Pigeon Hole Cafe - Hobart

Pigeon Hole Cafe
93 Goulburn Street West Hobart, Tasmania
(03) 62369306
Open Tue-Sat, 8:30am until 4:30pm

Barely more than 12 months old, tiny Pigeon Hole in West Hobart, Tasmania, has carved a tidy niche for itself. It's café, gourmet edged, with a little retro style thrown in for good measure. With only 16 seats it’s a tiny venue – but it's big on promises and it well delivers. On the corner of Goulburn and Molle Streets, it's just far enough away from home, and close enough to everything, to encourage a move to West Hobart purely to have Pigeon Hole as your local.

After a favourable mention in Gourmet Traveller magazine and a smattering of awards – most recently an "I love FOOD" award for 2009 – Pigeon Hole is no longer a well-kept secret. Word spreads fast in this town, and the hole in the wall space fills fast with locals and travellers alike clambering for great coffee, a spot of lunch or a chat with the very professional and very unpretentious owner/occupiers who put on a constantly stellar performance.

Chef Jay Patey (of restaurant 373 fame) runs an impressive one man show in his tiny kitchen, turning out a daily selection of tasty treats influenced by seasonal and locally available products. Perhaps you may have a white bean, garlic and lemon soup with house-made bread, or you might choose from a selection of the famous paninni, with inspired filings like salami, cornichons and provolone, or fennel, chilli and mozzarella.

Breakfast options are limited, but the house-made baked beans on toast with a generous helping of Parmesan are belly warming. Simple options like Miellerie honey on toast prove a popular choice, and the butter is churned and pressed on premises. There is no fuss here – these guys make the restaurant game look easy. Oh, and the coffee is good too.

With many Hobart cafes charging $15+ for meal, it is refreshing to see value, with no dishes on the menu more than $12, average prices sitting around the $10 mark. Coffee is superb, and surely must be reasonably priced, although I've never asked how much. I just pay whatever I am told. It's obvious that the focus here is on quality, not quantity, and the pricing is generously fair.

Rumor also has it that the owners have their eye on a few potential locations for a second venue. Potentially, there could be another cafe in the Hobart city area for the office lunch crowd, but they are also playing with the idea of a night time venue as well. Fingers crossed.

A little bit of Pho in Box Hill: Pho 888

Personally, I think any good pho restaurant warrants a mention in any cheap eats guide. And since we are in Melbourne, there are many.

Pho is just one of those quick, cheap but memorable meals. In my experience, outstanding pho restaurant never has 300 items on the menu. It concentrates on its broth, its noodles and its meat.

Pho 888 happens to be one of those places. The dining room is sparse, of course, but bright and clean. The wait staff relatively attentive. Drinks consist of your usual free thermos Chinese tea, three-coloured drink, various Asian fruit smoothie (heavily ladened with condensed milk) - your usual Vietnamese drink fare. All around $3. No license, I gathered but why pass on those blended, icy condensed milk (or coconut milk) goodness for something as boring as beer?

The soup, on the other hand, is beautifully rich. Both beef and chicken broth are perfectly well done - with the right amount of meat, fresh, silky noodles and sprinkling of green herbs. Choose your own condiments of beansprouts, lemon, chilli and Thai basil. I forgo them out of respect for the soup.

The rice dishes, on the other hand, are nothing to write home about. They consisted of Vietnamese Broken Rice ('broken' rice with grilled pork chop, fried egg, pork rind mix and salad), crispy chicken on tomato rice and your usual grilled pork or chicken chop on rice. They are decent but not outstanding. Unlike the pho.

Really, just under $10 for a massive pho of great, warming, tasty soup, I go back there quite often. Please don't stalk me.

Pho 888 Box Hill, 552 Station Street, Box Hill VIC 03 9890 1390
Noodle soups $7.5 (S), $8.5 (M), $9.5 (L), Rice dishes $8.5, Drinks around $3. No license.