Colonial Cafe

Rating: 2

We ate lunch here in August 2025.

Loaded wedges
Carrot cake
Steak and jalapeño pie
Banana smoothie
Chai latte

A weekday lunch out in the CBD? Now we are into an unusual dining experience for Business Andy and the Fee-Rex. But when first aid course and a work-from-office day collide, lunch at Colonial Cafe is what results. There were plenty of working-in-the-city types frequenting the cafe, but based on our experience today they could probably get better food elsewhere

Let’s start with a high - the pie had tender steak, no gristle, and crisp flaky pastry. It was a bloody good steak and cheese pie. But there was not a jalapeño to be seen (or tasted) so we’d have to say it wasn’t a good steak and jalapeño pie.

The wedges were passable but we could have done without the salsa - a sweet chilli or perhaps a relish yes, but we can’t get behind the addition of a salsa which brings an unwanted nacho-ness to the dish.

It was hard to tell whether the banana smoothie contained any actual banana at first, which is a prerequisite to being a banana smoothie (no real banana = banana milkshake). Luckily the presence of real banana was confirmed, unluckily it was by sucking up chunks of unblended banana. Points off.

The cake was okay, maybe a little dry at the crust but the icing was tasty and the slice was a good size. And lastly, the chai latte was a pallid affair, it wasn’t particularly sweet or spicy with the dominant impression being ‘cup of hot milk’.