DolceBunnie

Showing posts with label Vietnamese. Show all posts

Cafe O Mai is one of those places that guarantees a great feed. My first dining experience at Cafe O Mai was back in 2014, for breakfast. To this day, I still remember the delicious taste of Aunty Five's claypot baked eggs with Vietnamese lemongrass and chilli pork sausage, spring onion and tamarind sauce with sourdough. The food looked so good, a fellow Instagrammer decided to steal my photo, but that’s a story for another day.

Minibun George recently caught a virus that’s been making us very flu-y, so the other travel bunnie decided to stay at home to look after us for a day. He asked what I wanted for lunch, and I thought, sometimes all you need is a good pho…

15 minutes later, we arrived at Cafe O Mai, a family run business that’s been providing good Vietnamese food for a few years in the neighbourhood of Annerley. Since our last visit, Cafe O Mai has expanded and freshened up its decor, so walking into the eatery, I wondered if the food would still be as good. And the answer was yes.

The service was prompt and shortly after we were seated, our order was taken. Not long later, a bowl of steaming combination pho ($14) came out from the kitchen, along with chicken spring rolls ($7) and com ga nuong ($15) - marinated chargrilled boneless chicken served with jasmine rice and salad. It was a great feed as expected! The chicken was extremely tender, the spring rolls were crunchy and tasty. As for the pho, its broth was brewed for over 48 hours, and with some fresh bird’s eye chilli, the dish was packed full of flavour and just the perfect amount of punch. I washed down the firing chilli taste in my mouth with a glass of iced Vietnamese coffee ($5.50), which gave me instant relief, while the other travel bunnie watched on, sipping his Charlie don’t surf ($6.50) - a refreshing juice made with pineapple, apple, mint and ginger.

I’m glad that I revisited Cafe O Mai, it surely did not disappoint.

Total Bunnie Dollars Spent: $48

If you haven't been to Cafe O-Mai for breakfast before, you should go. Seriously.

Cafe O-Mai is a quirky family-run Vietnamese cafe located on a corner street in the suburb of Annerley. Don't let its humble exterior fool you, as the food dished out by this cafe is nothing short of impressive.

On our recent visit last Sunday, Cafe O-Mai was packed with people inside and out but we were lucky to score the last table available which also happened to have a space next to it just big enough to fit our pram. Awesome!

The breakfast menu is a traditional Vietnamese affair with a touch of western influence. From sweet corn and zucchini fritters ($13) to pork meatballs in rich tomato sauce with quail eggs served with warm baguette ($13), there are plenty of choices and you can even get a bowl of steamy pho if you desire. With so many delicious sounding choices on offer, deciding on what to have was difficult but we wasted minimal time in ordering given how busy they were.

We started off with a cold pressed fresh juice ($6) and a O-Mai iced latte ($5.50). Both were the perfect wake-up drinks. I had my eye on their Vietnamese iced coffee ($5) which is served in a drip filters with the coffee slowly dripped onto condensed milk before you get to stir and pour it over ice but it will have to be my choice of drink on our next visit.

Breakfast arrived quickly. It had been a long time since I'd had F rench toast, so breakfast for me was the brioche French toast with vanilla poached rhubarb and fresh strawberries topped with housemade labna, toasted pistachio and honey ($13). The vibrant presentation of the dish was very inviting. It tasted good but the toast was slightly soggy for my liking.

What I really want to tell you about is the other travel bunnie's dish. It's called Aunty Five's claypot baked eggs with Vietnamese lemongrass and chilli pork sausage, spring onion and tamarind sauce with sourdough ($15). Not only was the serving generous (oh yeah, three eggs in one pot), it was also mind-blowingly delicious. There were so many layers of flavours in that dish and they just lingered in our mouths making us wanting more and more. AND MORE. Half way through the meal I begged the other travel bunnie to switch with me and he kindly said yes. I wolfed down the what was left in the dish and in the end I was literally wiping the claypot with the last bit of that sourdough trying not to waste the remaining sauce.

Breakfast at Cafe O-Mai was oh my god delicious.

So yes, bottom line: go there, try Aunty Five's claypot and you won't be disappointed.

Total Bunnie Dollars Spent: $40.50