It all depends on the location, accessibility, and how much the operators are willing to risk attracting the average passer-by verses a word-of-mouth allure. Helvetica is a reclusive example of a you-must-know-where-you’re-going-to-find-us formula. Five Bar was never in my radar of jealous proprietary—I had discovered it far too late.

Five bar has the unapologetic location of Beautfort St, Mt Lawley. Two doors down from Clarances—judging by the Saturday night queue to get in—they’re the new kids on the block.

From first glance it is a roomy dimly lit space. There appears to be the contemporary design standard of exposed industrial meets muted Rococo couches. Animal hides and black and white photography make it an interesting zone. The abundance of hard surfaces in Five make it a cacophonous chamber when patrons limber in alcoholic excitement. You have to scream. (Though I’m sure the acoustics are different mid week when it’s not brimming with people.)

Upon entering the staff greeted and gave us the run down. We were one of the hopefuls that snagged a corner couch and the wait staff serviced us there. This service experience was intuitively effective. No vying for bartender attention—couch service is where it’s at.

We opted for the three cheese platter which was reasonable in size and quality. While no cheese expert, the sharp cheddar was a stand out followed by the blue and then the soft rind Camembert. Not sure what the intention was with providing three napkins and knives when four people were dining, but it made it slightly awkward. The bread provided with the platter was curious in that it crumbed like a commercial tip-top loaf  (a light and almost rice-bready texture). I’m not saying it was that, but yeah, it was an easy and perilously close observation. Less curious was the Pedro Ximinez I paired with the cheese—linear and ir-rancio. I suppose knowing the two local acts Talijancich or Kosovich—both deft in Swan Valley fortifieds—I’d be temped to represent WA.

Five Bar has a definite focus of beers and ciders and there is a overall message to the patrons to “try me” of different beers. It feels like a clean-cut grown-up version of a beer/cider drinkers pub.

It’s worth trying if you’re partial to couch service and boutique beers.

I know it’s a sycophantic real estate agent’s phrase but — location, location, location.

Sure, it’s a ‘partially obstructed view’ but it’s also a ‘fixer-upper’ that’s ‘freeway close’. In other words, you’re pretty sure the house has a view of the neighbours fence, more-or-less has four walls a roof and a floor, but also the fact the sound of traffic will soothe you to sleep each night — it’s a first homebuyers dream!

I can only imagine the kind of fluff the real estate agents were blossoming during the sale of the lease here. But enough about real estate. Food time.

I suppose the preface above was to highlight a place that, beyond the threshold of the cafe, seems at odds with the surroundings (or maybe not?). Pearfect Pantry it’s called. Complete with the kawaii misspelling.

The Pantry’s food is modern Australian with all kinds of curious adventures occuring beyond the IKEA Expedit used divide cafe and kitchen. Savoury goats cheese and fig tart, chicken and bacon baked risotto, white chocolate and blueberry cupcakes. The list could be a stock-ticker at the bottom of a foodies’ thoughts.

The shelf holds jumbo bibliothèque enough to make any chef touretically intense. This is where the kitchen plucks recipes and pulls them together under no real Ramseyesque theatrics.

This cafe is of the same league you’d find along Beaufort and Oxford St except it’s a little cheaper, and you have to travel from the city core. Yahava is the coffee poured and while I haven’t had a knee-bucklingly good brew, I haven’t had an immolated one either.

It’s that maxim — location, location, location.

I’ve been there to see an ad hoc approach to feeding afternoon tummy-rumbles. Another batch of muffins crust out of their cases because the last ones ‘went like hotcakes’.

Pearfect has a shabby-chic direction in its feel, with the decor appearing as though it was convincingly taken from curb-side collection. Unmatched plates, IKEA coffee mugs, old chairs that creakily struggle with normal loads.

The cafe is located in the complex of Moondyne Gardens. The 1970s monolithic brown-bricked housing complexes that flank the cafe, are either ecstasy or doom depending on how like your architecture.

Walk past the bore-stained signage, past the equally as old, bore-stained laundrobar and your nose will probably pick up a heavenly concoction underway at the pantry.

Has pearfect potential.

Perhaps it’s remiss to mention it here, but the first thing I notice about Zekka — aside from the modern rusted laser-cut signage; aside from the hand-illustrated shop-long mural, and aside from the snazzy fashion on display — is a penisless cardboard mannequin 1.5 times the size of a normal humanoid.

He They It stands at the entrance, gawking out of the cafe to King St beyond.

Zekka is an edgy, fringe, avant-garde fashion outlet that houses some serious brands I’ve never even heard of.

I haven’t shopped there myself (perhaps sometime in the future), but I do come for the coffee.

The cafe occupies a similar space as the fashion outlet, however it is less edgy and more minimal and a helluva lot more functional.

Zekkacafe is found at the rear of the store which opens up high into the urban environment, the lighting is reflected by the buttresses of buildings. Its an airy column of brick and mortar– good for soaking up the thermal mass of summer, but more like a conduit for breeze in winter.

As you would expect, the cafe does all its own cakes and glass cabinet goodies, light lunches and the like — nothing too serious.

The (coffee) prices are what you would expect in Perth ($3–4), and the quality is worth going back for.

They use Crema (thanks everyone for letting me know!) and Avon Valley Milk.

This time of the year, because of the greener pastures, the milk is sweet.

Don’t believe me?

Order a milk-based coffee without sugar and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I’d recommend this place if you’re after a little get-away from burning up the CC on King St or having your office cubicle close further around you. Respite time? It’s perfect.

The space is quite unusual and the coffee is tops — a spirited rival to Tiger Tiger for the best cup in town.

My 2 cents? They don’t have a small bar license. Pity.

(08) 9481 1772
Perth City
74 King St
Perth, 6000

Shit coffee gives me the shits. Well not literally.

It’s because I know I can do it at home—better, that, and the fact I just forked out $3.50 to pay some chump at a machine to immolate my long macchiato.

On the other hand, good coffee is like a bolt from the blue.

It sends filamentous sparks across my brain, and somehow the waxing misanthropy is abated. I want to hug people.

So it’s reassuring to know that there are more and more boutique cafes poking up-and-out of our sunny pavemented city.

What is so special about boutique cafes I hear you ask? They are focused on delivering good coffee, in unique surroundings. Just think. If a boutique cafe made terrible coffee it wouldn’t last long. It too would suffer from a (fiscally) fiery death.

Mooba in Subiaco is not a place where beans are sacrificed. It is a place to get coffee that delivers that blue–bolt with precision.

Curving to the street corners of Outridge and Railway Road, Moodba is a cafe that makes clever use of light, space and glass.

The ceilings are high and the network of upstair’s plumbing is unapologetically contrasted in red. Polished glass meets structural steel that is cool and airy. This meets the warm brown decor echoed in Mooba’s signage. Artist prints hang from the walls. The coffee just looks that little bit browner…

But enough about the space.

How is the coffee? Top-notch.

The long macc I had, was a double ristretto pour. A Mooba house-blend by 5 Senses, it was piquant and pure, rounded by the soft-sweet milk froth. (Abstract Gourmet said he’d hurt me if I used my wine terms for coffee, so I’m taking self-defence classes)

It’s what I would expect for a small business that is switched on. Facebook. Twitter. Blog. They’re there.

You need coffee on the run? SMS your order to the cafe’s dedicated number and pick it up as you breeze though.

Now that’s using the old noggin. And it the old noggin works best when it’s had a good cuppa.

Enjoy.

(Mooba also holds a small bar liquor licence)

So you’re fresh from your Christmas holidays with the crisp white pages of 2010 to unfold. Your desk is eerily vacant and suspended in time from the last joyous hours of 2009. You’re back into the daily grind till the cooling days of Autumn brings Easter (with more festivities). You also know what’ll help you along the days is coffee. Bitter, sweet, luscious and hot. And if you’re lucky enough to work in West Perth and be in need of the bean, there may be a little (coffee) house right up your alley (literally).

Pony Express O is a coffee house in reverse. Like me, you could be forgiven to think you’ve come through the rear, or heaven forbid, behind the bar. But you’d be wrong. If you’re trying to be smart and go on the other side of the bar, you’ll be faced with another expresso machine. Clearly the function of this coffee house is bring you to the steamy face of coffee. You get to see the extraction as clearly as the barista. This used to be the Ashton Stables, the building is now heritage listed. The space has been transformed. Art hangs from the walls, high airy ceilings upon to a faux-grassed lane-way under umbrellas. The only equine link is the rib-nudging name, Pony Express O. Get it. Hah Hah.

The brain-child of Garret of Blink in South Fremantle,  it carries some of those elements. Smart use of space, clear access to expresso machines, a funky coin payment system and above all else, fine coffee. Crema is his choice of bean. Get to know it. It’s the new Fiori. His attitude is casual, inquisitive and friendly. It’s a communal joint, where you’ll see regulars popping in, picking up conversations where they left off, and others lounging about reading books and eating their lunches. There is a bring-your-own-lunch policy here. Pony Express O plays its cards well, limited sweet pickings in favour of BYO. Bring your books too or read the paper, and use the foot massager. Yes that’s right. A foot massager.

Pony Express O

21 Mayfair Street West Perth

…and nobody gets hurt.

For this is my manta in the morning.

Okay. I may have a slight caffeine addiction, but I like the feeling caffeine gives to my brain – that tingly masseuse reinvigorating my neural pathways. And it tastes freaking good too, that is, if you have the right beans.

If you are a coffee buff in Perth then you would know 5 Senses. If you don’t know the brand, then I urge you to try them.

Essentially it started out as a PNG coffee grown by a small village in Papua New Guinea called Simbu. The local government funded a project to assist in sustainability and diversification. The coffee is grown on mixed use land so the growers are not reliant on coffee as an income per se.

This has three fold advantage:

• the environment is not cleared for a monoculture – thus biodiversity remains.
• the growers are not subject to punitive prices offered by multinational coffee houses – locking them into a cycle of poverty.
• because the land is mixed use, the growers can give the coffee bushes more attention to pest and disease management whilst still growing other crops for their own subsistence.

I won’t explore the flavour and aroma characteristics of this coffee because I don’t understand enough about coffee to do so.

All I know is, it’s very palatable for the tongue and the conscience.

A feature of all lunch bars in any industrial area, the plastic tasselled entry curtain suggests one of two things: the presence of flies and other winged insects are not wanted; and at some point during the year, a desire to keep the cold in, or the cold out. Today it was keeping the cold out. But only barely.

I’m standing in one here, in Wangara Industrial area. A market garden-cum-industrial precinct, which in the early 2000s, the greedy demand to service the mining boom, spread its tentacles in Perth.

Graced with only five dollars in my wallet squinting at the chalk board menu, my wet Vollyes squeak on the tiled floor announcing my presence. The moaning drone of an extractor fan from the open planned kitchen provides an auditory cover assuring an otherwise awkward entrance. I smell toasted sandwiches hissing on a hot plate. That kind of caramalised fried bread character, reminiscent of school tuck-shops—but these tuck-shops now are servicing bigger, hungrier kids.

My lift to pick me up (from dropping off my car for servicing) shan’t be long away. Ten minutes max. Long enough perhaps for a quick redeeming coffee from next door – the banana and almonds that formed a slapdash breakfast behind the wheel, failed to shoosh my groaning stomach.

An Asian man with a round face and piercing eyes greets me in his own take of an Australian welcome.

‘Goo-dae Mayte’. He smiles as he ferries fried goods to the bain-marie. His accent is thick Vietnamese.

He glistens under glistening foods under glistening lights. The fried wares include potato scallops, Chiko rolls and those ubiquitous beef cheese sausages that always look desiccated – the skin shrunk around a filling turned stubborn in the spotlight of cookery failure. I cringe at the thought of their complexion at the end of a day’s trade. Vomit rises in my mind.

‘G’day’, I casually say. I shiver from the cold and the radiant heat from the heat lamps is an odd but welcome comfort. I espy a coffee machine. It’s an automatic. A one button no-brainer. The kind you always find in delis and quasi ‘café’s’ less able to handle a proper extraction with a reasonably skilled barista.

I figure asking for an espresso would be too exotic, wankerish and probably lost in translation. After all this is a disparate lunch bar. English-as-a-second-language lunch bar owners, in a gruff industrial area like Wangara. Most of the customers are ‘true blue’ it makes Vegemite look like an import. I make no apologies for my assumption that the maxim for coffee around here is probably two, maybe three coffees. Cappuccino, Flat White and Long Black. ‘Can I please get a long black?’

The man gives me a cow eyed backwards stare towards the direction of a woman busying herself arranging patisseries wrapped in clingflim. Dusted with icing sugar, they too will glisten into a syrupy slime and soggy pastry at the end of the day. I imagine their clientele are not as fussy as me. She says something to him in Vietnamese.

‘Loan Blat?’ He says in hope and validation.

Yes, Long Black.

‘Wee Mil?’ She says.

No thanks.

‘Wee shoo-gar?’

No thanks.

‘Velly stlong Cob-bei’. The woman smiles. Her teeth are stained brown and wrinkles make deltas around her eyes.

Yeah, I smile.

I stand there rubbing the back of my neck as if it were stiff from bad posture. I need something to lurch my half slumbered brain from the memory of sleep.

The man stands there feigning to work the machine. I suspect this is a husband and wife team. Their business card I see later on the counter attests to this. She, in typical Asian wife fashion, elbows him off a kitchen apparatus ushering him to busy himself with something he can’t fuck up. A foam cup is placed under the double spout black with patina for one that is used as oft. It makes a hollow ‘tock’ sound. SHORT BLACK button is pressed.

Those automatic coffee machines always make a cascade of ricketing and clanging. It reminds me of an old five CD changer I once had. The cup fills by a steamy third.

Like most lunch bars in industrial areas feeding men with bottomless stomachs, more is ALWAYS better. The generosity of the woman in her smile and demeanour was not going to let me leave with a half filled cup. It will be another five minutes and two more buttons and a whole lot more clanging before the cup brims. I made a few more observations whilst waiting.

–I always feel impelled to make small talk about something, anything. But when there is a language barrier, I stand there and sense the other party wants to talk too, but can’t. I just smile like an idiot and feel my shortcomings of only knowing English.

–There is a tiny ATM in the corner. By tiny I mean tiny. If you were to put an existing ATM in a cardboard compactor and it had implosive joints this would be the result.

–Today’s paper is on sale. Another near air-disaster.

–There is a sinister looking marble budda on the counter covered in loose change. He has a one dollar in his mouth which looks like a gold chocolate coin.

–In the bain-marie there is something called ‘Wing Dings’. I’m slightly confused as to what part of what animal it has come from.

–There are some REALLY fresh fair dinkum Vietnamese spring-rolls. I’m almost tempted but remembering my caveman diet—Bugger.

–I love the way immigrants bring something from the old country to the new. The shrine in the corner , the ‘prosperity cat’ and above all a desire to own these little shops and eke out a living in fair go Australia. Lots of them work the jobs many Australians ‘can’t be arsed’, then we wonder why we’re not the ones driving around in a new Mercedes.

She over fills the last automatic pour and the crema is lost into the drip tray. Dam, the best part. The husband is out the back flipping the toasted cheese sandwiches which I must admit look appetising. She levels out the coffee and places a firm lid. I pick it up with both hands from hers. It feels like a hot water bottle. The foam is disconcertingly thin.

‘Tree dolla’. Bargain.

I stand outside. The sun has risen behind heavy cloud to the east and thinner bands rise from the south. It gives an otherworldly aura about this place in the light drizzle that I’m cowering to avoid. It’s eerily still and cold as a morgue. I inspect my cup of inspiration. Steam licks my face, whispering my eyelashes in warmth. I take a sip preparing myself for a Coffea draconica.

I’m reasonably impressed.

Not far off the beaten track in the Perth lies a bar with awesome coffee in a Bohemianesque atmosphere. Traversing down the little alleyway, tables are haphazardly strewn along the old brick walkway, moss encrusts most parts except where the inquisitive feet of others had tread before. The place is called Tiger, Tiger.

It has decor with real character: loungey like chairs that look more comfortable than they actually are, rustic pine tables and chairs and potted plants of various flora. Briskly walking down the allway one would possibly miss the little shop front, perhaps maybe if it wasn’t for the gloirous aroma of coffee wafting it’s way out.

The coffee standard is want I would expect from a place like this, superb. I know this all possibly sounds too wanky for most, but seriously the atmosphere rocks and the coffee is good, generally a hard find in Perth at the moment, except for those willing to walk off the beaten track.

As much as there is a massive power imbalance in the world, it is the tropical zones that are bolstering the round the clock function of the developed world. Our much beloved drug, caffeine, diligently serves society as an alertness crutch from students on late night literary rampages to pilots berthing a 370 ton highly explosive aluminum tube with wings. Without caffeine most of the developed world and fast ‘developing’ nations would swagger in pace. Caffeine the principle psychoactive compound in coffee (also guarana and tea), needless to say you are well acquainted with; is responsible for temporarily staving off drowsiness and increasing alertness.

Coffee the world’s beverage of choice for administering it, is almost exclusively grown in tropical and sub-tropical zones mostly in countries still developing. Coffee is second only to oil in the world’s most traded commodity, but most coffee growers receive about 1 cent per cup (when sold though multinational coffee brands). For a farm product that is very labour intensive to grow and harvest, coffee farmers are kept under poverty line by financially punitive conditions offered from their crop. Many less scrupulous multi-national companies pay in advance for growers’ crop, under the guise of what appears a modest sum. Growers are only to be trapped into a cycle debt year in year out, heaven forbid their crop doesn’t fail- such is the nature of agriculture.

Fair tradecoffee instigated by Oxfam serves to repay a ‘fair’ sum for coffee grown by producers. Hence when it came time for the annual Fair trade fortnight (and fair trade art exhibition) I was compelled to make make coffee cups bearing the 1 cent piece embedded in it, as a visual reminder to coffee drinkers just how much is handed back. Most of them sold, save 4, which still reside at the Oxfam shop on Hay St, Perth. They are on sale now and are half the price they were during the exhibition (half proceeds of the sale go to Fair Trade Collective), and the other half, covers the cost of production.

For those coffee drinkers out there, I hope you will attest to the difference real coffee makes when slurping away at your daily brew. Forget the instant freeze dried faux coffee that tastes more like road tar than divine cup of inspiration, freshly roasted and freshly ground beans is like colour vision to black and white.

But how does one acquire freshly roasted beans when all you see on the super market shelves are beans resembling finds out of a late Devonian archaeological dig?

Sniff out a local coffee roaster.

They are few and far between now-a-days but thanks to changing palates, discerning consumers and the influx of continental Europeans, we are witnessing a turnaround; with local coffee roasters popping up over the metro area.

Tips for the daily grind for the Daily Grind

-Buy enough beans to last you about a week (less if you can buy at 2-3 day intervals)

-Grind at home if you can, or get it ground to your specification.

-Be open and friendly to the staff, get to know the owner/ roaster (they may be able to do different blends for you) may be even a discount.

Have the small satisfaction every day that you are enjoying a real cup of coffee, if you can track down fair trade beans – good karma for you.