Stirling Highway

The restaurant is quite ok. I usually order pasta. The quality is not bad, but it’s quite small amount of food for the price. However, compare to some other restaurants available in this condominium, this is one of the better restaurants. You can get ice water for free here.

I think Stirling Highway is a keeper. It’s not pretentious, the owners have thought through their concept to fit the lack of manpower (self serve your water, cutlery and pay at the counter) and most importantly, they’ve focused on a short but very well executed menu of food and drinks. The difference between this café and the 10 competitors opening in gentrified areas every month is subtle, but I like it.
Lets start with the music. They were playing Lana Del Ray on a Labor Day morning. This is what I call a ladies kind of joint. Now all I needed was a stack of I: Dand W magazines and I’d be here all afternoon.
Next the menu is remarkably short and I like it. I had a side poached egg salad that arrived in a stunningly simple plate. Butter head lettuce as promised… and perfect egg sitting on top sprinkled with cracked black pepper and paprika (at least that’s what it tasted like). I also noticed some chopped pickled onions. All I can is this was an explosion of flavors and textures in my mouth. Excellent. I also had the pulled pork pancakes as my main and I thought the pancakes (more like silver dollar pancakes by my hungry stomach /​maybe «American» standards aka I’m a growing child) were wonderfully light and fluffy but I wasn’t a fan of the pulled pork. This carnitas was a little dry and didn’t do it for me. Some lessons in the South maybe? It can be overcome by dousing your stack with maple syrup but I feel like that almost insulted the idea of the dish.
Food aside (and mind you I intend to come back and try the delish looking carrot cake), the drink menu is interesting too. They offer a selection of unique loose tea flavors that are really fragrant. When my friend opened her pot of earl grey, I exclaimed that it didn’t smell of earl grey and we realized it was *cream* earl grey. It’s fun to see a tea –centric list instead of the usual «oh we serve blah blah gourmet coffee from Indonesia by way of Australia and oh bow at my hallowed frothy milk skillz». I personally am an orange pekoe and rooibos purist but props for bringing in some unique flavors. Yes don’t worry there is a monster-​looking coffee machine here so if that’s your pick me up, go figure.
Stirling has a great catchment of customers from the surrounding condos so I hope they stick around. Affordable, simple and unpretentious.