Alcove Café and Deli Wilston - Review

To be honest, I'm not feeling the blog love at the moment.  What I mean is that it somehow seems incongruous and superfluous, but there will be good times ahead, so I'm going to 'Keep Calm and Carry on' as they said on those ubiquitous wartime posters.  We can still enjoy takeaways from our fave places, like this one.  (And when did takeaways become pickups?!)  We all need to support our local businesses, otherwise when all this is but a bad dream, we won't have anywhere to sit and relax, and eat good food and drink great coffee...

rustic exterior

We actually had brunch here a few months ago with a friend up from Sydney.  We all enjoyed our meals, and the friendly service, so we were happy to head here again last week (before the social distancing and isolation came into effect).  Braving the COVID-19 fears, Mr P. and I went out for a quick lunch.  It was early lunchtime, it was very busy, and it was starting to rain.  We dashed under the large umbrellas, and grabbed a seat.  A very friendly and charming waitress came by with menus, glasses and a carafe of water. 

Mr P. went to order at the counter, which is the norm these days, and we rapidly received – a cappuccino for me, and a mango and vanilla bean smoothie for him.  My coffee was fine, though I prefer it a little stronger; hubby loved his thick and cold smoothie.  You could even see the specks of vanilla in his drink, and there was a fruity taste of mango.  I went for the avocado smash with bacon, on organic sourdough.  Sadly, we both felt the bacon was a little light-on, considering you pay extra.  (At our December lunch here, the bacon was very generous!)  The bread was tangy, soft inside, crisp on the outside but not too hard.  You know how crusts sometimes cut your mouth?  Nope, this was not like that.  The radish gave the dish a nice little peppery zing, and the dukkah gave it a spicy hit.  

Mr P. chose the roast pumpkin fritters.  A common whinge from me is that cafes often when serving ‘fritters’ are really serving pancakes!  Once again, I would call these pancakes, rather than fritters which to my mind, should be mostly veg. with a wee bit of flour and egg to bind them.  These were flavoursome enough with pumpkin and chickpeas, but not to my taste – I felt they were somewhat stodgy.  Fortunately it wasn’t me eating them; hubby was perfectly content!  

It started to pour down, and the umbrellas were starting to leak, so we grabbed our belongings and ran back to the car.  We felt virtuous, and well-fed, happy to have helped a local business in this time of crazy, crazy madness.  Enough toilet paper yet, everyone? :-)

mango and vanilla bean smoothie $7.90

cappuccino $4

avocado smash on organic sourdough $13.90

The bacon is a bit light on, don't you think?  I think I paid an extra $6
for it:-(  Below is a photo of the same dish in December!  Sooo generous, and bacon-heavy, to my delight.

smashed avo with bacon and egg (in Dec 2019)

roast pumpkin fritters $17.90

Sadly, Alcove like every other café and restaurant is closed except for takeaways for the foreseeable future.  Good luck everyone!  Keep well, keep happy and wash your hands (to the tune of Happy Birthday for twenty seconds - tee hee).

rustic exterior but great food and service

Ph: 07 3161 1591

92 Kedron Brook Road, Wilston Q 4051