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.
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 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/
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