Under the Elms: Cooma, AUSTRALIA

October 2022 · 3 min read · New South Wales

The trip from Canberra to the coast is a roughly three hour journey, and with the somewhat unpleasant last stage of Brown Mountain at the end. That means that it is really quite a good idea to find a nice halfway moment to have a coffee break to rest and revive, and to swap drivers if necessary! For us, the town of Cooma is a good distance in the journey to take that break, and we have been hunting around to find a good place to water and eat before continuing our travels.

This last time, we may well have found the perfect spot in "Under the Elms", a little cafe on the intersection and main road into and out of Cooma.

The Space

If you didn't know better, the inside could easily remind you of a trendy hip place in the inner Western Sydney suburbs... or any of the cafes in Melbourne. A sort of hand-crafted experience with lots of inspirational slogans on the toilet doors and handwritten specials and menus on the blackboard.

The cafe is nicely bright and the tables are well spaced.

... and it appears that there is a strong Ukrainian connection as well. One of the servers was speaking with a strong accent, and I'm not sure if she was the owner or not... but I think that does make for the connection. Which is fortunate, as you will see in a little bit!

The Menu

Pretty stock standard country cafe meals... all of it being pretty hearty and more than a touch more than I would want to eat during a travel day.

The Food

However, one of the real treats to see on the specials board was... Ukrainian Pierogi! Well, I've long fallen in love with the Polish dumplings, and so to see this being offered in a country Australian town... well, I just HAD to have them!

... and I wasn't disappointed at all. Nice soft, boiled dumplings with potato filling... served up with sour cream, bacon, and onions on a bed of fresh young spinach leaves. Very tasty, but very filling as well!

My wife picked up a chai latte... I'm always a bit up in the air about these ones. I do love the sweetness of them, but it can get to be a bit too much.

... but I did pick up an iced coffee... usually, these are also way too sweet as well, but in this case it wasn't that at all. There was the sweetness from the ice cream, but they didn't add anything more... so, the coffee was refreshingly coffee-like and refreshing, and not just a sweet mess.

The Experience

Well... I think I've found our preferred half-way stop point for our travels to the coast! Decent coffee, friendly staff, and some really nice food... can't complain at all! It will be hard to be persuaded to seek further than this! Although, there is a bookstore across the road that also serves up coffee... but we haven't managed to try it out as it isn't ever seemingly open when we are passing through!