Brunch in Melbourne: Part 1 - Three Bags Full, Spoonful, St Ali and Dukes

One of our favourite activities is heading out for long lazy brunches, and Melbourne fortunately happens to have so many great cafes that it's practically impossible to answer the question "where's a good place for brunch" with a 2 or 3 word answer. The first response is, "where are you staying" and the next is "do you have a car". We've developed our own list of favourite cafes and here are the pics from some of our very happy moments there. 

First up, Three Bags Full in Abbotsford. It's one of our most-frequented places because it's close to where we do our grocery shopping along Victoria St in Richmond, and the food is good. They serve Five Senses coffee which we don't particularly like, but the baristas do such a good job that we've always had a decent cup there. 

This was a special they had that day, of confit salmon on a pea and broccoli puree, with poached eggs, fennel, toasted almonds and mint oil for $18.

The braised pulled pork shoulder on a brioche bun ($13) is something we really like, and order almost every time we're there.  

A closer look at the salmon confit - the fish was delicious and the combination was well thought out, in terms of flavours as well as textures. 

Super yummy pulled pork - rich, smoky and sweet 

With pickled green tomatoes to offset the richness of the meat and add some tang 

We've also tried the French toast with rhubarb and nuts. It was pretty good. 

One of the dining areas; they also have another seating area so we've never had to wait too long to get a table even though it gets really crowded. 

Spoonful along High Street in Malvern was quite a different type of cafe compared to Three Bags Full; the crowd appeared to be more mature, less grungy and more subdued (in other words, more likely to dye their hair out of necessity rather than boredom). 

I doubt this is still on the menu now, but I had a lovely avocado and smoked salmon brekky with poached eggs a few months back for probably $18. 

There's something amazing about eggs in Melbourne, with the yolks bright orange and super tasty. 

St Ali North in Carlton North also does a pretty decent brekky, without the crowds and parking problems of South Melbourne (or at least they weren't problems previously, I'm not sure about now). 

Coffees are decent

We had a scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, as well as the sous vide eggs with musrooms and avocado

A pretty decent brekky - not mind blowing though.

Again, the scrambled eggs and salmon was all right. Nothing to scream about, but very decent. Probably wouldn't order this again though, since it was kinda boring. 

The sous vide eggs were perfectly done, just like the eggs one gets in the coffeeshops in Singapore to be eaten with soy sauce and pepper (and those old kopitiam dudes do it with just boiling water and metal mugs, who needs a fancy vacuum machine and plastic bags that cost heaps)

Yummy. But nothing much to crow about. It stays on the safe side, and somehow one can't just play it safe with the brunch business these days. If I could do a scrambled eggs at home and top that with commercially purchased smoked salmon from the supermarket, I wouldn't pay $18 to have that outside. 

Which brings me to the last place I'm gonna feature in this post, my personal favourite and what I think provides the best balance between coffee and food as far as brunch in Melbourne is concerned -Dukes Coffee Roasters at Chapel St in Prahran. Their coffee is how I like it - full-flavoured without being too acidic, and their food features a great combination of different ingredients and flavours. 

This was the crispy greta pork belly with crumbed egg and local asparagus for $19. I swopped the black pudding for chorizo, which they were very kind to accede to. 

Absolutely beautiful. The skin was crisp, and the meat was tender. 

And the crumbed egg was just superb. The crust was crispy, and the yolk was still runny on the inside. Note the bright orange colour. This was one heck of a perfect dish. 

What it looked like from where I was sitting

The coffee is one of my favourite Melbourne brews - possibly the best along Chapel St, I daresay. 

The avocado hummus toast with poached eggs, dukkah and candied bacon for $18 was another out-of-this-world dish. 

I never thought I would fancy sweet bacon but these little nibbles were the perfect combination of sweet and savoury. 

Perfectly poached eggs.

Check out the perfect orange yolks.  

Their mocha is just as pretty.

We've been there a lot of times, ate different things and sat in different places. 

On another occasion, I had a salmon confit with poached eggs, two types of beetroot, apple and goats cheese on rye. This was pretty outstanding as well. 

I don't think they have this dish on the menu anymore, but it gives a great idea of the creativity and innovation on the part of the Dukes team. 

Three Bags Full - http://www.threebagsfullcafe.com.au/
Spoonful - http://www.spoonful.net.au/
St Ali - http://www.stali.com.au/
Dukes - http://www.dukescoffee.com.au/

Cafe Di Stasio - our first visit

We were pretty keen to try out Cafe Di Stasio after reading it had a score of 16/20 in The Age's Good Food Guide. We left with the firm belief that this IS one of the best value for money restaurants in Melbourne for the combination of the quality, execution, attention to detail, wow factor and price. It can't be considered cheap, but in comparison with other acclaimed restaurants out there like Saint Crispin, Pei Modern and Church St Enoteca - which we tried and were not impressed by (and hence no blog posts on them) - Cafe Di Stasio totally meets every expectation and more. They even have their own monogrammed butter.  

The crayfish omelette with a bisque sauce was absolutely delicious, with soft tender crayfish meat blending perfectly with the herbs bound together by minimal amounts of egg. The bisque was superb. 

The husband had the risotto of the day, done to al dente perfection and teeming with flavour. For the life of me I can't quite recall what it was - smoked pork? 

Whatever it was, I remember it was really good. Vague, and sad, but true. 

We also had a serve of the daily special, grilled Western Australian scampi and boy, were we glad we went that day. The shrimp was beautiful. 

Lightly grilled with a smattering of mixed herbs, garlic and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. Can't do any better than that. This, however, I felt was overpriced at $29 for effectively two shrimp cut into halves. 

We also had another daily special, the tagliatelle crab meat pasta. This was also gorgeous, with rich and flavourful stock and the pasta cooked perfectly. 

A closer look at the plate - absolutely gorgeous with all the fresh parsely. 

The bill came up to $187, which included a bottle of Sauv Blanc for $59. With the pasta mains at $33, which is the average price for all restaurants in Melbourne with 1 or 2 chef hats, the value for money factor here is pretty damn good because of the quality of the food. Service was decent not brilliant, but no complaints there. 

Website: http://distasio.com.au/

Uoshin Nogizaka - Reprise

I've received a number of queries on Uoshin Nogizaka near Midtown Roppongi, and I thought I would publish this post featuring my last visit which was fairly recent. 

Yes they have an English menu, but it's not as comprehensive as the Japanese one. 

This is what the bar counter looks like

And the fish that they have in the display case all have spikes in their mouths. 

 1500 Yen for a large bottle of sake 

And then the food arrived. At first there were 2....

And then there were 4. And many more. 

Deep fried fish bones - pretty tasty and yummy. Great with the sake. 

Cute little bitter gingko nuts. 

Not my oyster but it looked so good. 

The most amazing Nokke Sushi, which we had the last time. It's impossible to get a photo where everything is captured. Here the minced toro, ikura and uni are visible.

And from this angle, the kani too. But the minced toro vanishes. 

A work of pure art and beauty. 

Cabbage salad because we felt we had to redeem ourselves somewhat

Shirako, or cod sperm, for the uninitiated. 

Our table midway through dinner. 

The sashimi platter for 3. The sashimi here has never failed to be anything less than amazingly fresh. 

Some shell sashimi - I don't even know the name...tobugai? 

Slimy seaweed in cold vinegar. 

Out came the yosen nabe with a variety of different things. 

Covered and left to simmer at our table 

Veggies chucked in after the seafood was all cooked

The aroma was beautiful

Such beautiful fresh seafood.

Check out that super fresh oyster. It was almost a crime to cook it.

Grilled kinki, or rockfish. Absolutely beautiful meat, especially when grilled. To perfection. 

Ankimo, or monkfish liver.

The damage came up to 13,700 Yen or just around $200 Singapore dollars. That's pretty damn good value for such amazing food. And they use soda bottle crates as seats because the site used to contain a drink factory. 

Website: http://www.uoshins.com/
Refer to earlier post on directions for getting there