New York - brunch

They love to brunch in New York. And when I say brunch, I mean something more than just a snazzy word combination to describe a mid-morning meal, something more than ordering off the breakfast menu late in the day.

Most cafes have a completely separate brunch menu, available only at set times on the weekend, normally something like 11-4. In most cases, the menu also covers cocktails - often one (or more) is included along with your meal. It's a dining tradition I'm quite keen on and its absence on these shores is leaving my Sundays feeling a little bland and disappointing in comparison.

The only frustrating thing about New York's winning brunch arrangements is that they're only available on weekends - even as happy-go-lucky tourists you can't take advantage of a quiet Thursday to knock back a few complimentary bloody marys with your poached eggs. So, when it came to the weekend, brunch was our priority tourist destination.

Within 36 hours of landing in New York, we'd been to Brooklyn twice. Our initial, jetlag-avoiding meander south from Houston Street led us to City Square, site of the striking Municipal Building and start of the Brooklyn Bridge. Never one to let debilitating tiredness and crazed melatonin levels get in the way of a travel opportunity, we duly crossed said bridge, and found ourselves incapable of much more than an atrophied rest in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Even the attractions of a Calexico cart couldn't lure us to our first sample of street food.

The next day we crossed the river again, via subway this time, to hit the Brooklyn Flea Market, featuring the Smorgasburg food market. I held myself to a doughnut at the markets, however. As Brooklyn is gentrified by up-and-comers escaping the $800K median apartment price tag in Manhattan, it's embracing the cafe culture big time, and I had a whole list of possible places to brunch at.

One was Milk Bar, famous in these parts for having an Australian, indeed Melbournian, barista, who can make a 'proper' latte. Seems the Americans are loving it Aussie style too - the place was pumping full when we went past.

Instead we trudged (jetlag and heat don't really put a spring in your step) an extra couple of blocks to The Spot, home of the unlimited mimosa brunch. That's right - you promise to pay them $12.95 and in return you can pick anything off the menu and they will refill your glass with bubbles and orange juice as much as you like. Rather than the hiss of the coffee machine, this cafe resonated with popping corks.

The thing was, we were both ragged with jetlag, and unlimited drinks coupled with fatty food on a hot day was probably a recipe for....well, indulging in the crazy, nonsensical kind of things you do on holidays, really.

So, SG went a safe option with the pancakes, for which the customer could choose their own filling, his taste running to strawberry and blueberry. The great North American condiment, real maple syrup, came jugged on the side.

Without elaborating, the waiter advised that the 'French toast Spot style' was pretty special. I figured, when in Rome, and all that, and ordered according to his recommendation.Thank you, I will have my French toast deep-fried. The special addition was the cream cheese on the inside. It really wasn't that bad, and let's face it, we were drinking all the sparkling wine we wanted for the price of a sandwich at Earl, so there wasn't much to complain about.

To celebrate this, our first New York brunch, and to recover from imbibing alcohol and ingesting plenty of fat, sugar and dairy midday, we promptly went home and went to sleep :)

The next day we went back for more, this time keeping it much closer to home, needing only to trudge four doors down from our apartment to Jane. This was a fancier place than The Spot, overrun with good-looking Villagers. We perched at the bar, and spent as long picking a complimentary cocktail (raspberry champagne) as the food.
Here we have corn 'pancakes' (the discs sitting under the eggs), topped with perfectly poached eggs, maple chicken sausage and tomato hollandaise. Alongside are the home fries (it took us a while to hit upon genuine fries, rather than wedges). The maple sausage in particular was delicious. I love maple syrup in baked beans, and discovered in America what wonders it can do for meat as well.

Prune came to our attention via a friend's recommendation. It's in an unassuming street in the East Village, and I think exemplifies New York's weekend dining scene. Rammed inside, anxious groups hovered outside, awaiting and cursing missing friends who prevented them from being seated. The hostess ran the show with authority, in some cases seeming to fit people in at whim. The cafe's popularity was proven by diners who arrived unfazed by the prospect of a 40-minute wait.

We were seated within a couple of minutes (must have been of those hostess whim things). I'd been after something straightforward - a toast and scramble kind of thing, with cocktails, of course. The menu didn't present as straightforward, and it soon became clear that this was a cafe that took brunch very seriously. They've nailed the idea of a mix of sweet and savoury dishes - often both elements on the one plate - to fill the late-morning to early-afternoon eating requirements of cashed-up kids on the weekend.

Our choices were thus:Dutch-style pancake, with blueberries and coulis, served with sour cream and Canadian maple bacon. This was so delicious. The pancake was risen in the oven, rather than a pan, and it was like sitting down to a sponge cake for breakfast. The blueberries soaked right in, and offset by the salty, smoky bacon, it was just divine.

This was on the menu simply as 'spicy chickpea stew', but it was so much more. The (not very spicy) chickpea and tomato stew does form the basis, but sitting atop are two wonderful things: crumbed poached eggs, which held their runniness throughout the meal. Astride the plate are two pieces of flatbread, spread with the most decadently salty olive butter. I'd have paid the price of admission just for that.

So much for scramble on toast!

Duchess of Spotswood

87 Hudsons Rd, Spotswood; (03) 9391 6016

I wonder sometimes how a cafe owner approaches the challenge of doing something 'different' for breakfast. You could throw some unusual ingredients into an omelette, sure, but to do something truly inventive - particularly in this town - means thinking outside the box, circle, square and geometry itself.

Duchess of Spotswood have thrown out the set square and come up with an equation where inventive + quality = a cafe worth crossing town for.

First of all, they're in a suburb off the beaten cafe track. Most of Melbourne's cafe afficionados are going to have to travel to get there (and to those already living in Spotswood - lucky you!). That the blogosphere is, regardless, alight with praise for their British-influenced menu tells you the effort is worth it.

Two words: pork neck. For breakfast. That's thinking outside the box. It involves rather more effort than frying bacon to order. The Duchess' menu manages to put the 'slow' back into break-fast, but the presentation speaks of simplicity and flavour, rather than convolution and complexity.

Here's their version of muesli:Served on a wooden board, the 'muesli bar' is one to eat with fork, not fingers. It's a conglomeration of nuts, oats, puffed rice, dried fruit and other morsels of goodness, held together with something sticky - honey or golden syrup - that has the sweet dial turned to spot-on. On the side is creamy yoghurt and seasonal fruit.

See, simple: ingredients and process aren't too out there, but presentation has a big wow factor, without being intimidating or sacrificing satisfaction.

I love black pudding, but I'm not going to order it just anywhere. With a kitchen pedigree that includes the Station Hotel in Footscray and The Botanical, I was comfortable that I, and the piggy before me, would be in safe hands. And we were.
I know it's not to everyone's taste, but chef Gale's version is light and delicate with cinnamon. The eggs are from Villa Verde in Mitcham and, honestly, you could simply have had these two orbs all on their own. Perfectly poached and bursting with bright-orange yolk.

The bread is from Zeally Bay in Torquay. I had ciabatta with a steak-knife crust on my plate, along with a pot of whipped butter (it's the little things). Our next-table neighbours had the avocado and goats cheese sprinkled with fresh herbs and broad beans, served on thin crusty bread. Even the toast is selected to match the meal.

Other options include the wonderfully named Breakfast of Champignons, with mushrooms and Stilton. Giddy up.

So, get out of the box and out of the city. You'll be rewarded.

Pope Joan

77-79 Nicholson St, Brunswick East; (03) 9388 8858

I have a new favourite breakfast.

Pope Joan opened mid-year, with an owner pedigree that ensured a smart fitout, a canny and classy menu, and the kind of publicity that generates a half-hour wait for a table on the first Saturday they were open.

The co-owners hail from Circa (Matt Wilkinson) and the Kent Hotel in Carlton (Ben Foster). They've got plenty of room to play with on site. Behind the plate-glass front, round wooden tables plus a communal table affront the prep area, with extra kitchen space at the back. To one side, a covered area offers bench seating, while down the back a garden space is filled with luminous artifical grass, reclaimed school tables and a tidy herb garden.

The menu is succinct, paying particular homage to the egg. Lunch specials are written up each day, such as a roast chicken sarnie, with stuffing, served swaddled in foil so all the warmth and aroma stays in until you're ready to eat.

That's just one example of their attention to detail when it comes to presentation. It's not just the food: waitstaff deliver water from divine, floral-printed jugs. Then there's this take on rice pudding:The creamy pudding, with not a crunchy piece of rice in sight, is studded with vanilla. Mango on top sweetens it up and stops the dish being too sickly.

I went the boiled eggs, and this is the dish that had me exclaiming with delight:
You've got two boiled goodies, buttered soldiers, herbed salt and bacon bits. Is there any flavour better than egg and salt? And what fun to put together! The only thing that could have improved it would be the egg equivalent of a 'caramel stop'. Both eggs were piping hot, so there was no chance of keeping the yolk runny for the duration.

And how much would you expect to pay for such breakfast enjoyment, replete with bespoke serving dish? It's just $9.

The Breakfast Club

206 St Georges Road, Northcote; 0418 379 911

It's amazing what a cafe can do in a small space to sate suburbanites. Amazing too just how many gorgeous sets of retro crockery are around for said cafes to utilise to good effect.

This tiny cafe, tucked away amidst flats, houses and the odd shop on St Georges Rd could one day be as definitive as its namesake film. There may only be three or four tables inside, but the menu makes up for the lack of seating choice.

For breakfast, try the Cinna: how about stewed fruits mixed with yoghurt, served up with souvenir teaspoon in a glass bowl for ladling over cinnamon toast. Or if you want the savoury side of things, try more make-your-own-fun with sourdough, avocado, delightful pesto, wonderful persian feta and cherry toms. Oh the combinations! Pesto + feta, avocado + tomato, or all four slathered in appropriate proportions.

Cafe Supreme supplies the coffee and the Club make it well. It's worth ordering tea though, just to see what special pot it will come out in.

I returned not long after our first visit as I just couldn't get the idea of their Banarama dish out of my head: sourdough toast with cream cheese, banana, cinnamon, honey and if you fancy (and why wouldn't you?) Nutella. I thought this serve would be way beyond my capacities, but I was wrong. I could have gone another slice. My only criticism is that is was a bit light on with the honey, but no such problems with the spreadable chocolate. SG went the Nana Date on this occasion: date and banana bread that comes out dense and dark, but sits light and sweet on the tummy.

Cafeklatsch III: Fuel, Red Box III, Big Dish

Fuel: 4 Margaret St, Moonee Ponds; 03) 9375 4499
Red Box: 317 Sydney Road, Brunswick; 03 9387 8699
Big Dish: 70 Wales St; Ph TBC

Who would have thought that Moonee Ponds is only as far from Brunswick East as the city is? Probably anyone who'd taken the time to look further west on a map than Melville Rd! Puckle St, leading from Pascoe Vale Rd down to Moonee Ponds Station is dotted with cafes, bakeries and restaurants (lots of Thai and Indian), along with a mix of franchise and independent stores.

Tucked around the corner, immediately across from the station, is Fuel (and, just a few doors up, Holy Cannoli - review hopefully to come soon). This is a gentle cafe, which manages to squeeze enough tables and chairs into an angled space to accommodate families, couples and friends doing coffee, but still give the wait staff enough room to wend through with coffee after coffee.


The menu covers most brunch cravings. French toast with bananas in caramel sauce was hard to go by, but it was a savoury kind of morning, and with the corn fritters (above) - served with avocado, bacon, salsa and sour cream - already claimed by one of my brunch partners, baked eggs it was.

So the breakfast trend of 2008, I'd eschewed baked eggs for a while. Fuel's version comes with chorizo, mushrooms and white beans in tomato sugo. I thought at first that they'd been extraordinarily generous and plonked not two, but three, eggs atop the sugo. The middle mound is actually a dollop of sour cream (the online menu proffers mozzarella - a much better option). And let's be upfront: these aren't, in fact, baked eggs. They're two poached eggs atop baked accompaniments. And while we're there, it wasn't so much a tomato sugo as the kind of tomato sauce that comes with tinned spaghetti.

Nomenclature aside, this was an enjoyable breakfast. One thing I don't like about baked eggs is the way they keep cooking in the hot plate, offering a too-brief window to enjoy a runny yolk. At least this presentation eliminated that problem. In such a deep serving dish, however, there was all too much sauce for the yolk to mix with. Great chorizo, in any case.

Speaking of generous serves, Red Box is a cafe that believes in feeding customers for the day, not just a meal. A soup-of-the-day of sweet potato and ginger was an effective anecdote to the impending cold that likes to niggle around on these cold June weekends. Smooth, warming, piquant, and about a litre more than I could eat! Just the buttered bread would have carried me through most of the afternoon.

And as for their burger...it's almost self-defeating, it's so towering. It's worth the effort to push it down to mouth-size, but you could make stock with the amount of juice that dribbles out from the lamb and beef pattie.

Big Dish has entered the inner north cafe scene with a very small splash. Tucked away on a quiet Thornbury street, it feels more country foodstore than suburban cafe. Our visit there was unphotographed, which is a shame, as their very commendable food is elegantly presented.

They've mastered baked eggs, or rather claypot eggs, as they appear on the menu. The pot comes to the table with the capsicum-sweet sauce bubbling around two free-range eggs, expertly positioned in the middle, so they're not still cooking in contact with the sides. Le Madre sourdough completes the dish.

Fruit toast, dense enough to keep SG going until dinner, is presented on a wooden chopping board. Unmissable (especially for $7.50) are the crumpets with warmed honey ricotta, delicately spiced poached fruit tumbled on top, and the whole lot drizzled with pomegranate molasses. Absolutely delicious.

Western Australia

As we've already discovered in South Australia and Tasmania, making travel plans centred on Australia's great wine regions is a sure way to develop a holiday punctuated by exciting tastes and experiences.

Margaret River is a special region, situated so close to some truly stunning coastline features, with crystalline beachs of aqua, turquoise and white, and phenomenal limestone caves with hidden entrances and enchanting, glittering interiors. (Happy to stand corrected on this, but is it also quite a bit flatter than other wine regions?)

The Cape Dutch-style buildings at Voyager Estate proudly display their construction date of 1996. With the food on offer inside, however, here's hoping they are able to one day indicate a rather longer heritage! The menu descriptions leave you well-prepared for the price when you get to the end, but if you've got the funds, it's worth it. It's rare that a meat dish can be presented with such visual appeal that it's a shame to cut into it, but they achieve that with the (world's largest) mustard-rubbed pork cutlet with Persian fetta crumble (yes please!), celeriac mash and roasted apples. That's right, apples, not potatoes (no, the cider from Saturday's festival at Kellybrook hasn't addled my recollection!).
I'd been dreaming of a tasting plate of local produce, picked at while gazing onlawns rolling away to rows of vines dreaming of autumn. Voyager's 'breads and spreads' allowed a close approximation: toasted slices of their own bread with venison chorizo and a range of house condiments, olives, dukkah and oil. Oh, was I happy. While I normally eschew venison, this chorizo was superb. The star of the condiments was eggplant kasundi (can anyone offer more info on kasundi?). It's essentially eggplant pickle, with onion, chilli, lime, ginger, sugar, five spice, vinegar, cardamom and oil. (My taste detectors aren't that good - I read the label on a jar!)
Several breweries have sprung up in the region as well. Bootleg Brewery describes itself as 'an oasis in a desert of wine', but there are more of them around than you might expect. Their tasting tray of six beers is a very reasonable $12, and the setting in which to sample - under awnings or at a generous table by the lake - is entirely congenial. While sipping, one can sup on dips, enormous burgers skewered with a steak knife, fish and chips battered with house Pils (left), or daily specials including a curry, or in our case, Mediterranean vegetable risotto.
Speaking of breweries, Little Creatures is a WA export likely to outlast the commodities boom, and its headquarters in Fremantle are, dare I say, an experience not to be missed. Housed in a couple of mills' worth of port-side real estate, the barnlike Little Creatures Dining Hall serves their signature beers straight from the silo. On busy nights, patrons 'register' for a seat (with a number displayed on a snorkel, flipper, etc) and wait for their number to come up on the 'seating blackboard', heralded by a ship's bell.

The woodfired oven pumps out some classy-sounding pizzas such as chorizo, sweet corn and danish fetta, or zucchini, gorgonzola and semi-dried toms. One of their signature dishes is proscuitto-wrapped tiger prawns (right), which serves up eight satisfyingly plump prawns, each blushed with a paper-thin, swallow-and-miss-it piece of proscuitto. Our second choice, marinated kangaroo and tomato chutney, brought another set of moreish, skewered meat to the table.

Returning to Little Creatures in full sunlight a day or two later, we took advantage of their free bike hire offer (also available at their Melbourne site on Brunswick St) and rode these slightly dubious, but sturdy enough, vehicles up the coast to Cottesloe Beach, about as pleasant a way to spend the afternoon as I can imagine.

Daringly, Mad Monk has set up an ambitious space on Fremantle's South Terrace, where they push their own pale ale in direct competition with Little Creatures' founding product. They've purloined a large property on Fremantle's renowned restaurant strip; one renowned for all the touristy, rather than gastronomic reasons. It's more Lygon St, Carlton than Lygon St, East Brunswick, replete with local institution Ginos, which would undoubtedly serve up a fine bowl of pasta, but you could eat at University Cafe back home instead :)

It would, seem, however, that there's only so long SG and I can go without a pizza, so for our last dinner we headed to Sandrino, just across from Ginos, on Market St. Their pizzas feature the thicker-style bases, but the dough is sweet and fresh and they've taken a little bit of time putting together combinations of pizza toppings. On the left we have roast capsicum, eggplant, ricotta and salciccia; on the right is a pizza special with chicken, bacon, pinenuts and aioli hiding under the spinach. At about $18 each, with local wine available from $6 a class, we were quite satisfied with the arrangement.

Market St, for me, is where it's at in Fremantle. Closer to the station are a clutch of reputable cafes, including Long Macc (great name), and the delightful Hush Espresso (32 Market St). With glass frontage, including a hutch for those stopping by for takeaway coffee, this cafe is small enough that you can read the blackboard menu from your table, but big enough that there's space to pay at the counter without elbowing other diners. There are some fine-looking focaccias and muffins on display, and for breakfast diners are spoilt for sweet choices featuring organic bread and brioche.

Pancakes with berry compote are positively lathered, and could probably have done with a good dose of maple syrup to sweeten up the berry tang and lighten the dough load. French toast, with brioche, raspberry jam and mascarpone, was delightfully presented, the 'soldier' pieces allowing for well-controlled bread-to-condiment allocation.

One thing I learnt on this trip interstate may not concur with the current thinking of some of my blogging brethren, but I do now believe that we are protected in Melbourne from the worst of menu-pricing excess. In Dunsborough, a regional town of around 4000, we had the choice of half a dozen restaurants asking $30+ for the majority of main meals (pastas, maybe $25). One restaurant/wine bar had a $44 steak on the menu. Some of the highest echelon restaurants in Melbourne ask that, and I just couldn't trust that I could walk into an unheralded tourist-town restaurant and feel that I would get over four times worth a $10 steak and pot at the Rathdowne Tavern.

Coffee prices are in a similar state. I paid $3.80-$4 for coffee, including at one cafe where a waitperson (who mercifully handed over the barista reins immediately after!) asked 'What's in a cafe latte?' Some of the coffee was very respectable, but I can get great coffee for $2.50 in Melbourne, superb coffee for $2.70 and astonishing coffee for $3.

What I can't do is swim in the ocean in late April...

Cafeklatsch II: North II, Gingerlee IV, Cavallero

North: 717 Rathdowne St, Carlton North; 03 9348 1276
Gingerlee: 117 Lygon St, Brunswick East; 03 9380 4430
Cavallero: 300 Smith St, Collingwood; 03 9417 1377

It's not breaking any ground to say that Melbourne has a surfeit of cafes. It's also established that in certain parts of town, a certain style of cafe has become de rigueur. So what do they all do to differentiate themselves from each another?

In most cases, it's down to the menu. Innovative combinations, stand-out ingredients, or a signature dish are to the key to successful trade amidst the inner north's glut of relaxed dining options. In Carlton, the cafe called North has made extra certain by adding a particularly effective feature wall - seemingly drawn on in texta and featuring hundreds of cartoon-style, framed portraits. It would be endlessly arresting if their menu (also wall-mounted) didn't already give patrons enough to ponder.

Many are drawn to North, however, on the promise of a particular menu item. Hence, while they may be distracted by huevos rancheros (pictured right...and let me tell you, you won't eat for the rest of the day if you make it through that plate), or the house (cannelini) beans, they read only as far as: Reuben sandwich - grilled corn beef on an open sandwich with Swiss cheese, dill mayo and sauerkraut.
It doesn't look like much when it comes out, but it does the job. Look at the perfectly grilled cheese, just turning black at the edges; check out the corned beef slices overhanging the edges of the bread. And did someone say sauerkraut? They're as generous with the cabbage here as the bratwurst stand at Queen Vic Markets. I've soft spots for both corned beef and for old-school, open-topped sandwich-type arrangements, and this particular example made for a fine, filling and fulfilling lunch.

Grab a $2.50 gingerbread man on your way out the door.

Gingerlee doesn't seem to have skipped a beat since it opened almost two years ago - it's consistently packed, and its Syrian French toast is frequently written up. The cafe sits squarely in a concentrated eating zone, with Small Block, Poached, Sugardough and La Paloma all nearby, not to mention Rumi immediately across the street. Gingerlee's original menu seems to have held pretty steady, with Middle-Eastern touches on their breakfast and lunch dishes their signature. The French toast (with orange-blossom water and labne) is a case in point, along with their breakfast tagine. There's also the option, for those seriously in need, to order a Bloody Mary with breakfast.

Even their poached eggs come with something a little exotic, in this case one of my all-time favourite indulgences, Persian fetta (last featured on this blog in the creamed spinach from Greg Malouf at Stones). The poached eggs and fetta are accompanied by sourdough toast (of the bring-me-a-steak-knife-to-cut-this-crust variety) and avocado. Half an avocado to be exact - happy for them not to skimp on that! What I loved about this dish was building taste combinations on my fork - eggs, avocado, toast; creamy fetta and buttery bread; toast, avocado and fetta; and, more often than not, everything piled up together and manoeuvred with no small amount effort to my waiting mouth, followed shortly by a little squirm and a smile as all the tastes blended together.

Over Collingwood way, what does a cafe do among the bevy of Smith Street options to let everyone know they're both worthwhile and safe to try? At Cavallero, they start at the front, with elaborate wrought-iron gates across the front of the shop. A stag-head behind the linear, understated bar is incongruous amongst the otherwise bare walls housing booths and communal tables. By day, oodles of light flows in from front and back, but at night, funky light fittings keep the mood low-key.

Cavallero is succeeding at being different things to different crowds, achieving status as both a cafe and a bar. On the eating front, they've done interesting things when divvying up their menu, picking times of day rather than style of dish. One can choose from Early, Middle or Late, roughly equating to breakfast, lunch, dinner/tapas. Only roughly, however. Under Early there are also Extras, that really don't match the expected bacon, mushroom etc, but instead offer more obtuse mixed options, featuring avocado and gremolata, for example. It's a frequently changing menu as well, so a winning dish may have been usurped if you go back for a second try.

A subsection on the menu, under Middle, offers Bread, but goes much further than just a house-style, including filled options such as pide, or a combo of bread and olives. It's the Bread section luring many a customer, either for the Carolina-style pork sandwich (with roasted pork belly and a barbecue sauce fashioned on site) recently featured in the age (melbourne) magazine or their fried chicken and coleslaw sandwich.

The pide on this occasion came with spiced vegetables and a lively labne. It was certainly hearty and offered enough flavour kick to keep things interesting. I'm never so sure about putting potato into a sandwich, however. The eggplant, onion and labne were very welcome, and the potato was pretty tasty on its own, but a less starchy veg would have been preferable.

An honourable mention in the interesting menu stakes to El Mirage in Brunswick East, where a recent visit saw me making a win-win choice between rare beef salad with haloumi and basil, or poached eggs with fig chutney and ricotta, while others at the table went for an accomplished penne ragu, as well as $6 fruit toast with honey. Great with a T2 chai.

Pancakes, pikelets: Auction Rooms, Enni

Auction Rooms: 103-107 Errol St, North Melbourne; 03 9326 7749
Enni: 915 High St, Thornbury; 03 9484 8288

The press was abuzz with news of Auction Rooms when it opened in mid-2008. Matt Preston was particularly glowing in Epicure about its interior. Despite its soaring ceilings and double-shopfront width, it is a cosy place to be, and it offers one of the broadest range of seating options Melbourne has to offer. Take a simple table for four by the bright red coffee roaster, or perch on a low stool in the sunken area immediately adjacent to the plate-glass front. There's a courtyard out the back and a darker area behind the bar where those needing a few well-made coffees to buck up from the night before can shield themselves from all that natural light.

It's a venue that promises an interesting menu, and they've certainly shied away from generic breakfast dishes. It's not a menu filled with unusual ingredients as such, but their arrangement speaks of innovation.

Rather than pancakes and maple syrup, Auction Rooms offer coconut pikelets with vanilla pineapple, creme fraiche and orange syrup. Like me, perhaps the second item on that description has given you pause - just what is vanilla pineapple? It's diced pineapple that's been steeped in a vanilla syrup until it's candied and has countered the pineapple's sweetness - which to my palate is always a bit sickly - to offer instead a smoother flavour, with a touch of vanilla, encased in the firm, candied fruit pieces.

Perhaps you've also double-checked the description after looking at the photo to confirm that it did, in fact, say 'pikelets'. It does, but I would concur, that in my world pikelets are flat and share the approximate diameter of a piece of salami! The good news is that these pikelets are quite fluffy, and while the coconut milk is no doubt in part responsible for that, it offers only a hint of flavour. I do have a similar criticism to the that of the buckwheat pancakes at Giorno, that while the dish offers an uplifting combination of flavours and textures, there isn't enough of the wet to go with the generous offering of dry.

Update: It's kind of funny reading that description a couple of years later. Auction Rooms is the darling of the hipster crowd, and while its layout is still one of my favourite aspects of the place, the word cosy is no longer what first comes to mind. It's positively buzzing at any time of the week, and on weekends you can be sure you'll be putting your name down and waiting for a table. The menu remains reliably variable, if that makes sense, running the gamut from pork belly to felafel to creamed peanut butter and everything in between. And, of course, Auction Rooms is also one of Melbourne's coffee temples, with various blends available as well as siphon and pourover.

At the northern end of High St, where Thornbury starts to morph into Preston, Enni is not the kind of cafe to be written up for a Six Degrees-inspired interior kitout. This is a more traditionally laid-out cafe, with tables and booths on one side, and a lengthy display counter on the other. There is much to commend in that counter - a huge range of pies, filled sandwiches, salads and cakes that are a strong distraction from the menu.

The menu shows some thought as well, including dukkah eggs, (much vaunted) homemade baked beans and corn pancakes in addition to the regular pancakes. The latter, though amply smothered in berry compote, were not an exciting dish visually nor gastronomically. The cafe, however, is better known for its savoury offerings, and the corn pancakes didn't disappoint. Served with bacon, fried tomato, a poached egg and a decent chutney, they offered a lot more of interest to look at and to assemble into flavour combinations.
With the sad demise of Devour across the road, Enni offers a well-priced breakfast option on the edge of the inner suburbs. They are also a great option to stop into if you're heading northwards out of town and want some homemade treats - whether savoury or sweet - to take along with you.

Salty and sweet; A Minor Place IIII and Giorno II

A Minor Place: 103 Albion St, Brunswick East; 03 9384 3131
Giorno: 608 High St, Thornbury; 03 9484 2040
I love a dish that combines two elements of the taste spectrum. It probably won't do my rep any favours to admit that in my formative years one my favourite indulgences was to dunk the fries from a certain corporate-evil fast-food franchise into said franchise's chocolate sundae. Sickly sweet chocolate sauce with extraordinarily salty chips...it was an inglorious start to a food obsession, but it's the same principle on which many great dishes are based.

A Minor Place has the right idea with one of the options for their scrambled eggs: adding fetta and caramelised onions. It promised a little more than it delivered, in that the salty fetta and sweetened onions didn't present quite the bold contrast I'd had in mind. It was, regardless, a very satisfying dish, with the creamy eggs sitting perkily atop the promised multigrain bread (I like a cafe prepared to go the grain).

Over at Giorno, I'd learnt on previous visits that their menu can understate things. Dropping in for a post-groceries spot of lunch, I was keen to try out one of their piadinas (available from 11am), the Italian contribution to flatbreads. More robust than a crepe, and more closely resembling naan than a tortilla in looks, piadina is perfect to wrap around some Italian meat and cheese. My choice at Giorno featured proscuitto, artichokes, fontina and rocket. 'Sounds like a salty combo!' I hear you say. You're not wrong! Hopefully it was an unusual batch of bread, as the piadina itself could have sold more beer than a bowl of peanuts. The Giorno/Pizza Farro staff are always friendly and forthcoming, and I did mention that the bread seemed unreasonably salty. The waitress didn't think they normally added salt to the dough, so fingers crossed in most cases it's the quality of filling that is allowed to dominate and linger, rather than the need to slake a thirst!

Toast; North Island and Crunch

North Island: 111 Scotchmer St, North Fitzroy; 03 9486 8864
Crunch: 669 High St, Thornbury; 03 9495 1655

"It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you," opined British food writer Nigel Slater in his memoir, Toast. I haven't quite fallen in love with the cafe staff who have provided me with a golden serve of carb with toppings in the last couple of weeks, but as long as the bread is good and the grilling hand steady, it is a marvellous thing to sit down to.

In an attempt to reclaim January as a relaxed, vacationing month, I headed out on spontaneous mid-week jaunts to tick yet more local cafes off the list. I wasn't after Big Breakfasts - more to get a feel of the place, sample the coffee, and quiet my gurgling morning belly. It can seem odd to leave a kitchen amply stocked with a toaster, bakery bread and quality Australian honey to order and pay for a plate of toast; then again, like a cup of tea, the flavour and crunchy delight of toast is somehow enhanced when someone else makes it for you.

At North Island, they took care of the toasting and slicing, but the rest was up to the diner.The simply served plate of pide, avocado and lemon fits the cafe's atmosphere, a proponent of the Brunswick model of minimal kitout, eschewing fancy touches in favour of good coffee and basic menu items with a twist. I had to interrupt David Sedaris (not him in person, unfortunately; rather, his humour, in the form of Naked) to effect my own avocado and lemon distribution. But look at that avocado - that's why you order out. I've never had one at home that looked like that: mine are browny green and mushed before they even leave the skin (due to my flesh-extracting technique, rather than inferior produce!). Accompanying this indulgently simple start to the day was a fine coffee.

Thornbury's Crunch probably isn't a cafe that many people cross town for, but it's one that looks after local shopkeepers and families with adequately prepared cafe staples for breakfast and lunch.

Their sourdough toast comes with a side bowl of orange and tamarind marmalade. Tamarind is vital for giving that extra oomph to good satay sauce, and combined here with the orange it produced a tartness best enjoyed via a light smear, rather than a good dollop. A refreshingly intercultural way to start the day with toast.

French Toast

Green Refectory: 115 Sydney Road, Brunswick; 03 9387 1150
Cafe 3A: 3A Edward St; 03 9380 4996
Red Box: 317 Sydney Road, Brunswick; 03 9387 8699

It's a handy word, toast. You'll see it, or close derivatives thereof, on menus across many languages, making breakfast orders a less onerous task. Its culinary incarnations, however, are more diverse than its linguistic variations.

To the Spanish, tostada is often a dry, crispy bread snack enlivened with some marmalade, eaten late morning as an afterthought with the far more critical cafe con leche or espresso.

In France, toast has developed into an evening meal in the form of croque monsuier. Gruyere is mixed with dijon and slathered on ham atop bread toasted on one side, then grilled to gooiness. The Welsh take the mustard and cheese idea - normally cheddar rather than gruyere - and maybe throw in a little beer for perhaps the world's best national dish.

Our focus here, however, is on the particular incarnation known as French toast. Here, the nomenclature becomes murkier. Why the myriad permutations of (traditionally slightly stale) bread soaked in egg and fried became known in our language as 'French' is a fact lost to history. The range of names and interpretations of the dish perhaps indicate that it was in fact invented by everyone and no-one.

Pain a la francaise seems to be having something of a renaissance, not to mention a reinvention. It's no longer limited to eggy bread served with maple syrup and bacon. Seasonal fruits often feature: Green Refectory poaches a pear in white wine (another good way to sneak alcohol in with brekky), cinnamon and vanilla bean. Across the road, Cafe 3A may be miniscule, but their menu has room for both a sweet and savoury French toast. The former mixes it up with sour cherries and cinnamon creme fraiche. The savoury matches sweet tomatoes, slow-roasted till they barely hold their shape, and salty twins pancetta and fetta:Further up Sydney Road, at Red Box, the French toast nods to the traditional bacon and maple syrup, but is lifted by sprinkles of macadamia and smears of mascarpone.For more variations, check out Gingerlee and CERES, or leave a comment with your own fave French toast.

Bean scene

Ah, the bean. For three splendid months of the year - normally September to November (though late-onset summer seemed to extend the season this year) - our weekly grocery shop consists of as many broad beans as we can carry, with whatever else we need a secondary pursuit. I eat kilos of the things, loving every moment of preparation and consumption.

Broad beans need to be podded - a joyful process, as peeling open their leathery green skins reveals a delightfully downy interior. Once you've freed the beans, blanch for three minutes, refresh in cold water, then slip the beans out of their skins. Use your thumbnail (or knife) to make a slit, then squeeze, and 'plop'! You're down to the good stuff.

The next step is deciding what to do with your vibrant green pile of legumous loveliness. Here are some of my favourite uses from this season:

Risi e bisi is a favourite dish year round, using frozen peas when the fresh ones are out of season. In spring, however, it takes on a new flavour spectrum with the addition of broad beans. I like to mush half the beans and stir them into the wet rice along with stock, adding the other half whole.

Many moons ago, a kitchen-savvy friend served me dinner of pork fillet with a rosemary, red wine and bacon jus. It remains in the Top 5 home-cooked meals I've had the pleasure to savour. And, as I'm wont to do, a couple of years ago I borrowed the idea and ran with it. Pork cutlets, followed by a preparation of the same jus, often grace our frying pan. Gerald's Bar recently inspired an update to that dish, and our last pair of cutlets came to the plate as braised pork on polenta with broad beans. With a little help from Aunty Stephie (which, by the way, was a gift from the same friend who cooked the original pork dinner), we winged a recipe and a method, and came away quite thrilled with the result.
Polenta featured again in a similar dish with a piece of chicken poached with in a simple broth of bay leaves, onion and seasoning.

They're not just for dinner though, those beans. In a home dish worthy of a cafe, mushed broad beans were spread on toasted bread, topped with homemade baked beans (maple syrup is the trick for great beans) and dotted with feta. A thoroughly fulfilling and pleasurable start to the day.
One Sunday night found me with that heavy feeling of cumulative excess from the weekend. When I thought of dinner, my body responded saying, 'Vegetables, hold the meat and carbs (and preferably the oil and butter'. Well, the only sensible answer there is to steam. Artichokes went in first, followed by some carrot to give them plenty of time to soften up, a few strips of asparagus, and lastly, the beans. I hadn't heard my body prohibit dairy, so feta featured once again. This dish was enormously flavoursome (when you cook in season, rich flavour comes guaranteed), filling enough for two meals, particularly wholesome and served the happy purpose of using up a range of ingredients bought for different meals throughout the week.
The last star dish before the bean bonanza began to wane featured a new meat: goat. Maggie Beer promotes this choice and, like lamb, it's best in spring. Queen Vic Markets have a couple of stockists, including Alec Watson (at the back of the Meat Hall). Even when fresh, it's a bit whoofy, so not a good one to handle if you're at all sensitive to fresh-meat smell. It cooks up a treat though - soft, rich and tender - when set to a slow stew with tomatoes, shallots and herbs. We love India on Lygon's version, but took a Mediterranean route, dishing up capretto al forno.
For now, though, it's time to put the bean steamer back in the cupboard. I do have one trick up my sleeve though - I've made a couple of broad bean dips (with garlic, lemon, a dash of paprika and some sour cream or yoghurt to smooth it out and boost volume) and popped them in the freezer, so I'll be able to sate my broad bean cravings at least a couple of times in the cooler months.