Tropicana Caffe

Living locally this is another favourite! I love that I can either have a huge pig out with a massive bowl of pasta or grab a healthy salad if I’m not super hungry.
The spaghetti gamberi is a winner! For $ 19.90 it’s a HUGE bow of pasta in a tomato white wine sauce filled with yummy prawns. You also have the option to get creative with the pasta. I get them to make me fettuccine Napoletana with bacon, olives and chilies. On occasion they have home made gnocchi and its to die for.
With the salads I can’t go past the chicken salad that comes with potato wedges in it!!! I also love the summer salad with chicken.
The wine is so cheap and its not a bad drop. You can get a bottle of house red for $ 15 or a glass
for $ 3. If you’re looking for a quick cheap delicious eat than Tropicana is your place!

Not my favorite café. Service was ok overall but not impressive. It seemed strange you have to claim a table number at the time of order (numbers hang from the ceiling above each table). What I was really wanting was a place to grab a coffee, have some food, and catch up on emails. This is not the place to be extremely productive.
To use the wifi you must ask for the password at the register. The voucher is only good for 60 minutes and works on a single device. I was most annoyed by having to ask for a key to turn on an electrical outlet to charge my laptop. I have never come across locked outlets before. The café has a single key that ends up getting passed around from table to table. You’re lucky to get a 10 minute charge before passing the key.
Overall this place was just ok. Large dining room but nothing special. I’m still on the hunt for the perfect neighborhood café.

Loses stars because of the rude service. I have noticed it’s worse in the mornings, so I go to one of the smaller more friendly cafes in the area that actually give a crap about you giving them business.
On the plus side their food is fast and tasty. I’m a big fan of the salads.

From Order To Table: Mediocre timing. Out of a can onto a plate shouldn’t take long.
Service-​ometer: Cookie cutterless. Rude and unhelpful.
Stomachability: You’ll eat it because you bought it.
Digest suggest: Don’t.
Ridiculously poor service. No card, only cash (which is suggested from the ATM inside — which I assume since ATMs were deregulated they also own and are making an extra $ 2 per person).
Ridiculously poor quality of food. Pasta tasted like it came from a can. Eggs tasted like they were from very sad, caged chickens. Don’t even start me on the bread.
Over priced, awful food and poor service. What more could you not want?
Oh and the ambiance is uncharmingly cheap.

Cheap and value for money. Quick service too, Free wifi, take away orders, Phone orders, open early morning until late. The salads are huge!!! Breakfast until 4pm
;)) pasta from 11am! Cash ONLY — ATM onsite :)
I recommend this place to anyone :)
Enjoy!

Q: what do you do when you order a big bowl of spaghetti e olio and you grab the parmesan shaker on the table and the lid falls off and dumps a buttload of parmesan, way more tahn you ever would have allocated, all upside your bowl of deliciousness? (see photo evidence).
A: You mix that ish in and get busy, son!
So it was a disaster, an unmitigated disaster, and I was so hangry I was about to strangle someone, but when life gives you lemons you throw them at someone whose face you don’t like because that makes you feel better, right? So I scooped as much excess Parmesan as I could into a napkin and the rest I mixed into my piping hot pasta and say whaaaaa, the result was astonishing, it became more than the sum of it’s parts.
Tropicana? More like Tropican-​do. Or something even funnier because that’s all I could come up with right now, give me a break, it’s not even 10am yet.

I have been eating here for over twenty years. Yes it use to be located across the road in a smaller location and moved to become the locals ‘best place to eat’ at any time of the day. Breakfasts — I’ve had many at any time of the day — from small to largest big breakfasts. Worth every $$$. Love the Eggs Benedict! Plenty of other non breakfast options also for lunch or dinner. Pasta dishes galore, Warm Chicken Cos Salad and pastries, cakes and of course the tastiest coffee on the block.

I used to eat at this one time institution multiple times a week, now it seems the management of the joint belong in an institution.
Prices have gone up and portions down, whilst the coffee is a shadow of its former glory.
It amazes me a place with 50 tables still only takes cash, but I guess it’s the best way to pay their illegal migrant labour force. The ATO & Immigration should investigate them and maybe a better trained staff won’t throw your now cafeteria quality food down in front of you.
The big Mama who runs the place is rude and arrogant which is amazing since the place is now never full like it once was — time for some humility.
The salads are now 90% lettuce and much like the coffee, a long way from its former glory.
The TV screens show rubbish and the wifi always has an issue.
Waste of time in 2015

The fish and chips were delicious! I had a pistachio cannoli and I must go back for another one.
We visited the café at about 10pm and had to wait for a while for someone to take my order but the food was worth the wait in the end. The smoothies were heavenly. The café is spacious and very clean!

Great place for a big salad or a pasta. Cash only. Nice, but no fluff. Open late. Good to know about!

I’m giving the Trop 5 stars for their free-​fast wifi! Their food is pretty good too — fresh and tasty. Seems to be a popular place with the locals as well.

My hotel is across the street from this restaurant and they open early. I love this place. Everyone say that Sydney is expensive but for 20 bucks of breakfast and fresh squeezed orange juice, you can’t beat that. I paid more for this in NYC and the quality of food is mediocre. This is real breakfast with real bacon. Not the thin sliced we are used to I’m the states and they have free wifi. 5 Stars!

Tropicana café may or very well may not be your cup of tea. If you’re a green tea drinker then I’m going to say you’re fairly health conscious and with that very clear scientifically unstable conclusion I would say you’re going to like it. They have about 8 to 10 different hearty salads, one that comes with tuna and egg plus lots of salad bits or the chicken salad which comes with grilled individually sliced pieces of chicken and sliced avocado and potato wedges (yes, I know, so good) and tomato and all the rest of the salad bits (because, really, who cares).
If you’re a black tea drinker then you’re like me and if you’re like me you love pasta. I go for the pasta I can’t remember to spell or pronounce (Aunnlulta?) You can choose the pasta (fettuccine, penne, spaghetti etc) and then it comes with chicken, mushroom and zucchini in a cream sauce. It was really very good. No unnecessary superlatives there.
If you’re an iced tea drinker I’m going to say you like sandwiches (they tend to go very well with iced tea) and if you’re going for the Focaccia sandwiches go for the pollo: chicken, avocado, cheese and lettuce. Another brilliant invention along with the light bulb.
This is a bit of a trendy place but if you were anything that would mean the opposite you wouldn’t be in Darlinghurst to begin with so I wouldn’t worry about it. Tell the lovely lady or the crabby guy behind the counter what you want, give them the number of where you’ll be sitting (look behind you and at the ceiling) and wait for the obligatory 5 minutes for your food.

You know Tropfest right? Well this is the place where it all started… a café on the famous Victoria Street Strip…
I think this place has been here for forever — or at least i can’t remember a time when it wasn’t around. it’s one of those Sydney icons that everyone knows…
It opens at 6am so its a great place to visit if you have an early start. The dishes are simple — nothing too fancy — but they do the job of helping you feel satisfied… my morning suggestion would be Uova in Cocotte (Vegetarian) — $ 10.70 Hash brown, mushroom, onion, 2 eggs, tasty cheese & toast…
Now if you’re getting up late in the day, may i suggest you stop by for salad. Of course I’m going to recommend — the Tropicana Salad —
cos & rocket lettuce, tomato, boiled egg, tuna, grilled capsicum, sun dried tomato & tropicana dressing. ($ 12.70)… it’s really really delicious and suprisingly exciting for a salad…
Its a chilled place — so don’t expect anything fancy — it’s a great place to grab a cheap snack with a friend or to watch the interesting crowd which makes its way from Kings Cross to Darlinghurst.

For a place that is touted as somewhere to ‘sit and be seen’ Tropicana is remarkably humble for what is a Sydney institution.
A great spot for a quick causal lunch or dinner, ‘Trop’ has a cool canteen vibe. The system works by pre-​ordering/​pre-​paying at the counter then the food is brought to your table. The atmosphere is typically bustling with an eclectic, but never too cool, crowd.

The food is simple Italian dishes done well. My personal favorites are the Invernale Pasta (try it in a pink sauce) and the Chicken Salad which is big enough to be a meal in itself.
The value is excellent with the average meal price at $ 15-​$ 20. Tropicana is cash only.