Cafe Vue, Melbourne Airport

Yup, more airport "dining".  Much like my review last week of the baked goods from Bar Pulpo by Movida, I visited one other location in the Melbourne Airport to acquire some goods to bring on my flight to supplement in-flight dining: Cafe Vue.

Storefront.

The moment you get through duty-free in the Melbourne International Airport, Terminal 2, there is a cafe with a bright pink neon sign.  It gets pretty awful reviews.  But clearly, attracts the captive audience, as it is the first dining establishment you encounter airside.

"If you are heading overseas, Café Vue located past customs also offers a range of quick take away meals, cakes, chocolates and pastries as well as exceptional coffee.  

Our signature Café Vue Airline boxes (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) are designed to be taken on board your flight. Full table service is offered throughout the café with a quick snack menu and a more substantial, traditional menu available as a la carte or a fixed priced Menu du Jour. This is available for lunch and dinner accompanied by an extensive wine, beer and cocktail list. Change the way you fly!"

And I still had more hope for this than even more stale food on board?

Menu.

Cafe Vue offers a bit of everything.  A cold case with pre-made sandwiches.  Pastries.  Cookies.  Coffee drinks with 5 Senses coffee, "an exclusive blend crafted by Five Senses and Vue de monde".  Beer, wine, smoothies, milkshakes, cocktails.  A menu for sit down dining with sandwiches, salads, burgers, meat pies, ect.  There were signs about "Airline boxes" too, intended as quick grab and go items, but I didn't see any actual details on these.

I opted to just get a few baked goods for my flight, avoiding the likely mediocre airport dining, and moving on to the Qantas First Class lounge for my actual meal.

Cookie jars, bottled drinks, whole fruit .

The counter area starts with grab and go drinks, fruit, and cookies.

From the jars, I got both cookies, one large peanut butter cookie, one small "yo-yo".  They were out of chocolate chip.

Peanut Butter Cookie. $6.90.

This was a large cookie, and not the style of peanut butter cookie I am accustomed to at all.  It was a hard style, with halves of peanuts in it, in a base that wasn't as ... peanut buttery as the type of peanut butter cookies I like.  It was almost more like a slightly peanut flavored shortbread, with peanut halves in it, if that makes sense.

Not my thing, but I brought it to my peanut butter cookie loving partner, who took one bite, and made a face.  Clearly, not his style either.

Yo-Yo. $3.00.

What is a yo-yo?  I have no idea.  But, why not try it?

It seemed to be a fairly plain cookie sandwich with sweet filling.  Maybe some lemon flavors to it.  Hard style cookies, very sweet overall.  Eh.

Cold Case Desserts.

From the dessert cold case, I got the granola bar and chocolate crispy thing, as the pickings were slim.

I almost got another dessert item, but I didn't think the cupcake would hold up well, I dislike citrus desserts (so no orange cake or lemon tart), and everything else was sold out.  I was sad the Fairy Bread cupcake was sold out, as I do love 100s and 1000s!

Granola Bar. $8.50.

The granola bar I purchased to enjoy layer in my journey when I would potentially need something substantial if in-flight dining failed me.

It was actually a really good housemade granola bar, loaded with nuts (halves of peanuts, slivers of almonds), seeds (sunflower, pepitas), and dried fruit (raisins, golden raisins, dates).  It was sticky, in messy fingers way, but enjoyable at the same time.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

It had a great play of textures, nice sweetness (although, much like a dessert, not really a snack), and I liked how peanut forward it was.  I'd get this again.

Valrhona Chocolate Crackle. $4.50.

The chocolate crispy crackle thing was a bit amusing.  The cashier tried to cram it into a plastic container, but it wouldn't close.  So he just mashed it in, and left the lid open, shrugging, and saying "it doesn't fit".  No solution was offered.

It was actually quite satisfying though, in the "morning" on my flight.  Crispy, slightly sticky, chocolate rice crispies.  It was kinda like having chocolate breakfast cereal, which, at the time, was not a bad thing.  It did use decent Valrhona chocolate, it wasn't just mildly chocolate rice crisps.  I nearly ordered some milk on the flight to just have with it, and really make a sweet cereal.

This was in the cold case, and solid when handed over, but, it crumbled immediately as it warmed up, and didn't hold together at all.  It required a spoon to eat, which wasn't bad, just, messy.  An odd item, but I enjoyed it at the time.  I'd get it again ... for breakfast too.

Sandwiches, Salads, Yogurts, Fruit.

I skipped all the pre-made sandwiches, salads, and yogurt and muesli pots, as I didn't need real food, and I didn't want refrigerated items.

Pastries.

The pastries line up was a bit depleted, just banana bread, one type of muffin, and raisin swirls, although the signs indicate that they normally have several types of croissants and more muffins.

From the pastries, a muffin, the only kind they had, which I was told was raspberry.

Raspberry Muffin. $5.20.

This was actually not too bad.

It was a bit dry, with quite a crisp top, but, the flavor was nice, and I liked the generous fruit, the berries added moisture and fruity bursts of flavor.  Better than those from Bar Pulpo.