When child-friendly is just not so Oki-doki

The Breakfast Bandit: No time to wait for the sugar to dissolve through the beautiful-looking, thick, copper-bronze crema. And no time to stir.

The Bandit raises the espresso cup to his mouth with the trembling hand of a man who has looked into the abyss and read the headlines.

Full-bodied caffeine relief washes over the Bandit. Along with more than a few lines and scenes from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. "Goddamn, Jimmy! This is some serious gourmet shit!"

The trembling abates. The Bandit stifles a giggle at the thought of hoodlum Vincent Vega's (John Travolta) stylish descent from a night of terror on the high-wire of incipient disaster as chaperone to vamp Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), wife of scary, scary mo-fo Marsellus Wallace, Da Boss.

What was the Bandit thinking?

As it was for Vega, thought never entered into the equation. Not when the request to be shown a good, child-friendly breakfast time comes from Decider, language style meistress and wife of word-farm capo Driest - for his crackling humour.

Decider has a Linden target in mind. Oki-doki, no problem. The Bandit's pleasure.

Wednesday mid-morning and the Bandit - sorely disgruntled by a mission to rescue Differ, 18, from the clutches of an overwhelmed boarding-school Nurse Ratched who runs a three-bed sanatorium for, wait for it, 335 boys - pulls up outside the target.

The thought of a double espresso from the coffee shop that the venue boasts has the Bandit leaping from the getaway, camera bag in one hand and girlie-girl bag - as Princess Demanding, 10, describes it - over his shoulder. Not a single child in tow.

The Bandit freezes as he gets the picture. Okay, there's a coffee shop . and a play area . and it's a party venue . all in pastel shades. And an unaccompanied, middle-aged man with a camera. Capiche? Where's the neighbourhood watch? Scandal of Roman Catholic proportion.

Time to get out of Dodge. Sharpish.

And so to Vanilla in the Rosebank Mall, where the exceptional double espresso is followed by a R19.95 - the 95c a reliable indication of all sorts of cheapness - "Daybreaker" breakfast: a slice of toast, bacon, a fried egg and grilled tomato.

Why not Daymaker? And why call the coffee shop-cum-restaurant Vanilla when the beguiling contents of that exotic pod are not given star billing on the menu?

Thankfully, before the Bandit gets to questioning the meaning of life, the attentive waiter returns with breakfast.

The egg is accurately cooked. The tomato is grilled and seasoned. The bacon is no less bacony for being from a cheap cut called stringy. The toast is . toasted.

On second thoughts the breakfast is not exactly a Daymaker - but for the fact that it is served with a cup of the finest filter coffee Johannesburg has to offer.

Another deep sigh of relief. And a line from Vincent Vega's side-kick Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson): "There's a passage I got memorised. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men ."

Check out the big brain on the Bandit.