value.