Vue Lounge

My friends and I excel at being terrible at communication. There's a term for it, pulling a VGirl, because she dropped off the face of the planet when she went to Japan for two weeks. She called our dad once a day, but for the rest of us, she might as well have been dead.

That being said, quite recently VGirl stayed over at my house and I forgot what that was like. She is in the bedroom in the back of this photo of Siri.

That door in the background

It's about 3-4 metres away from my bedroom. She still was using Facebook chat/Line to ask me things. I can turn my head and see her from the end of my room. She is within casual speaking distance of me. I can hear her giggle about something before she sends me the link to the content. Yet she is still messaging me online when she could just as easily tell me about it. It reminds me of when we were in high school and she used to Skype me from her room to get her things from the kitchen, which she was closest to.

My sister's spirit animal

I sent my friends a Snapchat of my sister texting me from within walking distance and nearly everyone I knew replied that their sister did the exact same thing. What a world we live in.

Anyway, Vue Lounge is one of those places that everyone seems to have gone to, except me. At the time of writing, it has seventeen blogger reviews, that's like a billionty. I went here initially with JGirl as we hadn't caught up in a long time. So long in fact, that I was surprised when I saw her with her short hair, apparently it had been lopped off at the beginning of spring with the heat waves then. We met up in September so it had been a really long time since we had last met up haha.

We both severely underestimated the time it took to get here, we were both late and I had to reschedule my driving lesson as a result. JGirl was unluckier as she didn't bring an umbrella but she had a shorter distance to go before she got home.

Vue Lounge is located in the Merthyr Shopping Village in New Farm, its easy to spot from the road and parking is ample due to its location. It has lots of shiny dark wooden furniture in an open setting, the front room is under cover and the back room is the perfect place to grab a meal and have a chat with a friend.

I found the place setting a bit strange since they had sugar/salt/Equal in medicine bottles complete with their bottle caps. It reminded me a lot off work and I had to wonder where on earth they got so many of these bottles.

Medicine dropper bottles?

So shiny

Here is a link to their website, its under construction at the moment, so its not worthwhile linking to the menu in case it changes. JGirl ordered a flat white which she polished off very quickly. She said that it was quite a good coffee but declined a second cup.

Can't remember what coffee they stock ):

I ordered the raspberry crush, a mixture of crushed raspberry, orange segments and juice and who knows what other tasty things. It was absolutely delicious, sweet, tart and utterly refreshing. I would go here again just to have that drink.

Amazing

JGirl ordered the crumbed pork belly with poached eggs, wilted spinach, corn bread and a honey and mustard sauce drizzled over the top. I didn't try much of this as JGirl was fighting off a bad chest infection at the time, but I can attest to the fact that on the positive side, the poached eggs were bright orange and super oozy gooey in the centre and the mustard cream had a solid bite to it.

I don't recall it being a corn bread and I distinctly remember it being two pieces of toast but it was a long time ago. The spinach was just wilted and had no additional flavour to them as was the crumbed pork belly. The pork belly consisted of about five small 20 cent size pieces that were golden brown crunchy with a soft melting texture, we both expressed disappointment with how the portion sizing was. Without the eggs and toast, there was absolutely no way this could've filled anyone up as a main meal. Overall, JGirl enjoyed it but wished there was more to the dish.

More please!

I ordered their chicken and Camembert burger which came with a side of beer battered chips. It was a plain, super tender chunk of chicken breast sandwiched with melted Camembert cheese, rocket, tomato and a fried egg. I prefer my burgers with a bit of sauce so I was a bit disappointed with the relative dryness of this burger. Everything was well cooked but I didn't really like the flavours of this burger. I did love the chips but I'd be very disappointed the day I discover bad beer battered chips.

Delicious chips

Blurry midsection

A blurry drinks menu

I went back here a few weeks later with Jubi. She ordered a very milk top heavy soy latte. It seems to have a disproportionally high amount of foamy milk in it doesn't it? She said it was a good coffee anyway, a touch on the weak side but smooth and nutty.

40% foam?

I ordered another muddled drink, this time it was a citrus crush with passion fruit, orange, mint and who knows what else. I preferred the raspberry one only because the passion fruit pulp was a little too sour for even my tastes. I really enjoyed the scent of passion fruit in this drink however, its such a gorgeous smell.

Pulp!

This was the meal I was eying off the last time I went here, I was very hungry so I went for the lunch menu instead. This is two fried eggs, chorizo, haloumi, ratatouille on a bed of rocket and sourdough.   It was a deliciously savoury combination, the eggs were deliciously gooey, erupting in a golden lava over my pan fried chorizo and and ratatouille, amply soaking the bread. The haloumi was firm, slightly crisp on the outside while still being squeaky. The chorizo was smokey and fatty, a nice contrast to the soft stewed eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. I really enjoyed this and made a point of telling Jubi so.

Oh chorizo, where are you~

Jubi went with a sweet breakfast of course, deciding to get the bircher museli with berry compote, pistachios, Greek yoghurt and honey. This is literally a list of everything she likes in a breakfast menu, she loves crunchy things, yoghurt, museli and berries. The bircher museli here was really heavily soaked, it stayed in a thick porridge like structure that constantly held its shape. I had a try of the berry compote and it was extremely sweet, syrupy and refreshingly sour. It went well with the bircher museli. Jubi always eats her museli extremely neatly, one bite at a time, with a spoonful consisting of a piece of every component. If it were me, I would mash it into a blob and eat it like that. Efficiency.

So shiny

Vue Lounge
Atmosphere: 7, bright, open cafe with lots of places to sit with friends.
Service: 8, attentive, cheerful and quick for everything, to bring us drinks, to ask if we needed anything, easy to grab the attention of and they were very prompt with their service all in all.
Food: 6, I would definitely go here again. The portions are a touch on the small/pricey side but from the two trips we had here, it looks like its really all down to what you order. Go for casual breakfast drinks.