Leaf Expresso Bar

Leaf Expresso! It's the older sister to the much beloved hipster central of Moose and Gibson! You can definitely tell its owned by the same people however, as the decor is just as awesome, the coffee is still Two Seasons and the staff seem to swap between the two places all the time.

Yeah, its right on the corner of a local shopping centre

Ta-dah!

Here is their menu. For some reason I really like the way their menu is designed, especially with the little hash tags that encourage you to share their food photos.

All day brekkie!

Drinks!

Brunches and lunches

Their water is right beside this homemade icecream sandwich brand, I've only ever seen it at Swampdog fish and chips before. One of the water jugs had berries floating in the bottom, fancy pretty!

Delicious ice cream

Haha, not that adding berries to water really does anything for the flavour, sometimes you can detect a subtle washed out sourness. It reminds me of heavily dilute cordial! The colour is more the best part to be honest, you can just keep topping up the water endlessly. As you can guess, I'm not a fan of the lemon in water trend I keep seeing.

Oooh berries

Outside there is a lot of long benches and mismatched stools.

There are also green ones

As well as little wooden benches backed onto tables with large shady umbrellas and more mismatched chairs. I didn't take a photo, but there is a water bowl for dogs to the right of the picture below.

All the tables!

The interior is gorgeous. Especially the real branch that has been wired up to be a chandelier. Its quite low down on the ceiling and I bet its a massive OHS risk because its such a pain in the arse to clean, plus y'know its a real tree.

Its gorgeous!

All the artwork and plants on display are available for sale! By the time this post comes out, all the decorations might have already changed. That leather couch is super comfortable by the way.

Such a comfy couch

As usual, Jubi ordered an English Breakfast with soy milk and honey on the side. I think she got about three cups out of this little teapot. Is it me, or is the crockery here particularly disappointing considering how colourful the rest of the place is?

Such plain teapots and cups ):

I ordered the iced coffee which came with ice cream, whipped cream and two coffee beans on top. A sweet, strong, slightly nutty and creamy iced coffee, I really enjoyed it although I probably shouldn't have eaten those coffee beans.

Delicious iced coffee

I ordered the baked eggs on white beans, rosemary and kransky with sourdough and onion relish, I also ordered a side of garlic spinach and mushrooms.

"Baked" eggs

The garlic mushroom and spinach mix was really interesting and slight fancy since it had so many different mushrooms! There were white button mushrooms, swiss brown, enoki and small oyster mushrooms. It was a super garlicky concotion and I really enjoyed it, most of the time when you order garlic mushrooms, you only get regular white mushrooms cooked up. The different texture of the mushrooms made it much more interesting. Without this side, I wouldn't have bothered eating my breakfast.

Delicious!

On the other hand, my dish was completely missing the kransky. We had a chat to the chef later on who apologised and gave me a free savoury muffin. I wish I had the kransky included in this dish, because it was otherwise very plain and homely in flavour, basically just a white bean mash flavoured with a bit of rosemary. Jubi remarked that it was very European in flavour and that it reminded her of meals she had at home. The onion relish had a rich carmelised flavour with a lot of sweetness and I really enjoyed that with the sourdough that was provided. The eggs were a bit on the small side and I was a bit confused as to how these eggs were baked since they seem to be fried in a ring?

Sans kransky ):

Jubi ordered the bircher museli with dried apricot, whole almonds, semi dried paw paw, greek yoghurt topped with a peach and raspberry coulis. It was a very sweet and chewy combination which she really enjoyed. There was more coulis at the bottom of the yoghurt.

All my other photos of this turned out terribly

Here is my free spinach, pesto and sundried tomato muffin. I have no idea why I picked this since I don't normally like savory muffins, it was a touch dry but had very good flavours. My favourite part of it was that large blob of baked pesto at the top,

Mmm pesto

We went a second time just to try some more dishes. I ordered a flat white this time which was strong, wonderfully scented and didn't require any extra sugar. The photos on this second trip were taken with Jubi's phone since mine was out of charge. It seems a bit more sensitive to light than the camera on mine and you can see how much more "romantic" the pictures look with the shininess of the surrounding features.

A lovely heart

I got the salmon and potato cakes with a green pea puree, two poached eggs, fennel and cucumber salad and topped with a dill hollandaise sauce.The salmon cakes were deliciously crunchy on the outside and soft in the centre, they were mildly seasoned. The eggs were perfectly poached with no odd stringy bits and a lovely golden yolk. The cucumber and fennel salad was crisp and refreshing but would've gone nicely with a stronger flavour. Thankfully I ordered some haloumi as well!

So damn shiny

This is honestly some of the saltiest haloumi I've ever tasted. I have no idea what brand of haloumi they buy but this is fantastic. I was really surprised at the intensity of the flavour in this, think the saltiness of a full flavoured feta in haloumi and I'm no slouch when it comes to saltiness! This haloumi would be perfect at making a salad more interesting, and was a great accompaniment to my meal.

Jubi got the basil baked ricotta with smoked tomato and beetroot relish, serrano ham, wilted spinach and poached eggs. I just love the way this looks with the heavily fat ribboned serrano ham draped over the poached eggs. The serrano ham was delicious, I had a taste and was seriously considering stealing all of it. The herbed baked ricotta was interesting, I don't know why but it reminded me of a savoury cheesecake texture. It was an interestingly mild flavour.

Leaf Expresso Bar
Atmosphere: 9, a gorgeous, gorgeous cafe. You could easily imagine this place being the major meeting location for a hip TV show about cool teenagers or something.
Service: 6, counter service is used here. The waiters were very prompt at clearing our dishes when we were finished. The chef was very apologetic when I mentioned what happened to my meal.
Food: 7, solid food. Well cooked, well presented and good ingredients but I didn't really like it.