Pedestrian & Passenger: Manchester Press @ CBD

Rankins Lane

Can't remember was this last Saturday or the one before...

Manchester Press, another awesome cafe well hidden in the middle of a laneway at CBD, nonetheless had enough people to look up this hidden cafe treasure to make it one of the top cafe in Melbourne cbd. It is highly recommended by a lot of people for breakfast and brunch, which I had found out why by having breakfast there a few times before, but this time I was there for a afternoon tea/post-lunch coffee at late afternoon and luckily they are one of a few cafes that open till 5 PM daily (yes not 3PM or 4PM...it opens till 5PM) even on the weekend.

After my not so great late lunch and with a time gap till I have to be at my next appointment, I walked pass a few cafes that I wanted to try/go and they were either closed or closing at that time...

The old vintage deco of the cafe provides a hips atmosphere yet comfortable enough for you to sit around either by yourself (like I do) or with friends (like the others in the cafe). And this place must be well introduced on travel websites, as I could hear Japanease, Chinese, French and some European language that I am not educated enough to pick up around me, for the duration of me being there which was only the time of me consuming a muffin and coffee.

iced latte

Once again i ordered an iced latte. It is just the perfect form of an iced coffee: No excessive milk, No uncontrolable sweetness from syrupy or ice-cream, Not oversized that will make you sickly full after. Just a shot of coffee with a bit of milk and a few iced cube. It sounds simple, but takes a bit of skills to perfect so the end result is still strong and rich, like an chilled coffee, and not a latte that watered down by the ice and cold milk...

Staff are friendly and attentive.(i need to learn more adjective to describe services, tho these words are best to describe their staff) Greeted and seated once I step into the cafe, bottle of water delivered and menu in hand when I ordered a coffee. In addition, one of the staff from behind the counter had came over to make sure I was ok while I was holding the menu and looking around, which embarrassingly I was just thinking about how I can take photos around the cafe at where I sat...

Ordered a pistachio and berry muffin to go with my coffee. The soft muffin is not overly sweet even though it has got cream on top of it. You can still see and taste chucks of berries in the muffin and it is enhanced with the scent of pistachio, which add another layer to the taste of the dough of the muffin.

Even though this doesn't bother me, I do remember there's a lady asking about this when I was here for breakfast last: The only problem with Manchester Press is that if you don't like bagel, they don't have other bread on the menu, (although they are famous for their bagels)
They have a variety: open bagel, closed bagel, toasted bagel, plain bagel, bagel with salmon, etc etc but yes they are all bagels, their cakes and sweet on display is probably the only baked goods alternative they have. And speaking of bakes, their baked eggs are also fabulous...