The Garden Cafe

What's your favorite song?  How about your favorite food?  movie?  book?  These are difficult questions to answer if you have a broad range of interests and tastes.  My answers to the questions above would be: whatever I'm listening to, eating, watching, or reading at the time.  When someone here in PE hears about my Coffee Crawl, one of the first things they ask is which coffee shop has been my favorite.  Yet another difficult question.  Perhaps at one of the Crawls we will generate a favorite to least favorite list.  If we do I'll vote for this week's Crawl site, The Garden Cafe, to be somewhere near the top.






Meet the manager/chef
Craig Joyce

  



























The garden Cafe (previously the Khoi San Restaurant) is located in the Sherwood Garden Centre, 16 Walker Drive in Sherwood.  The shop is being redecorated and the menu revamped by the new owner, Tarryn Kock, and her chef brother, Craig Joyce.  Now what I really like about The Garden Cafe is the relaxed and serene atmosphere.  To get to the coffee shop you first stroll through the beautifully maintained Sherwood Gardens.  The Crawlers have been to some other nursery/garden coffee shops where the plants/trees/shrubs look like they have seen better days.  This is certainly not the case at Sherwood Nursery.  Even though I'm not much for gardening I can appreciate all the work that goes into making these gardens so lush.  The walkways, with benches and interesting fountains, lead patrons to The Garden Cafe entrance.  The spacious cafe seats 80-100 people and features a comfortable lounge area.

Meet the Barista
Siphokozi

This week's Crawlers, June Nash, Beth Vieira, Fran and Keith de Beer, Nomusa Nkomo, Les Baldwin, and Gail Darne, assembled at the couches and overstuffed chairs and, had we not decided to move to the table Craig had organized for us, we'd probably still be there.  The Garden Cafe's owner, Tarryn, was not in the shop on Thursday morning but her brother, Craig, greeted and seated us all.  While barista, Siphokozi, prepared our delicious Miko brand coffees Craig spent lots of time chatting with us about the shop, coffee, and his real passion, food.  Craig has had three years of culinary school and ten years of practical chef experience.  His creations are on the breakfast/lunch menu that is served every day from 8:30-5:00.  The Garden Cafe is also available for special events, corporate functions, weddings, children's parties, and off-site catering.  I imagine the wedding photos in the gardens would be amazing.

Craig shared with us some info on his new business venture.  He is the new owner/chef of The Oyster Catcher located at the PE harbor.  He is now in the process of renovating the restaurant and it will be open for business on Tues., Oct. 25.  We all got a sneak peak at the menu... Craig, I'll be calling you for reservations for 4 for opening night.  Everyone, be sure to check out PE's "newest" seafood restaurant opening soon!!!

So, talk at the table on Thursday started out light and got progressively heavier as the morning wore on.  After our chat with Craig we got to talking about the DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles).  I guess it doesn't matter where in the world you live, getting in line at the DMV puts life in slo-mo.  Same goes for the Post Office...  We next got into a discussion of politics and education, then the politics of education in the four countries repped by the Crawlers (SA, Zimbabwe, UK, U.S.).  This was then followed by the recent civil rights histories of our respective countries.....one could write a book!!!  All this talk of politics, government, and human rights...... and we're all still friends.  Perhaps we should invite some U.N reps to the Coffee Crawl.

Okay, let me lighten things up again with Keith's useless fact-of-the-week... Otto Frederick Rohnedder invented the first bread slicing machine.  The first sliced bread was sold at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri  (U.S.A.) in 1928.  So Keith, could you check on when the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" was used? 
This week's Rugby World Cup update - France beat Wales on Saturday and New Zealand beat Australia on Sunday.  So, it's France vs. New Zealand this coming Sunday in the Finals.  And the answer to my question from last week regarding who the SA'ns cheer for after they are eliminated..... anyone who is playing Australia.

Thank you
     ~ to Nomusa, for the peas from her garden that she shared with all the Crawlers.  Lou and I had them
        for dinner on Thursday night... they were excellent!
     ~ to June, for the Wimpy mug.... check out the saying on it!
     ~to Craig, for his hospitality.  Good luck with your new restaurant.

Until next week,

Ellen

PS (Christpoher, Jeff, and Liz- mirror people sighting at Sherwood Gardens)