maylands - the cappucino strip
along whatley cresent is eight or nine cafes. i will tell you what i know of them from west to east.
missus s cafe
being a wretched man, i am clearly not this cafe's target audience whose interior decor screams "no wretched men allowed". the floral arrangements, cursive neon signs, and poppy murals of women sipping coffee don't really excite me, but this is probably the best place in central maylands to bring your mum. the music is nice, the food is healthy and the chairs have back support.
smoultz larder
a meat and cheese deli but fancy. they have good coffee and various salads and quiches. if your friend is a gourmand, you might get them something from here. some "r&b quince paste" or "punk sesame oil" or "jazz infused crispbread", or whatever it is that cosmopolitan adults enjoy. there is a cool willy wagtail who comes into the store every day and hangs about on the cheese fridge. william is his name.
anime cafe
a cafe for real-life anime girls with a bunch of stuffed hello kitty animals out front. you can get instagrammable drinks and take a nice picture on the selfie wall at the back. they have dishes from all the most popular asian countries but for some reason they also serve brittish stapes such as bangers and mash, fish and chips and cottage pie. i'm very confused. how is cottage pie kawaii?
the classy toy shop
a childrens gift store that caters to very small children. all the clothes and toys are low-stim- shades of beige, grey, light-pink and light-mint, made from wood if possible. there is a wonderful selection of puppets. when you buy a $80 gift for a friend's new baby here, you feel genuinely good about it. there aint no way this kid will become an ipad kid.
the woodfired baker
i like this bakery because they only ever have four or five different cakes on offer. bakeries that have too many cakes worry me. how does the baker have so much time to make this stuff? it must be the most stressful job, and the worst thing is, it is completely un-essential job. nobody needs to eat a vanilla slice, but the baker has to make 20 every morning as if their depends on it, and then they just get sold as 3-for-1 at the end of the day. but one must imagine sisyphus happy.
that is why i feel relieved when i see just three or four different bakery items, because then i know that the baker probably had time to hum a lullaby while stirring the cream or take a big slow sniff of the cinammon buns fresh out of the oven "...aaaaah".
the woodfired baker is now defunct. now you can only buy electronically baked pastries.
chapels
a big gothic storefront that makes tea interesting again. i generally take tea for granted as "slightly better water" but they have a lot of different flavours. you can sit down and order a tea buffet where you can refill your pot 4 times, but if you share you get in trouble.
you always see groups of women enacting their sylvanian family dreams, sitting round with ornate cups and a double decker plate of small biscuits and macaroons. the ladies only ever eat two or three but if it was me i'd go buckwild. i love macaroons.
steamhaus
this minimally decorated bakery that looks exactly the same as the woodfired baker but lacks the woodfire gimmick. i'm not sure its gimmick is. probably "yummy coffee and great food". with so much competition, how does steamhaus stay attract customers? probably by drawing in men who mistake it for "steam works", the men's bath house in northbridge.
sherberts
i like sherbets but it makes me sad. it has a lot of incredible cakes and pastries, but i worked here for a couple weeks once got fired. everyone was telling me what to do and i didn't like that. then i was mopping the floor and the mop got caught under the shelf and when i pulled it back, the mophead detached from the handle and i got my hands all wet and dirty trying to screw it back on, and then it happened again on another shelf and i was so angry i took the mop outside and threw it across the empty carpark like a javelin. and then i lit up a cigarette and the boss came out and fired me for my poor attitude and bad vibes.
this was very fair, but i was saddened to lose my dream job.
then on the way home, i opened my phone to check an email at a traffic light and a policeman knocked on my window and fired me $400, which was exactly what i had earned from my 2 weeks at sherbets.
so the way i see it, i have technically never worked at sherbets because i never made a sherbet cent.
208s
this is a sharehouse out the back of a beauty parlor that has been hosting hardcore punk gigs for as long as i can remember. the venue used be called the "House of Punk" but nobody wanted to call it that so they just called it by its address: 208 whatley cresent. i never went to any of these shows but if i did i'm sure i'd have some good stories of "moshing" and "skanking" and "giving the one finger salute".
the vintage store
across the road from 208s is a big yellow store that sells tasteful antiques of the oriental and art-deco kind. they also sell fake-vintage products of the culturally-sanctioned kitsch. you sometimes find a big gem. before i started writing this book i bought an old japanese mountain dulcimer here and i still havent touched it. this will be the summer i get good at the dulcimer.