Breakfast Thieves

The Breakfast Thieves is smack bang in the heart of the uber trendy back streets of Fitzroy and it rocks the so-hot-right-now-breakfast-vibe that you'd expect.  My uber trendy friend Linda was the one who directed us there so I had high expectations from the start.  On the corner of leafy Gore Street and funky Rose Street, just near Smith Street.  Lovely location, a billion bikes chained up the front and a beautiful Sunday morning to boot. 

As you may be able to tell from these pictures, it's not going for the blatent bohemian op-shop kitted out look but it blends refurbished rustic with brand spankin' pretty well.  It was pretty packed but our coffee orders were taken quickly as were our breakfast orders. 

The coffee was pretty good.  I'm trying to cut back on milk/soy so went a long black, and it's harder to disguise badly made coffee without tainting it with milk, so well done on the coffee to Breakfast Thieves. Whilst the coffee came out in a reasonable time, the mains took ages.  Aggggeeess.  It was busy but not lines out the door busy, but who knows.  When we enquired as to our where our meals were, they were very apologetic, advised it would be two minutes and offered us free drinks.  Yes please free drinks, but another strike was Linda's free drink never came.  

 

Linda ordered the Chilled Sticky Black Rice Pudding, which come with coconut mango sorbet and toasted sesame seeds. Unfortunately it wasn't that great.  The rice was a bit under cooked which is enough to put one of ones pudding. 

Kai and I got "The Leprechaun" which was corn and goats fetta fritters, with warmed grapes and cherry tomatoes, honey salsa with grilled asparagus and poached eggs.  It was amazing.  Amazing.  The one downfall of being lucky enough to have so many great breakfasts so often is that perhaps I'm a bit spoilt when it comes to food and not as easily impressed anymore.  This blew me away with every mouthful.  It's such a shame that one person got an average meal, their free drink never came and the rest of us got to have this: 

It's worth giving it a go, but do go when you're not starving in case your meal takes ages too, and don't order the rice pudding.  But do, do, do get those amazing fritters

 

Ici

Happy 2013! What better way to celebrate than with breakfast? I was giving the task of organising breakfast with consistent champions Todd and KT, and my awesome new housemate Ellie.  I'd been to Ici once before, about a year ago, and was keen to go again.  As it is only a cheeky 10 minute bike ride from home for Ellie and I, the decision was easy. 

 

Ici is on on the corner of Napier Street and Kerr Street in Fitzroy, and the outside is pretty low key with a couple out umbrellas and outside tables.  Inside is pretty dark and cosy, I imagine there would be some lovely atmosphere for dinner, if only it were open - breakfast/lunch only).  But I forgot to take venue photos - sorry.  The menus are up on the blackboard wall on one side of the cafe, but they have printed versions too to avoid neck strain. 

Coffee - great start Ici - check out the shredded chocolate on the cappacino.  Coffee was great well received by all, although there was a decent wait for it 

  

Todd got the Vegemite Soldiers, sans Vegemite, with a side of bacon.  While the food was nice, the menu stated that it came with asparagus spears and clearly the above plate has a distinct lack of spears.  When queried, the cheery staff said that didn't think it came with spears, checked with the kitchen who said yep, no asparagus, despite both the blackboard and written menu stating so.   "It's a bit misleading!" they chirped.  Quite. Also, for a $5 side of bacon that's a pretty unimpressive serving side.  That said, the simple dish delivered.

KT and Ellie both got the Ici Summer Eggs, which was a poached eggs, with smashed peas, dill, lemon and danish feta.  If you're not a dill fan, avoid this dish because it was pretty dill heavy.  Texture of the smashed peas was great though and it's a bit different to your standard smashed avocado. 

I had the scrambled tofu, which came with had shitake mushrooms, brocoli, spring onions, rice, mushrooms, ginger and beetroot relish.  It was good, pretty tasty but needed salt or something, and I'm not usually one to add much salt, yet there I went.  The rice and ginger were a bit of something different for breakfast, beetroot relish no doubt the best part.  

Overall, it wasn't bad, coffee was consistent, staff were pretty cool, but overall not amazing and I probably wouldn't be rushing back

Amsterdam Street Cafe

Whilst it has been a long time between posts, it hasn't been a long time between breakfasts.  We/i have just been lazy.  And busy.  And often we head back to the old tried and trusted breakfast establishments due to location, familiarity, whatever.  But mostly I continue to snap away with my camera and don't get around to posting.  Sorry to all our dedicated fan/s*. 

I went to Amsterdam Street Cafe (no website it would seem but they tweet)  a couple of months ago with my wonderful friends Todd and KT, who are old breakfast pros.  Due to a busy schedule we had an ultra early Saturday morning breakfast, so I can't say how busy this place gets on weekends but it wouldn't surprise me if they got very full indeed.   Positioned next to some awesome street art in the part of Richmond that almost encroaches into South Yarra, this cafe is rocking a red semi-retro theme but it doesn't try too hard.  It features lots of lovely natural light, old stools, great tables with embedded red tiles, bare lighting and lots of recycled wood used in their bar area and storage cupboards.  

 Coffee: All my shots were rubbish, but it was so good I had to take one for the road! As you can see in the above picture they use Bonsoy which is a favourite amongst we soy devotes.  

KT opted for the classic croissant with home made jam which was fresh and buttery as you would expect.  Todd also went with the classics and had poached eggs on toast with bacon.  Eggs cooked very nicely, slight singe on the toast though.  Still you could hardly notice that when you check out how nicely that bacon is cooked.  Now I don't eat meat and haven't done so for years but I certainly remember and recognise perfectly cooked bacon.  Kudos to the chefs of Amsterdam.

 Being the total wild-child** that I am, I went for something crazy and different, which was the breakfast burrito - with scrambled eggs, spinach, mushrooms and chilli-jam mayo.  Do I need to emphasise how brilliant that is? CHILLI JAM MAYO OMGZ! It was pretty world rocking.  Slightly heavy on the mushrooms for my tastes but the beauty of mushrooms is that they're easy to pick out.

Overall a very enjoyable breakfast experience, looking forward to returning.  Also staff were friendly and chilled out.  I had to think hard to come up with a slightly singed piece of toast and the mushroom-to-rest-of-burrito-ratio slightly off (for my personal tastes anyway) to pick on, so it's a definite recommendation to get yourself down to Amsterdam Street Cafe if you're around the Richmond area. 

 
*Love you Mum xx  
** no for real, I mean it 

Slowpoke

After a late and large Saturday night, Alex and I wandered down Brunswick street in typical bleary eyed Sunday morning/verging into afternoon fashion. We were headed for Gertrude street for a location that I can't even remember now, but the Cheap Eats guide said it was good. Maybe some other time?

Sorry for the dodgy phone photos, I forgot both my cameras with all that being hung over, so phone photos it is.











































The shop is small and cozy, with that eclectic retro op-shop-sourced feel that you pretty much demand from an inner north cafe these days. Just check out those pepper grinders: whilst they look far newer than 30 odd years, that design is straight from my mum's 70s influenced panty. And check out this cute way of storing their (pink sea) salt


I love egg cups. And so do they apparently - although suprisingly there are only two egg items on the menu, and for a breakfast/brunch/lunch establishment it was odd not to have the breakfast staple of eggs on toast with whatever individual flair on the menu. But perhaps it is intentional as their point of difference? The egg options were boiled eggs with soldiers and the smashed eggs with chili jam and jamon (apparently Spanish for proscuito, thanks urban spoon reviewer) . We decided to get two dishes and share, and luckily the waiter we ordered from advised us that the chili jam option was not vegetarian, so we had the smashed egg on turkish bread with salad.
It was nice, but really wasn't much more than a warm egg and lettuce sandwich. And I don't know if anyone can do egg and lettuce as good as my Nanna so it's not something I would probably go back for. Luckily the next dish was pretty sensational - avocado, feta and chilli on toast. In my experience a lot of places tend to go a bit overboard with the fetta in this kind of thing, or when putting feta with scrambled eggs for example, but I think Slowpoke got the balance of all their ingredients just right. This was great and is something I'd definitely go back for



Another reason to go back was the chilled atmosphere, really friendly staff, ample collection of newspapers and the like, and the fact that other diners kindly bring their adorable puppies and position them right outside the window you're seated at for your viewing pleasure

We unintentionally following this guy and his owners back to their house. It's like the universe was telling us that we should borrow him (thus far we have resisted but I'm not making any solid promises).

Even though we were stuffed full from breakfast, the pasty case was too tempting and we took home that rhubarb tart in the middle for later on. It was amazing, so awesome. And how sweet are their little hand drawn labels? Their business cards are the same shabby-chic form, stamped onto the back of cereal boxes.


All in all it was a lovely Sunday morning relaxed breakfast. Checking out some other reviews I'd be interested to go back and try some of their other dishes, the rhubarb porridge in particular. Thanks for being closer than Gertrude Street and easing us out of a seedy Sunday morning Slowpoke!

Three Bags Full

My BFF Kathryn had come back for a holiday back home from England, where she's been living for a while, and what better way to celebrate than going out for breakfast with her and her brilliant sister Jenny the following morning after she came back. It's been many years since I went to England and whilst I remember Europe in general being full of great food, I definitely don't remember England bowing me over with what they had to offer culinary wise. Then again, I was a kid who had just done a contiki tour, so clearly I did not have great taste back then to really make an appraisal. Anyway - I can only assume that the food in England does not compare to that of Melbourne, as from what I can tell, no where compares to food in Melbourne. I was tempted to go somewhere tried and tested but decided to go for a new untried cafe, although it was clearly a safe bet. Three Bags Full is owned by the same crew who own Liar Liar and APTE (although from what I hear on the grapevine APTE has changed hands now).

Three bags full is pretty easy to miss, in a subtle looking building for the outside (sorry for lack of photo - in all the excitement of Kathryn coming back plus me getting confused over the parking situation I forgot to take one). But on this Wednesday morning we got the only free table left so I hate to think of what it would be like on the weekend. The interior is pretty funky with yellow stools, artwork and pepper shakers, as well as fun light fittings made of tea cups and saucers. Go as a group or even alone and sit on their window benches.

The menu is pretty great, with a whole page dedicated to breakfast, as well as a printed daily specials menu. In fact that only fault I could find was the 'Smoked Trout Omelette' listed under the vegetarian section. You'd think such experience cafe owners would comprehend that fish is not vegetarian.

I ended up piking from the specials board, getting folded eggs with halloumi, zucchini and chilli. It was pretty awesome, as you would expect of anything that has the the addition of halloumi, but I really loved the whole combination.

Kathryn picked the beetroot cured salmon, which came on a corn and fetta fritter with avacado, rocket and dill sour cream. She was so thrilled by it that she has been asking when I'm going to get around to posting the picture ever since. Geeezz Kathryn when I get around to it!


Jenny got the baguette, also from the specials selection. Rocket, tomato, avocado, mayo and crispy honeyed bacon I believe. Check out the cute presentation with the little 'Three bags full' complete with sheep logo around the baguette. (Extra kudos to Jen for turning her meal around so that I could photograph it up the right way).


We were far too full to get sweet treats, no doubt my sister will be most ashamed of me when she reads this. But it was a great meal in a funky setting, and the staff were pretty nice and well dressed, I'll go back here next time I need good food, good coffee and wardrobe inspiration. Except I might not be brave enough to try getting in on the weekend

St Ali

I’d heard a lot about St Ali in South Melbourne, and had missed a few opportunities to go there. So I jumped at the opportunity to go there with my friend Megsy on a lovely Friday morning when she had a week off. And I’m enjoying more leisure time at the moment which leaves my mornings open for lots of breakfast. Note to self: start counteracting breakfast out with exercise.

St Ali is rather nondescript from the outside - bare white painted bricks, no real sign, certainly no name declaring it to be what I was looking for. The building opposite it pretty standout, so perhaps look for that and then do a 180! Lucky for me, Megsy got there first and her waiting out the front was a giveaway that it was the location I was looking for. This lack of signage certainly isn’t hurting their business cause for a non-weekday day this pretty large establishment was pretty bustling. In a large converted warehouse, the inside has an airy industrial feel but there’s a few walls here and there, so it’s not like you’re eating in a big beer hall. It also has high ceilings, a courtyard of sorts and a surprising amount of natural light.

Now St Ali alleged has the best coffee in Melbourne. Then again so Tiffo heard that Mixed Business did too. And just this past weekend I was taken to Brother Baba Budan because I just had to try the coffee, apparently it's the best coffee in Melbourne.

My coffee at St Ali was really good, but it didn’t bowl me over like when I went to APTE (funnily enough Tiffo didn’t have a great coffee experience there – go figure). And I had that same “whoa this coffee is blowing my mind” experience with my coffee at BBB. I guess to put it into perspective, I’d go out of my way to get a coffee at St Ali if I was near the South Melbourne area, where as I’d probably go into the city just to get a coffee at BBB. You know, if I had nothing better to do, desperately needed coffee and could justify the trip.

The menu was pretty appealing, I was torn between at least three items and for me this is a good sign. I eventually went for the ‘My Mexican Cousin’, which was consisted of corn fritters, baby spinach, haloumi and kasundi with poached or fried eggs ($17.50). Naturally I opted for poached eggs. It was pretty great, I’ve been on a real haloumi kick lately so it hit the spot.

Megsy got the ‘Deconstructed NYC Bagel’, which had house cured sake salmon on toasted bagel with avocado and fetta mash and horseradish cream cheese ($18.00). I was pretty surprised when it came out looking so, well, deconstructed but when I think about it, how else would it be? I was drooling over the horseradish cream cheese.

All in all it was pretty great. My only bad experience was when parking and someone stole my spot by standing in it (as a pedestrian, what the?). But that can hardly be blamed on the restaurant. I’d definitely go back, although I hear it’s madness on the weekends, but that just says it all doesn’t it?