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Easy Cafe

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Basement, 220 Bourke St
MELBOURNE, VIC, 3000
local (03) 9671 4... local (03) 9671 4498
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ThomasKent Local Star 53 reviews
Easy Cafe is a rather strange scene for a Westerner to wander into. It's uncompromisingly for the sort of person who likes Hello Kitty and Manga. I really like going there, and would do quite often but for the fact that the food is not all that good.

When you go down the stairs into this clean bright space the first thing you see is the counter with staff who don't understand Australian accents all that well and who won't get it if you ask for things like separate plates for each person. The back half of the cafe has three large booths which are usually filled by teams of staff playing some kind of Asian game involving cards, lots of happy shouting and probably, giant robots. Opposite that is the feature that makes people come - there are four booths that each have two or three wicker 'love seats' that are hanging from the roof from cables decorated with plastic flowers. The idea is that you cuddle up and swing, or at least sway, because there's only room for about a foot of movement. There's a bookshelf full of those little Manga books, and also copies of things like Marie-Claire and Vogue. The front end of the cafe has some small tables, a few internet computers, and a back display of merchandise which is mostly either strange beauty-related products, like face rollers and pump-up breast enhancers to put in your bra. It's an education.

It's a pretty friendly spot. One reason I go there is the tea eggs. The Chinese have a lot of things they do to make eggs more interesting, as in fact Western culture also did a hundred years ago. Tea eggs are soaked in tea (with probably some soy sauce too). They are served in their shells so that when you crack the shells, you see a beautiful porcelain-like pattern in the white - sometimes they are called porcelain eggs. They taste very nice, but they're a bit rubbery. But they can inspire you to make them at home, which is easy and fun and a good activity for a rainy afternoon. On a previous post I told you I'd tell you how to smoke eggs. To smoke eggs, you need an iron wok and a bamboo steamer. You boil and peel the eggs, throw a handful of Chinese black or red tea (not Western tea!) and a handful of sugar into the hot wok until they smoke, and put the eggs in the steamer for about ten minutes. If you serve them to guests they'll all disappear in a flash!

Unfortunately tea eggs are about it. There's some finger food - chips, sweet potato chips, chicken wings and the like. It's pretty average. There's a huge range of bubble-cup type drinks - almond tea, pudding drink and stuff, a lot of it OTT sweet, full of glutinous peals and not so nice as Bubble Cup. It's a pretty nice hangout to relax in for an hour or so, but it's not as dark and cosy as we round-eyes like. Still it's a nice place to go, especially if you like hanging around in Asian environments, which I do.
6 months ago
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