Sprolo Espresso, South Perth
I first heard about Sprolo Espresso on Twitter, and what caught my interest was the ‘Traditional Singaporean’ breakfast, with sous vide eggs (the modern chef’s take on Singaporean half-boiled eggs) and sourdough toast with butter and kaya (coconut and egg jam).
The name ‘Sprolo’ is a mash-up from ‘spro’ (barista’s abbreviation for espresso) and ‘yolo’ (acronym for “you only live once”). Their coffee is made from beans roasted in-house by Blacklist Coffee Roasters.
We arrived a little after 9am on Tuesday. Quite a few punters, but no problem getting a table. We placed our order at the counter, and our drinks were delivered soon afterward. I ordered a cold brew coffee, which I tasted for the first time last year and discovered I really like. Made with sparkling water and served black on ice, it’s like bitter dark chocolate. Jac’s cold-pressed strawberry lemonade was made by local juice company The World’s Healthiest Juice Company.
The food arrived quickly. Jac ordered the smashed avocado bagel, strikingly lurid in monster green, the avocado more mashed than smashed, with deep pink beetroot hummus flecked with black sesame seeds. The salt crystals that studded the chewy bagel provided much needed crunch to its mostly mushy contents (you know me – just writing about this bagel and I’m missing the meat all over again).
My Traditional Singaporean was everything I craved that morning: two jelly-like, bulbous eggs (sitting beautifully in an egg-shaped bowl), a pile of toast, housemade kaya topped with toasted coconut flakes and Pepe Saya cultured butter, joyously soft for spreading. In an accompanying basket, the essential kopitiam accompaniments of white pepper and soy sauce. Knives and forks were in a metal bucket on the table, but the eggs really need a spoon.
Certainly, we can cook soft boiled eggs at home – either the old-fashioned way in a saucepan like my grandma did, or even better, thanks to a Singaporean mate, using one of these gizmos – but let’s face it, most of us could make breakfast at home, right?
Pepe Saya butter
This was my first taste of Pepe Saya butter, after reading about it on numerous Sydney food blogs for the last couple of years and having followed Pepe Saya on Twitter for sometime. Pepe Saya butter is handcrafted in Tempe in Sydney’s inner west, using local fresh cream that is ‘cultured’ by the addition of lactobacillus (‘good bacteria’), left to ferment for 24 hours, then aged for a month. The butter is then churned and worked by hand. They also make butter to custom specifications for a number of top restaurants and Qantas serves Pepe Saya butter to passengers on international first class flights and business class flights from Australia. I guess you’d like to know what I thought of the butter? It was wonderful!
It was a very pleasant first visit to Sprolo Espresso. There’s not much else to attract you to this particular section of Canning Highway, but judging by the steady flow of customers, food and coffee lovers have found their way to Sprolo – and love it. It’s a welcome, relaxed oasis from the highway traffic. By our count, the cafe seats just under 50 people, with well spaced tables and a couch next to the front window to soak up the sunshine. There’s a kids’ play area with a blackboard, which got a good work-out while we were there.
The menu is simple, mostly toasties and bagels, annotated to show dairy-free, gluten-free, nut-free, vegetarian and vegan options. Next time, I’d like to try the strawberry and mint iced tea, but for food it’ll be hard for me to go past the comfort and pleasure of the Traditional Singaporean. If you haven’t tried this savoury-sweet breakfast combo before, carpe diem!
Sprolo Espresso
138 Canning Hwy
South Perth WA 6151
Telephone: 0401 625 134
Monday to Saturday 7am to 4pm
Will open on Sundays from 9 November onwards
Parking available onsite
We were able to go out for breakfast at 9am on a weekday because I’m still on leave and Jac had the day off – we had a funeral to attend. This was much-needed fuel for a difficult day ahead.