Pope Joan

Given Pope Joan is just around the corner, it’s an absolute travesty that we’ve never been until now.  Cue the two of us on a rainy Sunday morning deciding we couldn’t possibly spend another hour in bed showing each other youtube videos from kids shows in the 90s, we simply had to get out.

Pope Joan is easy to get to, with its own parking lot across the street. It covers Breakfast, Lunch AND Dinner with both outdoor and indoor seating. Because we’re insane, we picked outside, with a lovely backdrop of fake grass partitioning us from the street and myriad warm heaters in a sheltered patio area.

Coffees were really good – they had that almost dark-chocolatey bitterness/sweetness without being too strong; in fact, my coffee was both smooth and the perfect temperature (I can’t do anything but ‘extra hot’ these days)

A ordered the Cuban Pulled Pork ($14) above – found it absolutely delicious and very filling (considering he eats like a horse, this is a good thing)

Pulled pork is becoming quite a thing in our house. A ended up hosting a dinner party at our house for 7 people (and one rabbit, who insisted on sitting at the head of the table, go figure) and did a rather fancy slow cooked pulled pork on toasted sourdough with an accompanying apple slaw. Even he was impressed with his culinary skills.

I ordered the Goat Meat Balls ($19) and was pleasantly surprised by both the deliciousness of the meatballs themselves and the tomatoey sauce, peppered with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts, served with flat bread to mop up all of the juices. I even found a curiously meatball-looking thing, which when I bit into it found it was an egg yolk, softly cooked. I may have even closed my eyes to savour it…

My only qualm (or perhaps not, depends how you look at it) is that the service was SO good that everything was out FAST. We were in and out in half an hour. Not that my hungry tummy or boyfriend were complaining!

Verdict: Will be back!

Ambience: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Food: 9/10
Value for money: 8.5/10
Score (food is weighted double): 89%