Cafe Plateia

Pran Central, Prahran 3181
Visited: 13th Jan 2012

Cafe Plateia is a cute little cafe in the middle of the busy Pran Central dining area.  This is only the second time I've been here, but it's certainly not only the second time I've eaten the food here - usually our aunt orders and buys the entire beef or pork roast home LOL.

It was just past one o'clock when we got there.  My aunt is a usual customer, and usually she has to go early because there are always people waiting for the roast at lunchtime - if you're late you miss out, because the beef will be gone.  In case you're wondering, I took the pictures as we were leaving - all the tables were full before and there were too many people at the counter as we were eating to get a good shot of the place. You can choose any roast of the day, with two vegetable sides for just $12.00.  Today I had the roast pork with gravy (you can have apple sauce as well) and chips.

Pork with crackle, gravy and chips

Look at the generous amount of pork drowned in thick, flavoursome gravy and huge chunk of crackle.  The pork is so tender, juicy and absolutely delicious.  My favourite part of the roast is the crackle.  It is so salty and full of crunchy goodness. I absolutely LOVE it!

Beef with pork & crackle, with gravy and scalloped potatoes

MerlinFan was really lucky - she came just in time for the last bit of beef.  There wasn't quite enough to make up the entire dish worth, so the man offered to make up for it with some pork and crackle.  Hey, the best of both worlds, right?  The beef is gorgeous as well.  Really tender and yummy and just falls apart as you cut into it... MerlinFan is salivating just thinking about it now :P.  The scalloped potatoes are soft, perfectly cooked and seasoned.

Spanakopita

My aunt had the spanakopita, which is filled with spinach, feta cheese, egg and onions.  I have tried it before when she ordered it and although I'm not a fan of spinach, I did like the feta and really light pastry.

We had coffees after.  I saw another customer having an iced coffee, and I thought to myself damn, I'm having one of those!

Iced Coffee

The iced coffee is just divine.  It is seriously the best iced coffee I have had in ages.  The coffee is silky smooth and creamy, yet strong and bitter; it is perfectly balanced by the sweet vanilla ice cream.  I love iced coffees that come with ice cream.  

Obviously, you can tell I love the food here.  By the way, we also had a turkey specially made by the cafe owner for Christmas, and it was delicious.  Juicy, tender and the meat was literally falling off the bone as we tried to remove it from the wrapping.  It was filled with the most generous risotto stuffing - I actually enjoyed this much more than classic bread turkey stuffing.

Christmas Turkey - so tender the meat had fallen off the legs.  Also note the risotto stuffing spilling out.

Next time, I will consider coming here instead of buying it home... just so that I can have the iced coffee again :P