Turquoise Eatery (Revisited)

The Overview…

Food: Black Halva Waffle Stack, Forbidden Winter Black Rice Porridge, Lotus Cookie Pannacotta

Ratings:
Food: 5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Service: 4.5/5
Value: 5/5

The update…

Read our previous review of Turquoise Eatery here.

We adore this cute, quirky little spot – and we’re lucky to only live about 10 minutes away from it. This time we visited to try the new offerings on their Winter menu, starting out with a great coffee as always.

If you haven’t been, Turquoise is a warm and friendly cafe, with dark woods and eye catching decor. It’s a medium sized space, with a small outdoor area, that’s popular with local families. Service is very efficient. They work hard to create some great dishes and staff are only too keen to explain their new additions and specials or to help you out with some of the more unusual items on the menu.

We tried the Forbidden Winter Black Rice Porridge, the Black Halva Waffle Stack and the Lotus Cookie Pannacotta. Now, as you probably realised from our last review – these guys know how to make a porridge. I’m a little worried they think I tell every cafe they make the “best porridge I’ve ever had” – kind of like those serial Tinder users with their rehearsed chat up lines – but genuinely, for the second year running, Turquoise have wowed me with the best porridge I’ve ever had. I loved how this new one is completely different to anything we’ve seen before from this cafe. The black rice is both striking and filling – combining well with the light, fresh coconut, banana and juicy strawberries. What should be traditional flavours of summer cocktails have been combined to create this perfect, soul-warming winter bowl (or anytime bowl – I’ve actually ordered porridge at Turquoise on a 40 degree day before!).

The black halva waffles were really enjoyable. Soft waffles, with a glorious smokey marshmallow cream, it’s quite a grown up dish with halva and pistachios decorating the plate, rather than your usuall fairy floss and fun. It helps tone down that sweetness a little, which we loved as it was a totally new flavour palate for us to try! There’s a nice serving of fresh blackberries and blueberries on there too – keeping with the colour theme and adding a little healthy kick to it.

Finally, we shared the panna cotta as a dessert, and at $13 how could you not pop this on to the end of your meal? Served traditionally in a glass – instead of the more typical Melbourne style you see nowadays – this is, once again, in striking contrast to their previous panna cotta offering, the Pink dish. It was silky smooth, lovely and creamy with just that little bit of crunch in each bite from the cookie crumb. It’s actually a fairly simple dish, sweet enough – but not dessert like – and it just shows what you can do with a bit of creative thinking and an eye for good flavours. They say it on the menu and they’re totally right – just delicious!

Everything else…

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

Visual Menu: https://www.mryum.com/turquoise

Address: 451 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield South

Opening Times: 

Mon         7am to 4:30pm
Tue          7am to 4:30pm
Wed        7am to 4:30pm
Thu         7am to 4:30pm
Fri           7am to 4:30pm
Sat           8am to 5pm
Sun          8am to 5pm

Parking: Turquoise is in a small row of shops in a mostly residential area so there’s plenty of street parking on and around Hawthorn Road.

Getting here on PT: Turquoise is on the 64 tram route – alight at Princes Park and it’s a minutes walk. The 625 bus also runs nearby.

Disclaimer: We dined as guests of Turquoise Eatery, Caulfield. Reviews are honest and based on our own personal experiences. We cannot guarantee things at a restaurant won’t change including, but not limited to, menu items and opening hours, so please confirm any details with the venue before visiting