The lady and I were headed out for a major shopping expedition at Freedom Furniture on Saturday, but first we needed sustenance to fuel our mission.

There are two options for food at Jape Homemaker Village –Waterfall Café and Café Bellissimo. Asian and Italian. I’ve always eaten at the former, but today the lady and I felt like being a little adventurous and decided to try out the latter after hearing positive comments from various sources. It also helps that you can walk through Café Bellissimo to get to Freedom Furniture, a little forward planning that I’ll take credit for!

Fresh ingredients really add to the flavour

The interior is low fuss with the counter/milk shake bar separated from the dining area, the tables are basic café style and you'll hear soft classical Italian music playing in the background. It seems to be a very popular foodie destination as it was almost a full house the entire time we were there with tables filling up as quickly as they were vacated.

They have the usual Italian suspects like pasta, parmigiana, small pizzas and risotto and then there is some fusion going on with French toast on the breakfast menu, open grills, burgers and lots of evil and yummy hot chips. They also have a very cool milk shake area, the missus unable to resist temptation and indulging herself with an iced chocolate complete with a giant dollop of ice cream and cream on top.

Prices average around $15-20 for most meals on the extensive (for a café) two page menu. Not bad, not cheap, but reasonable for whats on offer.

If you're going to be naughty, might as well do it in style.

I went with a scotch fillet steak burger plus cappuccino and the lady a Hawaiian chicken parmigiana, so predictable she is. I'm usually disappointed with steak burgers as I often find myself having to chew really hard to get through the steak, however I quite liked the one I got. The steak wasn't too tough, nicely seasoned and the amount was balanced with the rest of the ingredients - egg, bacon, onion, tomato, cucumber and green leaf mix. If anything, the freshness of the salad really made the burger that much more enjoyable. The chips were perfectly cooked, crunchy on the outside, yet soft on the inside – exactly how I like it. A little too heavy on the salt though, I found myself shaking it off.

Not a huge parmigiana, but quite tasty.

The bite of of the parmigiana I had was quite nice, a little crunch with a nice sauce. Admittedly I'm not the biggest fan of parmigiana, but this was not bad and the missus liked it.

The lady's behind the counter were friendly and the young wait staff looked after the diners very well, quickly hustling about serving, clearing and cleaning tables (I talk as if I'm old!). Nothing to complain about in the service department then.

Tummys very satisfied, next stop was Freedom Furniture where I picked up a nice teapot and some new crockery. One can never have too many sexy plates and bowls right?