I have a gripe for the vast majority of Melbourne Cafes. Why oh why do you insist on me spoiling your beautiful coffee with an inferior sugar product? I’m the guy that when asked has 1 raw sugar in his takeaway latte. Yes, raw. It isn’t that I don’t like my coffee bitter, in fact sometimes it’s a long black, with a raw sugar. I love the extra layer of slightly caramel flavour that that 1 teaspoon adds to the coffee.

Coffee Crystals: The kind of coffee that should be in all cafes

Melbourne is a city which loves coffee. The people drink it in boatloads, the general quality of the coffee is great and you can buy it everywhere. Even my cornershop has a espresso machine, yet nearly every place offers me nothing but pre-measured white sugar. It seems strange to me that not only is raw sugar cheaper but it’s also tastier than it’s bleached cousin yet businesses insist on selling it.

So, my tip to the coffee shops. Fuck the sachets and give me a good old fashioned sugar-bowl or dispenser and a great coffee. In the long run you and I will both reap the benefits.

Due to the fact that I don’t operate very well in the morning, I rarely remember a camera and have trouble putting together 2 words let alone cohesive thoughts that would make for a reasonable review. Thus I’m going to just write a couple of short notes here about where I’ve eaten breakfast (or brunch) lately.

Cafe Pearl, Richmond

Serving breakfast only until early (sadly it finishes at noon on weekends) I didn’t manage to actually sample the breakfast at Pearl Cafe but the coffee is good and they have every paper under the sun available for your reading pleasure. The style of the lunch menu is what the food press would call fusion (the breakfast menu is quite traditional,) with a number of asian influences. Out of character, I ordered the Vietnamese chicken salad and was amazed at it’s size and impressed with the tangy spicy flavour. The other meal was the Moroccan chicken pot pie which was great, shredded chicken and couscous were not too spicy but it was served with a dish of hot sauce for the hotness inclined. Not only is Cafe Pearl a great advertisement to its fine-dining sibling it stands remarkably well on its own two feet. They also have a great website with information on everything Pearl.

MART, Middle Park

Around the corner in my new stomping ground, MART is a cute little cafe on the light rail line to St Kilda with a great reputation. We went on Easter Saturday and it was absolutely packed, but luckily there was a couple of seats on the bar overlooking Albert Park. Unfortunately the view was marred by a number of Formula 1 fences and grandstands still being in the park.

Although every table was full, every part of the service was very prompt (if a little rushed) and as ordered. The oven-baked corn fritters were truly amazing, served with bacon, chutney and sour cream but the scrambled eggs with truffle oil, mushrooms and spinach were too oily and a little disappointing. All in all, I’m definitely planning on heading back when it is a little bit quieter and giving them another chance at living up its huge expectations.

Nacional, Albert Park

Perhaps breakfast at Nacional doesn’t quite do the restaurant justice. It has a great wine list and judging by the blackboards showing the dinner mains, an evening meal would be amazing. Breakfast (or lunch) stood up very well in a fine-dining kind of way.

Our seared kangaroo from the lunch menu was perfect, intense flavours from the perfectly cooked fillet. I was a little disappointed in its size and wished that our waiter had suggested a side with it. The breakfast menu’s bacon on toast with maple syrup was pleasant, not “write home to mum this was the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted” but a great breakfast workhorse nonetheless. As is so often the case in Melbourne the coffee was great, presented well and on time. Like MART and Pearl, I definitely have plans to come back to Nacional but not for breakfast, for dinner.

It doesn’t take many things to make a good cafe, what’s needed is to do the simple things well. Good coffee, good food, friendly staff, a cozy shop and good location. Bob’s Weigh ticks all of these boxes but you might only remember one of them if you happen to have an encounter with Bob himself. He’s the guy working in the kitchen that greets pretty much everyone that walks into the shop with a friendly g’day, maybe introducing himself and huge smile. He’s a man that loves his job.

While Bob is friendly, you might think he’s too friendly. He’s nothing until you meet his mother. Mad Mary (she makes the jam for the toast) has a very curious presence, pink or purple hair, a strange dress sense and a wicked sense of humour, she runs all over the cafe laughing and having a good time. It’s this sense of humour that probably forced her to decorate the cafe with scales, there is weighing devices of every shape and form on the shelves and walls and Bob himself doesn’t quite know why.

The bizarre decor and the quirky staff give the cafe a very homely feel that doesn’t stop when you order breakfast. Nothing on the menu could be described as gourmet, which just adds to the allure of the place. Toast, muesli, bacon and eggs and omelettes is the faire all topped off with beautiful homemade jam and chutney. There is nothing out of the ordinary about the drinks menu, except the Chai latte. It’s not the mellow cinnamon drink you expect, it’s extra spicy and very tasty but, not for the faint of heart. The prices on are reasonable and if you bring in your own cup for a takeaway coffee, they’ll knock 50c off the price – just how it should be.

Everything about this cafe is like home, you could cook everything on the menu at home, but you wouldn’t do as good a job. You could make the jam, but it wouldn’t be as nice, same goes for the coffee and besides you would have to do the dishes. Talk to Bob, he’ll be happy to do them for you.

As far as drunk and hangover foods go, the meat pie is one of the brilliant, can’t go wrong sort of selections. It’s beauty is in it’s ubiquity, it’s always available, it’s cheap, easy and as greasy as you like. But, not all pies were created equal, a frozen supermarket pie microwaved is always inferior to the same pie oven-cooked and at the top of this pyramid of brilliance are bakeries. Not just any old chain of bakery though, the sort that claim they have world class pies, the sort that have a 4 page pie menu and the sort that people drive from miles around just “for a pie”.

Arrowtown Bakery is one of these places, now they don’t make the outrageous claims of being world famous and the bit about the 4 page pie menu was a bit of an embellishment but people really do drive from miles around to get the pies. Now, let me assure you, they don’t dissapoint. The menu consists of a heap of different chicken pies; spicy chicken; cream of chicken; chicken and cheese and plain old chicken. They also have your normal staple of mince, steak, steak and onion and steak and cheese along with a couple of not so run of the mill – bolognaise and lamb and mint. Lamb is up there with my 4 favourite meats and it lends itself perfectly to being low cooked, roasted or baked. Needless to say I was heartily impressed by a lamb pie.

Not only are the fillings brilliant but that’s not all there is to a pie, the other ingredient is pastry and it doesn’t fail to impress here either. The pastry literally melts in your mouth, the top is crisp nut not tough and the pie itself holds itself together. This in itself is part of the genius, there is nother better than not having to worry about mince down your front when you are hoeing into your hangover cure.

All in all these parcels of oven-baked pastry-laden meat are amazing. If you are in the Wakatipu, hangover or no, the 15 minute drive to Arrowtown is well worth the effort.

If you have never partaken in a gourmet burger then you are in for a delight. Popping up all over Australia and New Zealand are small hamburger shops that really know how to make hamburgers. They usually have your regular style burger – meat-pattie, lettuce, tomato and cheese on a hamburger roll but the menu generally consists of a number of delights you had never dreamt of. Well maybe you have dreamt it, but this is your dreams coming true.

Now, I’m not going to rant about the history of this phenomenom but there is a few of this style of shop opening, Velvet Burger in Dunedin, ChimiChanga in Brisbane (now closed I’m told), Wunder Burger in Tauranga, I’m told there are a few stores in Melbourne and last but certainly not least, Fergburger in Queenstown. I’m sure they are popping up everywhere, probably in my own kitchen, but the point is there are lots around the traps and the numbers are growing.

Now, the first gourmet burger joint I ever visited was Queenstown’s own Ferg a few years ago and since then I’ve had more than I could ever count. This includes every burger on the menu, in every state of drunk, sober and hungover possible. Needless to say, I love the place and it’s going to be very difficult for me to be impartial in any reviews I write. I’d also love to hear about any other gourmet burger shops around the traps.

Funky music, art and comfortable surrounds are the order of the day at Joe’s Garage. Being one of the bigger cafes in Queenstown it doesn’t have the compact, claustrophobic feel that other coffee shops around here give off. The dining area is quite sparse with a few tables and a full length breakfast-style bar which over looks the food preparation area. There are few things better in my opinion than an open kitchen, being able to see the staff preparing your coffee and meals is something that more places should do. The only problem is it can be hard to grab someone’s attention to order another coffee or food as the staff are busy with their back to you, a small price to pay for the great atmosphere.

The coffee is great at Joe’s (as it is in most places around here), this particular blend/roast is a richer flavour than I am used to but it definitely is not overdone. The quality of the end product is, like most things in this cafe, exceptional. I have seen the dread-locked barista singlehandedly pumping out a ridiculous number of cups high quality coffee in short succession and personally have not tasted a bad cup. No burnt coffee, bitter coffee and the presentation is always top notch.

My only complaint is a distinct lack of raw sugar, I always take a little bit of sugar in my coffee and personally think that white sugar is a waste of time. It does not provide any flavour while raw sugar adds just the slightest hint of caramel. I think a lot of coffee drinkers are in the same boat as I and there really is no reason why sachet’s of both can’t be on the tables.

For food, I think Joe’s is certainly one of the best places in Queenstown for a queezy stomach or an aching head. It has a good range of salads, cereal and hot breakfast on the menu, rounded out with a couple of bratwurst rolls. My personal favourite meal is “The Joker”, it is a toasted roll, bratwurst, bacon and egg. This is certainly full of flavour and meat and certainly won’t dissapoint with it’s size. All in all the meals at Joe’s are superb, they aren’t necessarily the cheapest but they are definitely worth every cent.

Joes Garage Coffee Machine

Probably my biggest complaint about Joe’s Garage is the clientele, often the feel given off from the other customers is one where they think you should get out of their coffee shop and town. People have mentioned this to me about other places in Queenstown, but I have only ever noticed it at Joes. I think it is magnified by people sitting in the dining area with their dogs under the table and not caring if anyone else has a problem with this – that is what the outdoor eating area is for!

Overall I love the place and regularly recommend people to drop in for a coffee and breakfast.

I’ve eaten a lot of bacon in my time, and IHEARTBACON is the first website I visit every morning (that might actually be a lie), regardless, I couldn’t think of anything better at 2pm in the morning (hangover or not) than bacon and eggs and maybe a little bit of toast. This could actually have been the breakfast and that Moses cooked before he led his people from Egypt, well he would have apart from the fact that Judaism prevents the touching of the flesh of pigs. Maybe I should steer clear of religion.

Don’t get me wrong, bacon isn’t just for breakfast, the BLT is a great meal, especially at lunch and the fat and flavour of bacon is extremely complimentary to a number of other meats, chicken the most notable.

Having sampled quite a bit of bacon in my time, I was very disappointed when I first not only purchased but prepared some here in Queenstown. First let me say that I’m not sure if this is endemic across the nation, but the situation here in Central Otago is dire. There is a few problems with it, first of all bacon here is ridiculously expensive (I wonder how it weighs in on the Bacon and Eggs Index). The cheapest (and worst quality) comes in at about $10 a kg, that is for some dodgy extra fatty, extra salty shoulder bacon, as you improve the “quality” the price increases to around $20 a kg. This is usually American streaky bacon – I don’t really know what that is supposed to mean, but it certainly doesn’t mean meaty. They are long rashers, with not a great deal of anything on them, what sets them apart is the saltiness and this meat does at least taste good, but it doesn’t go very far for a hungry man.

Compare these prices and quality to the 9.99kg Woolworths bacon in Australia and it makes this bacon lover want to cry.