Cafes and Restaurants » Melbourne Restaurants


Breakfast at Bastille Cafe, Clarendon St, South Melbourne

Not much to look at from the street but the set tables, open kitchen and French flag give this restaurant an impression of expensive, overdone arogance. The truth is the complete opposite.

Cafe Bastille Omelette The breakfast menu is a very basic affair, eggs, omelet, bacon, mushrooms and pancakes.. Don’t let the lack of options fool you though, the fare is produced with the finest of ingredients, ham off the bone, fresh tomatoes and amazing bread. The eggs were poached beautifully, the ham and mushroom filled omelette moist and the bacon not overcooked. Each meal was served with toasted, olive oil drizzle bread to die for and a dipping sauce of tomato relish. After the fact, the bread and relish could easily have replaced the entire meal.

Generally the coffee in Clarendon St is nothing to speak of, especially when compared with Lygon and Brunswick St but Cafe Bastille’s lattes were great. Caramelly, hot and quick to the table, they certainly helped my hangover turn the corner.

At the end of meal, the most pleasing aspect of the meal was the price. $7 for poached eggs plus $3 for bacon on the side. $12.50 for the omelette and $14 for 4 coffees. 2 very caffeinated and content diners walk out with not only change from $40 but also happy with the service and the quality of the food.

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Breakfast in Melbourne

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.

Supper Inn, Celestial Ave

There are places in Melbourne that make you feel as though you are in another place, or another time and sometimes you stumble down an alley or a laneway and you could well be in both another place and another time. Walking down Celestial Ave, in the heart of Chinatown at any hour of the night or day is precisely one of those experiences. If it wasn’t for the multi-storey carpark towering over the street you would easily expect to see Woo, of Deadwood fame, sitting down beside of one of the stores with his pigs, and his whores. Yet, he isn’t there and in his place is an overflowing dumpster and an angry asian chef having a sneaky cigarette perhaps a beer.

Who can hold it against him though, when the Supper Inn advertises its opening hours until 2:30am and you would have to think that if there were people there wanting to order at half 2 the kitchen surely wouldn’t be closed. The food is great, it certainly isn’t the cheapest between the red gates of Chinatown but it doesn’t seem as jam packed with artificial flavours as other restaurants. $20 will net you the barbecued suckling pig which was very tastey, but quite a small portion and $18 will get a Szechuan Beef and a Sweet and Sour Pork. Of particular note was the sweet and sour pork which was not only extremely tasty but also a great sized portion. The menu consists of traditional style Chinese food, all sitting around this price range. It’s probably the best food in Australia that money can buy at 2 in the morning.

Working our table was an older chinese man who’s lack of conversation was refreshing, considering our conversation was hilarious to us, but almost certainly less so to him. He was happy to pour our cheap ‘Bulli Bulli’ Shiraz which was quite a surprise but nothing compared to how he wielded the spoons when he served us our special fried rice. This was something that has to be seen to believed, the spoons were snapping faster than a pitbull in a cattle yard and before we could say, “Cheers mate” our bowls were overflowing with rice.

Service with a smile and a nod.

2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival – Good value events

Having just had a quick browse through the guide for this year’s Melbourne Food and Wine Festival I must say I’m completely underwhelmed. The length (amount of events) and breadth (number of cuisines) are impressive but the majority of them seem to completely ignore the factor of cost. A quick perusal of the index of events at the back of the guide confirms my suspicion, out of about 300 events, only 26 are free, 50% are in the above $50-200 price range and  are in the over $200 range. Considering the economic climate and the “festival” status of this event is this a little over the top?

This being said, there are a number of events that look like they will be really good value that I will definitely be trying to get to.

7th – 23rd March – Restaurant Express ($35)

A huge number of restaurants in the city and surrounds are providing a 2 course lunch, a glass of wine and a coffee or tea for $35. This seems like it will be a really great way to experience a restaurant that you might not normally be able to afford to eat at, or if you would might be able to have a couple of extra lunches for the same price.

12 March – A spanish affair, Comme ($40)

An extravaganza of all things Spanish, flamenco, food, beer and cava will be the flavour of the night on Alfred Place. Hosted by the the renowned Comme Kitchen the evening should be a Spanish style party of the highest quality.

7th March – Meat & Malbec, The Montague Hotel ($25)

The Montague Hotel will play host to an exploration of beef and Malbec wine. The wine comes straight from South America and as any red blooded Argentinian will tell you, it’s a match made in heaven.

14 March – Section 8 Block Party ($25)

Tucked in behind Chinatown, Section 8 is an example of a laneway bar that is bigger than the laneway. The Block Party is slated to bring together everything that the bar stands for. Fine beer, great asian cuisine, DJs and hula girls – What more could you ask for for $25?

21st and 22nd March – Cellar Door at Southgate ($25)

This is will be like going to all of the state’s cellar doors all at once. There are a number of learning sessions and tours provided for free by the festival and a number of restaurants are providing cheap tasting plates. This is all capped off by the Melbourne International Jazz festival happening at the same time.

23 March – The Global Trends, The Langham ($40)

Certainly not for every food lover looking for a bargain but this short conference about the food and wine industry and its media will certainly pique the interest of any aspiring journalist or blogger. 3 sessions with various world class media personalities and chefs and drinks should certainly cover a lot of ground regarding the entire industry and it’s future.