Palomino Espresso, CBD

January 31, 2013

Finding somewhere good to go for lunch is high on my list of midweek priorities. So when a colleague came back from lunch with rave reviews about a cafe she’d just tried, naturally I was excited to give it a go.

I decided this could be the next place my lunch buddy and I could go to on one of our lunchtime catch ups. Sadly, it’s also the last place my lunch buddy and I would go. For a midweek lunch, anyway. She scored a new job and has moved out of the CBD. Great for her. Sad for me.

Anyway, the cafe we went to is called Palomino Espresso, located on York Street right near Loaf and Devotion (another great place for lunch).

Palomino’s website is “coming soon” but you can find out more info or connect with them here , here or here.

We scored the last table and then attempted to choose something from the menu.

Palomino Espresso offers a range of lunchtime goodies: sandwiches and salads and lots of homemade treats which looked incredibly tempting. They’re also known for their coffee, I believe, and Boyfriend who has tried it himself assures me that their coffee is very, very good.

We both ordered a fresh Watermelon and Mint Frappe ($6.50).

They came in cute glasses, which is totally a plus with me. Not so much frappe as fresh watermelon juice, which was perfectly okay. It was refreshing and delicious. My only minor complaint was that there appeared to be an absence of mint in both our drinks. Another customer sitting nearby had big green mint leaves floating in her frappe. I’m not sure if they forgot to put the mint in ours or it was poured from a big, already-made jug and somehow the mint didn’t fall in our glasses. Not to worry – it still hit the spot!

My friend ordered the Thai Beef salad ($12). It was made to order and looked super fresh and so delicious.

I had been super keen to try the dish my work friend had eaten the day before – a giant stuffed kumara she said only cost her $10, was absolutely delicious and so big she couldn’t finish it.

Unfortunately this didn’t seem to be a regular menu item and was nowhere to be seen. So I had to choose something else. It was pretty tricky deciding between a scrumptious looking couscous salad, their Reuben sandwich and a made-to-order steak sandwich with rocket, caramelised onion and tomato chutney.

In the end, my hunger levels did the deciding and I opted for the steak sandwich ($13).

My steak sandwich was wonderfully generous and, ohmygod, so delicious. The flavours of the onion, chutney and sauces were just perfect and my steak was perfectly cooked. And, total bonus, the steak was good quality steak with absolutely no fat that needed pulling off anywhere. There’s nothing worse than a steak sandwich with fatty steak that’s impossible to chew and creates the biggest mess ever. This was one of the good ones.

I left incredibly full and satisfied for the rest of the afternoon. It was a very pleasant lunch, with cheerful staff in a small-but-bright environment.

Would I go again? For sure.