Cafe Hana Rosa, Paddington

Once upon a time, we lived in Paddington. Well, actually we lived in Roselie, but being so close to Paddington, we would often walk into Paddington to hit up a cafe and pick up groceries for the week.

However since being flooded out of our apartment some 4 years ago and leaving the suburb, we haven’t been back as often as I’d like. Some of the cafes are no longer familiar, so when we found ourselves in the area over the Australia Day weekend, we walked into one such cafe, Hana Rosa.

Cafe Hana Rosa is an organic cafe on the Latrobe Terrace strip and I love the quaint homely atmosphere they have with the sunshine yellow walls, some of which are covered from ceiling to floor with posters.

Orders are made at the counter from a menu split between breakfast and light meals. The SO chose to combat his hunger pangs with the Big Breakfast from the breakfast menu, while I channelled a bird and pecked at a ham and cheese croissant from the light meals section.

The Big Breakfast. AUD$17

Ham and Cheese Croissant. AUD$5

The Big Breakfast is not the biggest breakfast we’ve seen, but it is a very decent portion with beautifully crisp fresh salad dressed in a thick apple sauce-like dressing. We were a little taken back by the thickness of the dressing, but it really worked well with the salad leaves and fresh quartered tomatoes. Even the bacon wasn’t particularly fatty, upping its health-o-meter in our book.

The Ham and Cheese Croissant was not as buttery and flakey as one would expect a proper croissant to be, but it was comforting served warm with a far more ample slice of ham than cheese.

Service was prompt and friendly. Coupled with decent coffee, Cafe Hana Rosa is a lovely peaceful stop on one of the busiest cafe strips in Paddington.