Big Tree House Cafe (Rydalmere, Sydney)

It's nice to find out through social media of new cafes and restaurants. Especially when this cafe is so close to home, I would even say it is within walking distance!

Big Tree House is a cute cafe located in the suburb of Rydalmere. It is one of 2 stores located amongst a row of houses. Quite unusual to see a cafe situated in this way. But it works; people come and have a coffee, breakfast or lunch. Ultimately that's all that matters!

Once I found out about it through Instagram, I decided to visit over a few weekends. So please don't think I had all these in one go! :)

Gang nam style burger - I kicked off my first meal by having one of the specials. It was soy marinated beef, with onions, lettuce, mushroom, served with crispy kipfler. The beef was juicy, tender and bang full of flavour. The brioche bun was nicely soft. Yum!

Note: This dish has since been incorporated to their menu.

Corn fritters with poached eggs, bacon, avocado, and tomato relish. The eggs were perfectly poached and I loved the combination of bacon with the corn fritters. Nice!

Ricotta pancakes with honey cinnamon butter, and caramelised bananas. Lovely caramelised flavours without being overtly sweet. The pancakes were soft and fluffy but had an interesting texture because of the ricotta.

Element6 Cafe (West Ryde, Sydney)

I think I have said it before on my blog that I can be so slow sometimes. Well, when it comes to this cafe I was slow! It has taken me so long to check it out and am I glad I did!

Element6 is located on the quiet and slow end of West Ryde. It is on the side where the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club is located and is seriously the only place on the strip of shops showing any signs of life.

Who would think there would be a cool, hip and very happening cafe here? But there is.

My post covers 3 visits I have done over the past few weeks. The first 2 were at breakfast and the 3rd was at lunch time.

Moroccan spiced baked eggs with chickpeas, eggplant, haloumi, zhough and dukkah. Served with some warmed Lebanese bread.

How good was it?!? Let's just say I finished it up and was full as. Loved the spices, and the saltiness of the haloumi added another dimension to the baked eggs. Loved it!

Honeybee smoothie banana with cinnamon, yoghurt and honey. Deliciously creamy!

E6 fav of Rosemary garlic mushrooms with 2 poached eggs, haloumi, baby spinach, roast tomato on sourdough.

It was a very generous serving of mushrooms. Talk about abundance. And the 2 poached eggs were perfectly cooked. They looked too perfect to break into to but I did it anyway. Another great dish!

This time I ordered a 'green with envy' smoothie which consisted of kale, spinach, green apple, lemon, beets, cucumber, parsley, mint and agave. Suffice to say it was delicious, it didn't taste like it was full of veggies and I loved it enough to order it the 3rd time I was there. I sure felt healthy drinking it! :)