La Veen Coffee & Kitchen – Bruschetta Battle Round 4!

In the past fortnight or so I have been to La Veen three times. Fairly high stats given that prior to this I’d not been once. Don’t get me wrong I’ve wanted to go for a while, but King Street in town isn’t currently close to the office so it was going to need to be a pre-planned breakfast visit.

So one of those had been a catch up coffee with someone I find particularly inspiring and who is one of the organisers of the Dine for Life fundraising dinner, so that was lovely and great to hear their plans for the 2014 event. We just met for a coffee, but I may have grabbed a muffin on my way out. And it was white chocolate and raspberry and it was amazing (and so filling!)

Then my second visit was to catch up with my frequent breakfasting companion Mrs P. La Veen had been on our growing breakfast wish list and finally it’s number was up. It had a nice looking menu with some lunch/breakie cross over options, which I often find myself distracted by. However I was drawn to an item that ticked the box for two of my ‘B’ loves – bagels and bruschetta! Oh yes the breakfast bruschetta battle was on. This was a real unique spin with the bruschetta on the bagel and I opted not to add an egg given that the bagels came served with a side salad and fries. Oh yes I can appreciate that perhaps fries aren’t a traditional breakfast food but you gotta live a little sometimes so fries it was! And it was just a polite amount of fries….. not a mountain of them.

I also ordered a coffee because what I’d learnt from my first visit was that they made a very decent coffee here. And I don’t know much about coffee, so it’s memorable when one makes a bit of an impression.

I thought the dish I had chosen presented well. Not a giant bagel but it was nicely topped with ample freshly diced tomatoes, torn basil leaves and a generous crumbling of creamy goats cheese. The piping hot fries were elegantly arranged in a separate container and wonderfully seasoned with a really interesting spice and it was refreshing to have the crunch of the green salad to finish with. I really enjoyed my breakfast and it was a nice size, so it adequately dented my appetite, though I wasn’t overly full. Could I have eaten two poached eggs on top? Maybe…. next time I suppose 🙂 And in terms of where it stacked up in the bruschetta battle, hard to say really, given it was such a different spin and didn’t have a eggs, but given my love of bagels I did really enjoy it.

My third visit  again was just for coffee, to enjoy another cup of their luscious caffeinated goodness. I called in for a large take away flat white after rocking out to the 6am Box and Bike class at the Queen Street Gym, run by Rai Fazio. A very fun and energetic class, a chance to rock out my pink boxing gloves and given the very early start, a post class coffee was definitely in order.

I’m a big fan of La Veen and I look forward to heading back some time again soon.