Peddler Cafe, Nunawading by Bureaucrat

The Peddler Cafe is a favourite among locals and we were keen to find out if it lived up to the reviews of serving great cafe food despite the absence of hipsters and an inner-city location. I came across the Peddler Cafe from perusing the 2017-18 Entertainment Book (which we're promoting to help fundraise for SecondBite).

The Peddler Cafe had already a 'plus' going for it even before we had turned up.  Namely, it takes bookings - even on weekends.  This is a boon for us as now that the Lawyer and I go a-lunching with Boy Chick.  Knowing that we can have a table reserved alleviates the stress and logistics of dining while we're out and about with our baby.


The Lawyer chose one of the specials.  This was fab-u-lous!  Pork belly banh mi... need I say more?  Well, in the interests of impressing upon you how delicious it was, I do!  A lot of places serve pork belly but I find it's often not quite as good as I had hoped it to be.  But this was sublime.  A nice fat-to-meat ratio, the fat was utterly melt-in-your-mouth while the meat itself was fall-apart tender.  The marinade was a perfect salty-sweet balance.  And as you can see, they weren't skimpy with the pork - there were a good number of porky chunks in the bun.  The finely shredded cabbage was sharp and tart - a great foil to the richness of the pork.  The bun itself was toasted which added a great crunch to the dish.  Utterly.  Moreish.


I have a 'thing' for fritters and I can't help but order them when I'm at cafes.  As with the pork belly, loads of cafes serve fritters but I'm often found wanting - usually the fritters are too stodgy or soggy or lacking in ingredients or oily or [insert complaint].  But these crab and corn fritters were complaint-free and I licked the plate clean!  A few things impressed me about these fritters.  First, you could taste and see the crab meat.  This was fresh crab and was most definitely was not tinned crab.  Second, these were fluffy and full of crab and corn. The texture was like a fluffy buttermilk pancake - wonderful!  Third, these were big and not oily.  Fourth, I loved the generous amount of homemade mayo dressing that was absolutely loaded with capers.  It came with loads of fresh rocket.  Yum!


We also got a pot of soy chai each.  It could be that we haven't eaten at cafes for a while now but I thought these were a tad steep (geddit?) in price.  By memory these were $6 each (for regular milk).

Verdict

We loved it.

Mid value.

Overall

Very delicious food is happening here at the Peddler Cafe.  Service is pretty fast even during peak hour.  Our drinks and dishes came out promptly.  Service is friendly.  It's a cosy atmosphere and is a hit among locals.  Certainly, there were plenty of other young families and golden oldies tucking into the great food.  Definitely worth checking out even if you're more used to getting your brunch fix from more typical inner-city cafes.

Find it at

Peddler Cafe
295B Springfield Road
Nunawading VIC 3131
Phone: (03) 9877 4381