Rag Land Café

Nasi lemak, Malaysian breakfast of champions, is offered as a weekend special at this new Redfern café. It comes with a lump of fragrant, steamed coconut rice surrounded by boiled egg halves and cooling rounds of tomato and cucumber – which you’re going to need if you overdo it on the house-made sambal. The spicy condiment is loaded with salty dried-fish pieces and a slow-burn chilli content to really let your tastebuds know they are alive. Tying everything together is a chicken drumstick cooked with potato and onion in a mild, creamy curry sauce.

If breakfast curry is the equivalent of pistol-whipping your palate to wake it up, the leaving-a-cup-of-tea-by-the-bedside approach would be the pea fritters. These crisp potato patties packed full of sweet, fresh peas are topped with a soft, poached egg with sweet tomato chutney on the side. Corn, thank you for your long service to the cafés of this city but your presence is no longer required.

You’ll find Rag Land in an unassuming little stretch of road between dusty convenience stores and a tired-looking tradie pub. It’s a happy little oasis amongst the gritty chaos at the beginning of Botany Road. Inside there’s a wooden boat on one wall, a cardboard buck head hanging above the door and a rusty, red tricycle sitting on a wooden ladder suspended from the roof. Add a wrought-iron garden bench and a white rocking chair in one corner and you’re well on the road to whimsy town.

The coffee will deliver the necessary smackdown to your morning brain fog. It’s from local roasters Golden Cobra and packs a serious punch. If you aren’t yet ready to be wrestled awake by caffeine, turn your bleary eyes to the big glass urn of minty lemonade that has the power to banish scurvy for life (probably).

Redfern’s café revival is in full swing and we the ones reaping the delicious rewards.