At this new Surry Hills café, they’re doing a salt caramel milkshake and a brothel sandwich. You heard us. “The idea for the menu was to offer our customers food that we eat or are given while on coffee travels," says owner Russell Beard. "Our menu is not coffee origin exclusive. We have a slider on this weekend that is named after one of the brothels a couple of doors up,”
Before opening Reuben Hills, Beard used to have a café called the Source in Mosman, one of the best places to get coffee on the north shore. The big open space opens up with a roller door out the back, and an unassuming shopfront with a couple of wooden stools out the front on Albion Street, just down the road from Chefs’ Warehouse. Take a seat at the blue-tiled communal table out the back and check out the hot floor staff as they serve up some of the area’s best coffee. They roast the beans themselves, which are sourced from Beard’s trips to El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Colombia and Costa Rica.
Try a baleada while you’re here. Here, the Honduras dish is a tortilla filled-then-folded with black beans for the veggos or pulled pork for the carnies. It’s a hefty number, and will most likely keep you going all day. This extremely awesome café also does a great 'Not Reuben' sandwich (actually a steak sandwich with sauerkraut). But really, it’s all about the Dogg’s Breakfast – a Monaco Bar-like ice-cream sandwich accompanied by a pool of salted dulce de leche. Breakfast dessert just got bananas.
Even though Reuben Hills is fairly new, they’re already doing a roaring trade. How could you lose with nice staff working the floor, tasty snacks on the menu and great coffee?
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