Fresh Espresso – Leura Cafe, Blue Mountains
We went up to the Blue Mountains for the KCC Engage 2010 conference, and after a solid three days of a jam packed program, my car decided to linger around in Leura to avoid the exodus of 1000 people from the conference 
We walked up the main street, called Leura Mall, and were tempted by a beautiful stationery shop, chocolate shops, funky homeware stores as well as the gourmet deli. It actually surprises me that food in the country is more expensive than the city, because to me, the city has hats and star ratings. I guess what I fail to realise is that the country usually faces more overheads as food and groceries may not be as accessible. Anyway, we stumbled upon a cafe called Fresh, which is right on the bottom of the busy part of the street, tucked behind RM Williams and a real estate agent. We peered in and immediately saw the cake counter calling out for us.. mm…
This funky little cafe even sells coffee making wares. It shows that they are serious about their beans! Because they even blend and grind their own!
Despite the tempting cakes and coffee machine shopping, we were here for a feed. There is a good chalkboard menu of specials, as well as an all day breakfast menu and some toasted turkish bread specials. The BLT arrived and I immediately had food envy. It was stuffed with layers of crispy bacon, not dry at all, gourmet mesclun, and tomatoes – it certainly puts soggy white iceberg lettuce filled tiny BLTs to shame! It’s served with a leaf salad that has a yummy balsamic vinegrette.
I selected something from the specials menu. I have thing for corn fritters, and as they had the on the menu, along with garlic fried mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and grilled capsiscums, I didn’t even think twice. It was definitely dressed up to city style standards, but what I was disappointed about was that the fritters were more like pikelets studded with some corn kernels. Bills’ corn fritters have made me accustomed to more like corn cakes, which are chunky and barely held together with flour. So almost 100% corn if you will.
Because there was no dressing or sauce served with it, the dish lacked of seasoning. But I have to say, if there were pikelets they would have been perfect as they were so fluffy! Build your own breakfast is also available: this is smoked salmon, poached eggs and spinach. Perfectly poached eggs with just set whites and runny yolks. I think the spinach was expected to be sauteed as in the city, but overall, a balanced dish.
The service isn’t as fast as your typical CBD joint, but that also means you aren’t pushed out and can linger over your coffee. What also caught my eye was the sign out the front for mums saying ‘brst feeding welcome’. Worth a try if you’re in town and looking for well priced, freshly prepared light meals