A Man and His Monkey

I love this little café in Randwick. Serving Little Marionette coffee beans, this place is worth the stop off if you are in the area. One of the best things about this café is that it opens early on Saturday mornings, so if you want a coffee before a busy day this is the place to stop off. The coffee here is good, even though it doesn’t open up early.
If you are going to order food, order the smashed Avo — trust me you are not going to regret it. Avo with feta cheese, and you get large amount of it. It is an awesome pick me up in the morning. If you are here for lunch then order the Cubana sandwich — you will be praising the Lord for the creation of this sandwich.
This is a small café, so most people come in for take away, as there is only around 5 tables, so you might not get a seat.

A generous amount of avocado danish feta and mint dolloped on sour dough, a side of poached egg and a delicious cappuccino goes down so well on a Sunday morning after an «offline» vacation in the middle of the pacific!

Tried this place this morning based on the previous reviews. Just as a slight aside. It’s generally pretty obvious from a review perspective when someone has a dog in the fight. And I think this was the case with the 3 – 4 reviews that preceded mine.
Firstly, the staff were really friendly. We were actually greeted by the Barista. Partly because he was the only one out on the floor when we got there and partly because the coffee machine juts out into the seating area which makes greeting customers inevitable.
The inside is pretty simple, probably only about 4 – 5 tables. Another two tables outside.
We ordered a few dishes between our party. I tried the smashed feta and avocado and my wife had the Israeli Breakfast. Mine didn’t look like the picture in the earlier review and I’ll come to that in a minute. I thought it was nice. Basically just your average run of the mill smashed avo. I added two poached eggs at $ 2 each which brought the price of this dish up to $ 18 which probably moved it right passed the value for money territory.
I didn’t try the Israeli but was told it was okay. Nothing spectacular.
I think the biggest call out of this experience wasn’t the food however. Instead, I would say it was the coffee.
I ordered a soy mocha, as always. With the first sip I thought, WOW, this is really nice. Not super strong but just the right amount of sweetness and chocolate flavour.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. I ordered a second soy mocha, in a take-​away cup, because I thought it would be great to enjoy this down on the beach. Unfortunately, this is where the bottom fell out of my wonderful coffee experience. Same barista as before but now it turns out he made a latte. Had to go back and ask for some chocolate. He was apologetic, but the mocha just didn’t recover.
All in all, not bad.

Take away 8oz $ 3.50, banana bread $ 2.50. Closest thing I’ve seen to Dinkelbrot since I left Berlin. Free wifi and there’s a few power plugs around too! Coffee from Crave, was expecting better considering the location, but still a relatively tasty singleshot 60 degree flat white.

I had the Avocado Smash with Danish feta, a large serve with lots of Avocado and feta, a nice pleasant surprise.
Only downsides were the lime and mint mixed in was overpowering and greatly diminished the other flavours that I was expecting. Also asked for well toasted bread and got edge coked bread.
Coffee was great, and served «a bit hot» as requested.
Would have earned 5 stars if not for the «downsides».
WE will be back.

This is the newest kid on the Clovelly coffee block. The owners, Tom and Eli, have managed to find a spot along Clovelly Road not clustered around Frenchman’s Road, Mount Street or the Arden Circle. That was good planning.
Like Bus Stop a couple blocks up the road, the owners have chosen to decorate it with eclectic mismatching tables, chairs and wall fixtures. It, too, is funky – and this may be the latest phase in the evolution of Sydney coffee houses.
Unlike Bus Stop, however, they do all their own cooking on premises: there is a full kitchen onsite, and Eli cooks most of the sweets and preps all the meals. The muffins are first rate, although I am not much of a muffin fan. The food there is pretty good, although I have not sampled more than a few dishes. Its great virtue is that they offer a number of slightly unusual fare (including authentic Israeli brekkies, if that’s your thing).
Also unlike Bus Stop, the coffee has been consistently good. At first, when the owners opened a couple months ago, the coffee was hit and miss. But now they’ve hit their groove. There is arguably better coffee along Clovelly Road (not surprising as there are something like 10 quite competent cafes), but they offer a reliable cup and I usually pick one up in the morning.
Huge added bonus: they are the only café around that offers free (and fast!) wifi. This makes a Man and his Monkey a great place to hang and even do some work. A really nice addition to the neighborhood.
BRIEF POST-​SCRIPTUM 2÷10÷15: Another reviewer suggested that several previous reviews (including presumably mine) had «a dog in the fight.» Gotta take exception to that – I’m glad AMAHM is close by, but so are any of a number of other cafes. I have not given them all great review (e.g., Bus Stop). Just so happened that this one is good. Food for thought.