In Short: Brighton Soul Espresso allows you to indulge in all your foodie moods! If you want to be good, you cannot go past the Blue Hippy Bowl. If you want to be bad, get your lips around one of their selection of Freak Shakes to take you to your sugar happy place.
I have this endless dilemma of choosing what to eat when a new café or restaurant comes up on our list – do I be good and go #cleanandlean, or do I go all out and go #delicious? Well, let’s be honest, for someone that loves food as much as I do this is a competition between my naughty and nice side on a daily basis! But now, I have found a café, with a wonderland of choices to satiate whatever side ‘wins’ the food war battle in my belly. Throw in the fact that many of the dishes and drinks on this menu are totally and utterly instagrammable, and it doesn’t take much to convince Steve to head on down to satisfy his need of wanting more content of beautiful food.
So, enter Brighton Soul Espresso nestled on the much-loved Church St in leafy Brighton in south-east Victoria. It’s an un-assuming place but one that cannot be missed. Follow the crowds at 3.30pm any afternoon during the week, or line up on the weekend, and you know they’ve got the formula right. Their menu is equal parts good-food-for-the-soul, and delightful-food-for-the-eyes. It’s just up to your mood as to what you decide!
For us, it’s been a long and full week in the lead up to Christmas, so we decide to take an afternoon break, and head over for a treat. Now, just for the record I had all the good intentions to be good (despite what the Insta story on the day portrayed!) and started with one of their new summer treats, the Red Velvet Iced Brew. It is a rarity these days to go into any café without some version of a cold drip, cold brew, or iced latte. So Brighton Soul have taken this trend and offered something for the caffeine-challenged, no matter what time of the day it is. And, just as you would expect, this iced brew is making the insta rounds, for very legit reasons! It’s everything to love about a cold brew, but with delicately sweet flavours of red velvet mixed with milk and poured over ice, to get me off to a wholesome start to the afternoon.
I followed this up with one of my favourite dishes on Brighton Soul’s menu (I’ve been here a few times for this one!), the Blue Hippie Bowl. If you like your acai bowls, but you’re craving something a little different, then put this one on your list. It has all the goodness of blue algae, blended together with mango, and topped with strawberries and granola to give this dish a whole variety of textures and tastes. The vibrant hue of the blue, and the smell of mango and strawberries, made it feel like I was eating my own little piece of paradise. Knowing that this was also good for me, made it all that little more heavenly!
My fellow Coco & Viner Steve, however, decided he would go all out and ordered up the Wagyu Burger served on a beetroot bun, which he tried to claim was ‘healthy’…nice try! He didn’t really regret it, as he took a bite of the juicy and succulent patties of beef, sandwiched between a decadent melt of cheese, sitting proudly between the soft and fluffy red buns. It had the look and feel of a home-made burger, but with a sophisticated twist with a special mix of spicy-ness in the meat and in the sauce. I looked away for a minute, and when I spun my head back around it was demolished! Need I say more?
Clearly, that wasn’t enough. and I had listened to one of Steve’s more regular statements all the way in the car ride over “…hon, I feel like something sweet…”. So sweet is what we got, in the form of the Blue Unicorn Freak Shake. This shake is anything but ordinary, and feels like you are in some kind of magical, fantasy land where rainbows and unicorns and glitter really do exist. Forget the sugar hangover you wake up with from this indulgent wonderland, just do it. Go wild. Go on, you know you want to! What could be more fun than reliving your youth and losing yourself in the flavours of the insane, vanilla-flavoured Persian floss, blue heart marshmallows, a donut ‘lid’, ice cream, and a base of lollies. And, that’s even before you’ve taken a sip of the shake itself! Utter, joyful, decadent overload!! Definitely get your freak on and lick the strawberry icing coated glass that’s been rolled in nerds. ‘Nuf said!
Brighton Soul Espresso is a place for all your foodie moods – be good, be bad, be a small kid, be a big kid; be a mung-bean-kombaya-clean-freak, or a nerd-munching-donut-shake-freak; everyone is welcome!
Bianca@forfoodssake says
All about the @delicious life 🙂 The food looks great!