Cafe Wrapture

West End is Brisbane's mecca of solid food places and breakfast places, its a very old area that still remains full of the things that are fantastic for prospering food communities, a large ethnic assortment of inhabitants, cool little shops, scores of students floating around and its quite central in the Brisbane CBD. For breakfast its got the Gun Shop Cafe, Three Monkeys, The Burrow and Lock n Load Bistro to name a few, amazing Greek food being I guess one of the central spokes of the Greek community here in Brisbane with the Little Greek Taverna, Char Char Yiros and Lefkas Tavern as well as a large Vietnamese influence. My father remembers when he first settled here, that West End was the other large Vietnamese ghetto with Inala being the one most people commonly think of. I have no opinion on this matter since I cook Vietnamese, why would I go out and eat it too?

So with that being said, I was quite jealous when I found out my boyfriend had moved into this amazing locale, whereas I'm stuck down on the bad side of the southside. While I was on this stretch of working days, we had planned a breakfast date to break up the week between our last date and our pending end of work date. The nice guy that he is, and knowing I've got a food blog, allowed me to pick the location. Unfortunately I couldn't decide.

Yep basically me

I'm pretty sure I linked him to every breakfast/brunch place within walking distance of West End, or easy commute. If it was in the breakfast/brunch section of Urbanspoon under the Brisbane CBD heading, I looked at it. I commute an hour every day into work and I can't decide when thinking of food. One time after finishing night shifts, I went to Central Station, walked down to Eagle Street Pier, did a complete lap of Queen's Street Mall, to West End, back up Queen's Street Mall and Eagle Street Pier before heading to a very early lunch at Three Monkeys in West End. All the Brisbanites are aware of what an achievement this is, all the shift workers are also in awe of my crazy energy.

I took 2 shots of International Roast instant coffee.
Tasted like someone had pissed in my mouth.

So in the end I settled on either Eros Cafe or Cafe Wrapture. Both had interesting menus and were within walking distance of his house, so it was unlikely he'd get lost. He did get lost though. Did I mention that? We both have no sense of direction, its terrible. On the map, it appeared to be a distance of less than 100m and we still got lost. I managed to get us there but geez, struggle street, and he was quite dubious of my navigational abilities too! And I was the only one with a working smart phone!

The photo I took on my phone of the map

When I arrived at the intersection of Melbourne and Boundary Street, he was wandering around Boundary Street on the opposite side of the road. I initially thought of heading down Boundary Road but we actually had to head in the opposite direction to that. Basically if you are facing the Little Greek Taverna, head up onto Browning Street and its the next right to get to the Cafe.

Deceptive view towards Boundary Street.

Anyway, first impressions of the cafe, it was very cute and kooky. A very sorta, bohemian feel to it for some reason, maybe it was all the loosely strewn cushions that did it. I unfortunately didn't take any photos of the area just underneath the plastic screen on the right side of the screen. It was like low seating of wicker cane covered by colourful cushions all around little coffee tables. It looked very comfortable for small groups of people.

Cafe Wrapture

Where we sat, under the flag :)

Its a very relaxed setting, read the menus that are scattered everywhere, go up to the desk when ready and order. 

At the front desk!

Here are the menus! They have a very diverse range of plated breakfast food, vegetarian and omnivore wraps as well as fancy arse hot chocolates, that are unusual and also quite inexpensive! 

Main menu

The wraps!

The drinks!

Inside their shop is a very eclectic mix of decorations, items for sale, spices and chai mixtures. I don't really see any sort of theme to the decorations, it just all seems to be the kind of stuff someone would pick up if they had travelled extensively in their time. We ended up picking up a menu and heading outside to eat breakfast in the sun.

Oooh random stuff!

This is a little skylark that was floating around, it was attacking its reflection in the glass. 

Poor little bird

I ordered a shakti hot chocolate. This was a West African sourced chocolate made with a chilli and chai hit. It was lovely, fragrant hot chocolate, even more so with the addition of chai. I had to take some antibiotics with it and it was too hot to drink comfortably! I had to take little sips constantly and it was delicious, warm and spicy with a lingering heat from the chilli.

Shakti hot chocolate and some hairy arms

He ordered an iced coffee. He gives it a 6/10, he comments that it needs to be stirred before you drink it. Apparently there was sugar added to the top but if you drank it as presented, it would've made things too bitter. 

Ice coffee!

I ordered the bacon caesar wrap! I was really thinking of getting their farmers breakfast but I thought since they were named for their wraps, get a wrap you know? The wrap consisted of thick char grilled bacon, cos lettuce, tomato slices, cucumber, red onion, Caesar dressing and shaved Parmesan. 

Bacon caesar wrap!

I am literally drooling as I sit here thinking about their wraps. The fresh pita were absolutely fantastic, crunchy, chewy, fluffy and still in one piece despite its toasting. I would happily just buy the pitas and use them for dips. The ingredients were fantastic, with the char grilled bacon being probably the best cut bacon I've ever had, it was thicker than your usual store bacon, salty and the charring was perfect, the salad was perfectly cut and in interesting ways so the textures were amazing and the Caesar dressing was incredible, generously applied but not sloppy.

Close up!

He ordered the haloumi wrap, consisting of haloumi, lemon, minted yoghurt and salad, coleslaw in this case. He gave the wrap a 9 1/2/10, he said it was very close to perfect but he thought it could've been better. When I asked him he said, he has no idea how but it should be. It was okay I think, quite tasty for a vegetarian wrap but I missed my bacon caesar and got it back from him, when we were exchanging bites. I found the haloumi to not be squeaky enough but he said he prefers it more crunchy then chewy and squeaky, so he was happy. He was raving about the yoghurt sauce too.

Haloumi wrap, give me back me back my bacon caesar!

I really enjoyed this place. We sat in the sun watching each other, eating and chatting, while watching the poor saps heading into to work. Then again you would too, if this was the first time and place your boyfriend kissed you :)

I couldn't recommend this place more highly. L., and D., went to this cafe the day after I went, and my boyfriend and I had intended to go, but felt quite under the weather. L., said she got a wrap that I don't recall and D., got a plate of something, and they both agreed that they'd definitely go here again. I was very envious cause I was constantly thinking of this place when I got hungry. 

Two days after we went, my boyfriend and his brother went again. They both had the haloumi wraps, my boyfriend was teasing me that it was still as fantastic as it was the first day we ate there. I would definitely go here again and again, I can easily think of 3-5 other items on their menu that I would be happy to try :)