I  LIKE a cafe where you can choose a table according to your mood. Steam Haus is a kind-of newish addition to the Maylands town centre; a renovated old home where each room is an artistic statement in its own right. For the slightly nostalgic the front parlour’s the place to go, with its olde-worldey shelves…

HENRY VIII was a big king with a king-sized appetite, and Henry on Eighth in Maylands matches his style – in a grungy 21st century way. Massive ceilings and timber joists, jagged raw-brick walls and concrete floors give this eatery a very funky feel. “Art” in strange frames, a huge painting of Henry as a…

WHAT a little marvel Garden Cafe on Guildford turned out to be. It was pure pot luck stumbling across this Maylands newbie, as I was on the non-glam stretch of Guildford Road and in need of lunch between photo shoots. The frontage was a touch unprepossessing (it used to be the hydroponics shop) but the…

CHINESE tea growers shudder when Keith Archer adds milk to his tea on buying trips. “But it’s how I like it, so why not,” he says. Last year he imported a tonne of leaves and all of it was sold from his Maylands cafe, Chapels on Whatley, by the pot or to take home. Tea…

MUM was barely registering the demands of her three-year-old, but eventually said “you can have a biscuit in the car”. “Not again,” he groaned in disgust. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, thinking “it’s dinner and a show” sitting outside Mamalilli in Maylands, as an assortment of young tackers piled out of a music…

HAVING seen good reviews for Yip Kee Noodle Shop’s seafood clay pot I’d intended to order it when lunching with friends, but here I was tucking into a keow teow. Literally stir-friend rice cake strips, the Malay/Singapore speciality, with its flat noodles, has been a favourite for years and something I can rarely go past.…

THE cosy rooms of new Maylands eatery Nash and Co are reminiscent of nana’s house, plastic flowers, books, teddies and deep old sofas–but the effect is rustic, hip, and relaxing. Post-lunch, my companion felt so at home he stretched out on the old leather settee for a snooze. And why not, given the blissfully peaceful…

CRUSHED cornflakes and Rice Bubbles mixed with toasted almond meal, to serve as a crunchy breakfast sprinkle. Who comes up with this stuff? The blokes behind tbsp. cafe in Bayswater. They’ve turned arguably the most unoriginal cafe breakfast classic—muesli ($13)—into something so crazy it actually works. In front of me are golden, toasted oats and…