Badde Manors Cafe, Glebe

Nathan and I are exhausted. It is Australia Day and we've spent ages (forty minutes...) trekking to Sydney University for a Sydney Grade Twenty20. It's also stinking hot and we've just walked half way up Glebe Point Road looking for Wedge Espresso, only to give up and then spot it on the way back. (It was closed, but since then I've been three times--it is amazing!)

Exhausted, bursting to get to the cricket (well, Nathan is anyway) and melting, we stopped at the first cafe that looked decent--Badde Manors.

Every time I have walked past the corner-hugging cafe it has been packed to the brims. I thought we couldn't go wrong.

We swiftly order drinks: a frappuccino ($6.50) and organic orange juice. The pricing for both is ridiculous and the drinks are, really, just horrible. My frappuccino is very weak, and tastes closer to blended milk and ice. There are massive chunks of ice littered throughout and the texture is as uneven as can be. At $5.80 we are equally disappointed with Nathan's "organic" orange juice. It tastes no better than Golden Circle Orange juice which comes at $5.50 for four litres last time I checked.

The menu is quite extensive, and cheap. The stuffed crumb mushrooms are tempting, so are the two risottos available. Among other things, there's a Cajun-spiced eggplant schnitzel, a falafel burger and a Mediterranean platter, but I opt for the sweetcorn, capsicum and coriander cakes. They sound delicious, are recommended by the waitress and are a meagre $12.50.

While we wait, we take the time to observe the service and the decor. A stack of gig posters line the walls, however, apart from this, the space is really low key: spread across a couple of rooms, some booth seating, a handful or two of your average table and chair setting and a nice little display cabinet of goodies in the main area. It's a tad off-putting that general junk and cleaning utensils dot the back end of the cafe (down towards the bathrooms--which are themselves not the cleanest).

Apart from this, the service is okay, if a bit distant. The location is ace: near the Broadway end of the culinary heaven that Glebe Point Road is growing into and roughly 100 metres to Broadway Shopping Centre. The cafe itself is not bad as such, and neither is the food.

My crispy sweetcorn, capsicum and coriander cakes served with baby spinach, sauteed mushroom, fresh tomato and homemade tomato chutney are quite delicious. The texture is a bit doughy and really, they're nothing special, but for $12.50, I am not complaining. The outer skin is slightly crisp, the coriander flavour makes this a pleasant variation of your standard corn fritters and the mushrooms are marinated excellently. The tomato chutney has a bit of bite. Not bad, I say: JUST THOSE DRINKS...

Badde Manors Cafe, 1/37 Glebe Point Road, Glebe