Dymocks Cafe - Sydney

Upstairs in the dymocks building is the perfect city lunch escape. This cafe is popular but if you get there early you can snag yourself a booth and sit back with one of the books you have just bought. A great place to go solo! The menu has something for everyone and plenty of healthy options with salads, sandwiches and more filling dishes such as lasagne, chicken schnitzel or even nachos. The menu has simple options however they are somehow exactly what you feel like. The coffee is also above average. Highly recommend this cafe if you are looking for a break from the city rush.

Old school. This is an old fashioned cafe, I could almost say cafeteria. The food is very middle of the road but if that's what you're in the mood for, you would be hard pressed to do better.

Nice, Cozy, Quiet and quick service. Food is good value for money. Enjoyed several Sunday lunches and quiet Saturday afternoons. Would definitely recommend soup of the day and lamb pilaf. Staff are friendly and courteous.

A good place where you can spend a day by yourself. If you like sitting in a cozy and quite cafe with your books, you will love this place! Highly recommend

There are lots of great eats in the city and sometimes it's hard to choose. Cue a hungry me, tired from running around all day and enticed by the big *sale* sign outside of Dymocks. What can I say, I'm a sucker for book and a suck for sales. As I stepped in, I can't help but be distracted by the smell of food wafting from ... somewhere. A quick look around reveals a cafe. I mean when I go to a bookstore I kind of expect a nice clean paper smell or some soothing scents, not the hunger inducing smells of meat and coffee.  Pro: there's a cafe INSIDE the bookstore Con: there's a cafe INSIDE the bookstore. Onto the food! I ordered a strawberry milkshake and it arrived looking positively pastel pink and tasting delightfully synthetic. Like the strawberry part of a neopolitan ice-cream but as a smooth liquid. Absolutely fabulous, I'm getting major childhood vibes here. I suspect it's not too good re: sugar/chemical/fat stats but eh it's a cheap day. At $5.5, it certainly is better than a soda and only a dollar more. Considering I've seen soft drinks at Sydney Cafes go for over $7, I'd say this is a milkshake on the more budget-friendly spectrum and will totally shut your unruly child (or teen or S.O) up for a good amount of time. I *was* going to order the Duck Ragout because mmmm duck <3 however I was devastated to find out that said dish was currently all sold out (I suppose that's my fault for coming after the lunch rush). I settled for a potatoes and pulled beef with mushrooms, caramelised onion, salad, and sour cream. It was .... a little disappointing if I may be honest. When you read pulled beef, you imagine a saucy tender stew draped generously over buttery potatoes. What you get is dry beef, hardly any sauce and a strange sour note (seriously why is this sour?). It did not come with sour cream (thank god!) but I'm grateful for that because it would have been a truly strange combination! The "salad" is just rocket and shredded cabbage. I'm actually not sure if the dried tomatoes were part of the salad or part of the stew or????? but they were just so unnecessary. The unique slightly sour (again, why?) kind-of-old-socks dried taste just clashes so much with the stew. The potatoes were alright though. It's very hard to screw up potatoes. They were bland but with a quick pinch of salt, they turned out quite nice indeed. For $20 though, I honestly expected something more coherent. (aka not involving me going w t f in my head as I'm eating).  If I had to make suggestions, I'd replace the salad with something capable of complementing the potatoes and beef (I'm assuming the P&B is a stew of some sort?) , perhaps in the realm of quinoa or toast. I'd get rid of both sour cream and the dried potatoes. I'd add more salt (or just seasoning in general... maybe some red wine into the stew whilst it's cooking... yum!) Note: they sell cute little boxes of tea in the shape of books, perfect gift for that tea-loving bibliophile in your life. It is annoying that there are no price tags or indicators on any of them and me being the socially awkward human being I am is extremely reluctant to actually ask. But I digress, the boxes are ~$9 for a small  palm size book or ~$18 for a full size book (I'm talking like Harry Potter size not Encyclopaedia Brittanica size) Note #2: also I have no photos because my phone is currently at the apple store getting fixed HAHAHAHA