A hip, modern Asian-Australian cafe has huge appeal to me and I’m pleased this is so close to where I live!
I’ve been meaning to try this little cafe for a while. I sadly only was able to eat at the restaurant in the same spot two times before it closed; it was a super old-fashioned Aussie cafe from an Eastern European family with a homey feel and really cheap prices. The only place like it in the neighbourhood, I found it charming.
White Taro is a complete change. They’ve renovated and expanded the space beautifully, and much of the menu is a modern take on Vietnamese food. The coffee was good, my friend seemed to enjoy her vegie breakfast bun, and I am so intrigued to try more dishes from this place.
For the deconstructed Banh Mi was really a fantastic plate: a fresh baguette, a generous portion of pork belly, some pickled vegetables, some kim chi, a little pot of chicken orange pate, a nearly black apple and date chutney and spiced kumquat butter! I mean, that is some plate. And it was delicious. And I like food you can play with.
The food was so interesting, I asked a friend to come with me a second time only about two weeks after the first visit. I had the pho, which had a beautifully cooked piece of steak in it! It was not only full of flavour but with both the steak and some extra meatballs (and all of the wonderful fresh herbs), it gave this dish a substantial feel, which I’ve sometimes felt lacking from other pho. I thought this was a really, really good pho.
My dining mate had lobster of waffles with truffles. Yup. I’ll just let you think about that. I tried a bite. The perfectly crisp waffle went wonderfully well with the beautifully cooked lobster. My friend loved it.
I have the strong desire to taste every Vietnamese-influenced dish on this menu… So the next time I came, I had a grilled watermelon salad with grilled prawns (the Vietnamese flavours were in the light sauce). It was sensational, and good as it looked.
It was so good (and the server charming, and my friend had lobster waffles) that I’m upgrading my score from Zomato from 4.5 to 5 out of 5 stars. This place is sensational.