Hi howdy hello fellow café lovers!
Welcome back to Cards and Cafés! As I hadn’t been to a café in Blackburn for a few months I thought it was about time to visit that area again and give another honest review of my time there. I came across Little Woodpecker just by chance when I was researching café’s online. Let’s be honest, I love going to café’s that have an animal in their name (if you look at my past reviews you’ll see I’ve been to a fair few), so I couldn’t pass on this one.
Once again I went with my friend Beth and we went on a Thursday morning and we were happy that we found a table right away. But as the morning went on, the café soon started to fill up. I can only imagine that on Saturday and Sunday mornings, the locals are lining up to get a spot. So I would suggest getting to the Little Woodpecker before 10am on weekends to avoid lining up.
There are a handful of parking spots at the front of the Little Woodpecker and a number of spots down the side streets surrounding the café, so I’m sure you’ll easily find a spot to park your car.
FOOD & DRINKS
I personally thought that the menu at Little Woodpecker was fantastic! I absolutely loved the creative names that were given to each dish. Instead of the generic name of eggs on toast, this café has named it ‘The carpenter’s daughter’ or the plain and boring avocado smash is now called ‘Avo’s a little pea’d off’. After reading the menu it seems that the chef has a fondness of asparagus, as a number of dishes is accompanied with it.
The following menu photos were taken at the end of September 2016 and therefore the menu might have changed since then.
I ended up ordering a latte and I thought that it was fabulous! It had a rich and creamy taste and each sip went down smoothly. The latte was quite hot when it arrived to table and it came within 5 minutes of ordering.
I also loved the blue saucer that it was served on.
Coffee rating: 4/5 
Beth ordered her favourite drink, which is a chai latte. She said that it was a little sweeter than she would usually like her chai’s and quite different to other ones that she’s had in the past. The froth also wasn’t as creamy as she would have like.
She said that she still enjoyed it, but she probably wouldn’t order it again.
Chai rating: 3/5 
Beth ordered the King Julius, which was house made wholemeal banana bread with a butterscotch sauce, served with coffee mascarpone topped with a pistachio crumble.
We both thought that the dish looked delicious! When it arrived at the table it didn’t look like a very big serving, but Beth soon realised that the butterscotch sauce made the dish quite rich and therefore she was soon full.
She said that she loved that the bread was quite thick, which meant that the outside was slightly toasted and the inside was soft and fluffy. She loved that the bread still had chunks of banana through it, which added and extra texture that she wasn’t expecting.
She wished that there were something fresh on the plate, maybe fresh fruit or cream to help balance out the sweetness of the butterscotch sauce.
Overall she said that she really enjoyed the dish and would recommend it to those that like a very sweet breakfast.
I ordered the ‘Avo’s a little pea’d off’, with avocado and peas smashed with marinated feta, beetroot hummus and dukkah sitting on a toasted sourdough quinoa and soya loaf and a poached egg.
I thought that it was plated so beautifully; it looked like an artwork on the plate. The bright purple from the beetroot hummus and the green from the avocado and peas against the grey of the plate looked fabulous!
I’m not normally a fan of beetroot, but I thought that this beetroot hummus was delicious! It had a fantastic fresh flavour and had all your taste buds dancing and wanting more. I also thought that the avocado and pea combination was great and something quite different to what I’ve had before. The beetroot and fresh avocado and pea flavour’s married together perfectly.
I would definitely order this dish again and would recommend it to those smashed avocado lovers out there who are looking for a twist on one of their favourite dishes.
I just think charging $3 for one poached egg is quite expensive and this would be the only reason I wouldn’t order this dish again.
ENVIRONMENT & SERVICE
Little Woodpecker has a very clean and simple interior, with its plain white walls, large windows along two sides of the café and its beautiful lighting around the register/ coffee machine area. Even though the interior is very simple, there is still a sense of warmth within this café. The environment is very relaxed and you don’t feel rushed or that you need to move to make room for the next customer (I went during the week, so maybe the weekends are different).
All the employee’s at Little Woodpecker seem very friendly and welcomed us with a warm smile and a hearty hello. They made us feel very comfortable as soon as we walked in.
There are only a handful of tables within Little Woodpecker and there were no tables outside.
OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT LITTLE WOODPECKER
Address: 55 Katrina St, Blackburn North, Melbourne, (Vic)
Map: here
Phone: (03) 9877 5102
Facebook: here
Website: here
Operating Hours:
Monday –Friday –7:00 am- 4:00 pm
Saturday –Sunday – 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
CAFÉ RATING = 7.5/10
Have you visited Little Woodpecker before? Tell me what you thought of it. Do you have any suggestions of cafe’s to visit?
Comment down below, I’m always looking for somewhere new to try.
Until next time,
Happy eating
-Kim
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