Malaga is a relatively new industrial suburb of Perth, and seems to grow constantly. There are also many retail shops scattered across this area including electrical, hi-fi, home-wares and more.
It is the hub of many businesses, and as far as eating there, is associated with a lot of casual lunch bars where workers from nearby factories and businesses frequent daily. Most of these cafes/lunch bars are open for breakfast and lunch and close at around 3.30 pm and do not open on weekends, as they obviously rely on surrounding workers.
With this in mind, we wanted somewhere that was slightly more upmarket in that it had proper seating and was slightly more "elegant" (for want of a better word), than a lunch bar.
Fudo Cafe ticked all these boxes. Set in the middle of a street with factories, it was a surprise well worth discovering. It looked quite ordinary from the street, but looks can be deceiving! It was a large cafe with an open large kitchen area and a choice of two places to eat - the street area being very large.
It was packed with businessmen and I feel this is always a good sign and especially if there are not many tables left.
We ordered from the rather vast menu and found a seat which was both comfortable and secluded, even though it overlooked the road.
View from where we sat to the road
The menu ranged from hamburgers through to Italian specialties, salads and other hot dishes such as creamy garlic prawns, chicken Diavolo and grilled Porterhouse steak, as well as snacks in the counter.
Lunch and snacks in the front counter
The prices were extremely reasonable and possibly one of the cheapest cafes I have been to in a long time. After much consideration, we both chose a pasta dish.
Serving us was a friendly waitress named Mel, who was rather camera shy, and she brought our meals to us within about 8 minutes of ordering them.
Mel serving our lunch
I chose the Spaghetti Amatriciana which was pasta with bacon, onion and chilli with a Napolitana sauce, and this cost just $12.50.
It was a huge serving and would have been big enough to share for lunch, however, I managed to almost finish it and could not fit a dessert or even a coffee in afterwards. Coffee was also well priced at $3.80 for a latte.
Well priced Spaghetti Amatriciana
My spaghetti was very good, albeit slightly salty, however, I guess the proof is in the eating, as even though it was a huge serving, I did just about finish it!
My friend chose the Spaghetti Marinara, which was calamari, prawns, scallops, tomatoes, basil and white wine, and this cost $16.50.
Looked similar to my dish, but spot the prawns and calamari!
I had a taste of this and this was also very tasty with a lot of calamari and exactly as a Spaghetti Marinara should be!
After we had eaten, we realised we had missed the daily specials as they were on a separate board which we did not see till we were leaving.
The dessert menu was small and had muffins, ice cream sundae and a host of cakes including carrot cake, brownies, hedgehog slice, escargot, coffee scrolls, vanilla slice, custard tart, apple pie, apple strudel, jam doughnuts and chocolate eclairs.
One of the cakes on display
These cakes were set out in the display at the counter and were very tempting!
Fudo is located at 22 Truganina Road, Malaga and they are open from Monday to Friday from 6:30 am to 3:30 pm. Their breakfast menu also looks enticing and we may just go back there to try breakfast!
They also have function rooms above the cafe and they do outside catering as well. They sell several interesting looking foods which appeared to be Italian, and these would make wonderful gifts when invited out for a meal.
Chocolates, or biscuits for sale at Fudo
All in all, this was a very pleasant lunch, in a nice atmosphere, comfortable seats, quick service, and good food. It would also be a good place just to have a coffee and a snack or coffee and cake, and there is plenty of off-street parking next to the cafe, making it even more attractive as there are no hassles looking for a space to park.
Front entrance to Cafe, which is at the side of the building
