http://www.littleclive.com.au/
It's been just over a month of living in the Western suburbs and my frequency of dining out has markedly decreased. I find it's too much of a hassle to drive into town where all the nice restaurants are so the only time we do manage to do that is when there's another errand to tag on so that it is geographically multiple birds with one stone.
Leading up to Halloween, I had some errands to run in the Annerley district so we coordinated one of those outings with a group brunch date at Little Clive. We arranged to meet at 11am on a Sunday, which is peak brunching time. I don't know if it was easy/difficult to get a table because Marc and I missed the exit onto Clive Street twice and ended up in the Gabba and had to do a giant loop. By the time we got to the cafe, our crew had already secured a table.
The menu at Little Clive is 'sophisticated cafe'. There are breakfast offerings, burgers and salads but with more upmarket components like pork belly, grilled bugs and soft shell crab. The system here is to order and pay at the counter.
I had my eye on the bug salad but it was sold out so I went for smoked chicken salad instead. Two at our table ordered the pork belly burger. One of the reasons why it's taken me so long to write this post is that I changed phones not long after our first visit to Little Clive and I lost all my food photos that weren't already uploaded on Instagram. Long story short, I will only be uploading my chicken salad and the beef burger, which was the other main order of the day.
Wagyu beef burger - with iceberg lettuce, cheese and pickled tomato aioli
Smoked chicken salad - with mango, broccoli and pomegranate
My smoked chicken salad was gorgeous to look at and just as lovely to eat. The chicken pieces were plentiful and very tender. I was concerned the pomegranate seeds would be too challenging to eat but I don't know what magic Little Clive performed... the seeds weren't too 'seedy' and I just ate them whole with no issue. This was a very healthy tasting salad and I felt great after eating it.
Smile for green juice
We all got drinks as well but the only order I have a picture of is my green juice... with my goofy mug in it. It was very refreshing! I could taste the apple and not so much the kale and other leafy veg, which is definitely a good thing if you consider what kale juice tastes like. It wasn't too sweet either.
Because I had my phone incident, I also lost all my Little Clive restaurant photos so I was determined to make a second trip. This happened during the week on a morning off work and again, I went around brunch time. I ordered the haloumi breakfast plate and a soy latte.
Grilled haloumi - with kale, pistachio crumble and poached egg
The haloumi arrived golden on toasted sourdough, with a perfectly poached egg and sauteed kale. To my surprise it was the kale that made this dish sing. I think of kale as something to eat for health reasons but this was the first time I realised how tasty it could be too. Even in a simple sautee style, it was really delicious and went perfectly with the haloumi and runny egg yolk.
Soy latte
The coffee was good. I already mentioned in an earlier post that I'm going to stop trying to 'review' coffee because I simply don't have the palate for it. I may as well start now. The sad fact is that, all coffee is 'good' to me, unless it's 'crap', which I haven't experienced beyond instant coffee or hotel filter coffee
Little Clive is a great cafe for both catchups with friends and everyday eats. The food is interesting but not so wacky that you couldn't enjoy meals here on a regular basis. There is indoor and outdoor seating available and service is fast and friendly. We primarily sampled healthy options on the menu but there are some decadent choices for those with dessert cravings too. I spied some cronuts on their Instagram feed... maybe next time :)
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