Brunch Review: Mrs S, Maylands

I have heard so many people talk about Mrs S in Maylands, I was excited to try it out and had high expectations. I arrived at 10:25am and put my name down for a table for 2. There were several people on the list before us, but the waitress seemed positive about our chances of getting in quickly.

Unfortunately, we waited outside in the wind for 50 minutes and by the time we finally got in, we were only just in time to order breakfast before the 11:30am cut off. By this time we were quite hungry and annoyed.

Our meals:

The Scoring

Menu variety / creativity: 7.5/10. Not a lengthy menu, but they do have some creative options (notably the rice pudding, apple and rhubarb crumble with yoghurt and cornbread with eggs, bacon and maple syrup). I was a little disappointed in the sweet options (nothing appealed to me that much), but I think the menu might change regularily.

Taste:  6/10. I chose the banana bread with pistachio cream, and my friend had the apple and rhubarb crumble. We were both unimpressed. The banana bread was very sweet and too heavy (it really needed some fresh strawberries or something on the side to balance it out), and my friend thought that the crumble was sickly sweet too. Perhaps we chose badly, but at an impressive café there aren’t any bad menu choices.

Coffee: 7.5/10. Pretty good.

Setting / location: 8.5/10. Lovely indoor décor with a cute vintage vibe. Fresh flowers, a large communal table, mismatched chairs and kitsch home wares for sale all add to the character. I love how the menus are inside vintage Little Golden books.

Service: 7.5/10. Once we got inside, the service was fast. You order at the counter and they bring the meals out to you.

They need to be more informed about the expected waiting time (We didn’t ask specifically what the expected wait was, but someone who arrived just after us did and was told ‘It could be 20 minutes, or it could be 5 minutes’. It wasn’t close to either!) and maybe work out a better waiting area (we were all crowding the sidewalk outside, making it hard for pedestrians to get past).

Price: 8/10. Reasonably priced, with my banana bread coming in at $10 and a regular coffee only $3.50 (cheap for Perth).

Verdict: Given the hype, I was so disappointed. If we had not had to wait so long and were able to order and eat at a more leisurely pace, perhaps our experience would have been markedly different. After the wait, we really wanted to be blown away by the food and coffee but experienced the opposite. I definitely wouldn’t bother with this place again unless we could get a table immediately.