Sunday 11 April 2010

The Imp

Coffees!

Renée's breakfast

My breakfast!

dessert - lemon & chocolate tart

Today we checked out The Imp in Vic Park, which masquerades as a café in the morning and tapas bar in the evening. We were lucky enough to score an outside table, but the inside is equally as comfortable and it caters for the lone diner with bench seating overlooking the Highway. Not that us breakfast lovers need to worry about that!

Imp's menu covers the basics with items like eggs benedict ($13), ham baguette ($10) & tomato & fetta ($9.50). Renée chose poached eggs on toast ($9) with a side of hash browns ($3.50) whereas i had mushrooms & spinach n toast with mascarpone cheese. Renée's eggs were hard - one of her pet hates! Mine came with mass loads of button mushrooms, about 5 steamed spinach leaves and watery cheese sauce. Although it was cooked ok, i've had much better mushroom meals. The bread was crusty on both of our plates. Renée's hash browns were the best part of the meal - we think that this is because they double as the herb croquettes on their tapas menu!

The coffee was drinkable enough, but although we hung around for a while we did not want a second round. We have never understood why they insist on using sugar cubes - what happens if you want half a sugar? Wait the right amount of time until it is partly dissolved, then take it out and leave the wet mass on your saucer? Luckily we both like a full sugar so we did not have to test our theories.

To finish off we had a lemon and chocolate tart, served in a cup - it was full-on but did leave a nice taste in our mouths! It was a hard choice too, as there we many a delectable cakes and tarts on display!

The Verdict

Coffee 3/5
The Eggs (the meal!) 2.5/5
Service 4/5
Atmosphere 4/5

Overall 13.5/20

Would we go again?
for their delicious cakes

Website: http://www.theimp.com.au/

The Imp on Urbanspoon

11 comments:

Conor @ HoldtheBeef said...

Clearly you were meant to counteract the hardness of the eggs with the wateriness of the cheese sauce.

I feel like a broken record, but if us home cooks can manage perfect poached googies then surely every restaurant should be capable of it (especially if they serve them with very crusty bread!).

It's actually a relief to read this, as my list of 'must try' places in Vic Park was getting a little long.

Ross said...

You must teach us how Conor, we certainly can't do poached eggs at home! We've tried swirling with vinegar, those metal rings, little plastic cups, nothing works!

And yes i know it's lame that our blog is called poached but we can't poach an egg!

Conor @ HoldtheBeef said...

Egg poaching masterclass! We could invite the chef from The Imp too - they could make us hash browns. Or herb croquettes.

Jake said...

I'm a regular at the imp, and in regards to the hashbrowns being doubled as the herb croquettes on the tapas menu, if you cannot tell the difference between potato and a crumbed bechamel croquette i think you should seriously reconsider being a self-acclaimed food critic

Ross said...

Hi Jake, thanks for the laughs, the way you've misconstrued our post and turned it into a critique is hilarious! The satirical comment about us being food critics is also funny!
Cheers, Rob Broadfield and Gail Williams

Renee said...

haha Ross...cheeky!

I wish I had Gails job...that would be awesome!

carejillo said...

hmmm,the toast looks perfect, continental bread like that is supposed to be crunchy and crusty, if you want soft tip top loaves maybe try somewhere else, and yeah not really sure what drugs you were on thinking hashbrowns were croquettes.
the eggs in the photo look perfect, so i guess that photo was from some other 'nice' cafe was it? and good coffee should never be ruined with sugar, so theres your answer to that conundrum.

Renee said...

oh carejillo, we didn't say we hated the bread only that it was crunchy...
If you read our previous responses you'll understand Ross was just joking about the whole hashbrown/croquettes...and sorry hard eggs just don't cut it with us....

Ross said...

Carejillo, check out other reviews for The Imp - we're not the only one to have commented on the hard eggs.

Btw, caffeine is our drug of choice :)

Anonymous said...

You really aren't in a position to comment on someone's coffee if you put sugar in it. Cubed or not....

Anonymous said...

new menu and new chefs at the imp