Where's your kitchen?

An intriguing part of the cafe boom around Brunswick is the forebearance of installing a kitchen. It's a pretty vital part of the food-service industry, but many venues go instead for a food-preparation area of grill and sink behind the counter, with as much bench space given to the coffee machine and its accessories.

The breadth of cafe options in the area owes thanks to that decision - it is, of course, about cutting start-up costs, making it possible to make rent and offer high-quality coffee with a small range of breakfasts and lunches, often under or around $10.

But, when the crowds arrive - as they inevitably do in Brunswick - the limitations of the set-up become more obvious, with 45-minute waits for breakfast orders, since only one or two items can be prepared at once.

It's a relief to visit somewhere like Mixed Business in Clifton Hill to see a cafe with closer to a 50-50 split between customer and kitchen space. A kitchen laden with colanders, steaming pots, aproned and hatted cooks is discreetly visible at the back of a single, large, light room. Filled with mish-mashed wooden furniture, it's an echoey space, but customers are given enough room that conversation is still an easy proposition.

Similarly, a recent lunch at Pope Joan was over refreshingly quickly, since their enormous food-prep area - with a separate room at the back and a finishing station at the front, often staffed by owner Matt Wilkinson - gives them capacity to cope with the endlessly eager crowd of customers.

Congrats to said Mr Wilkinson also, for recently being crowned Australia's best sandwich maker. I can attest that the ones on offer at Pope Joan are fantastic!

Monsieur Truffe and friends

Monsieur Truffe: 351 Lygon St, Brunswick East; (03) 9380 4915
Kumo: 152 Lygon St, Brunswick East; (03) 9388 1505
The Resurrection: 135 Lygon St, Brunswick East (no phone)

What's happening in Brunswick East? Everything, seems to be the answer.

This isn't the first time this blog, and many others, have talked about the changes to the northern end of Lygon St. In the five or more years I've lived in this part of the world, a string of cafe, bar and restaurant owners have made this part of town their own, joining several pioneers and stayers in the industry already here. Either all those people are very savvy in their business models, or East Brunswickians are generous with their custom. Very few of the places whose birth I've witnessed have closed and some of them, even years after opening, can be tough to get into at times.

It appears the second half of 2011 will see a whole new wave of big names making Lygon St their home. In the space of 24 hours I came across three new 'name' venues opening along one stretch.

First up is Kumo, an izakaya and sake bar. These Japanese style 'pubs' are pretty hot right now - Maedaya in Richmond and Izakaya Den in the city have garnered plenty of press attention. It's a smart move opening up on the stretch of Lygon already home to Rumi and Bar Idda - this part of Brunswick doesn't do a lot of 'cool Asian'. There's Thaila Thai, sure, and neighbourhood spots such as Satay Anika and Kake di Hatti. For Japanese, there's Matsumoto down the street and Iku Yakitori on Sydney Rd.

But Kumo is run by a 'Japanophile', Andre Bishop, who studied sake in the land of the rising sun. It's early days: Three Thousand mag reports they opened on 5 August, and their website is still 'coming soon'. From the exterior though it sure looks the part, having completely rejuvenated a corner spot that used to be a kids' toy store.

Better known in Melbourne hospitality circles is Jerome Borazio, he of Jerome's Bar, the Laneway Festival and Ponyfish. He's opened a new bar - also with a soft launch on 5 August - across the road and down a bit from Kumo, busting in on The Alderman and Atticus Finch territory. You can find more details on Facebook.

The third is the triumvirate is Monsieur Truffe, which has its existing home on Smith St, Collingwood (another stretch of real estate making like a Monopoly set with restaurants popping up like hotels). Thibault Fregoni has opened an atelier, wherein he will make artisan chocolate from cocoa beans, a first for Melbourne. On sale are a variety of high-end chocolate products (truffles, button, 'thins'), along with a small cafe menu including Noisette bread and croque monsieur. The small menu is at odds with the size of the cafe - this place is huge! Warehouse sized, it features two large communal tables, several smaller tables with banquette seating, and some bar stools from which you can look at the chocolate making machinery.

Their mocha is an intense, deep, dark chocolate and caffeine fix that will have you humming until well into the afternoon.

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.

Catching up in Coburg

Half Moon Cafe: 13 Victoria St, Coburg; (03) 9350 476
Cafe Sarabella: 1 Victoria St, Coburg; (03) 9353 5239

With an upper limit for house prices in sight, and the gentry moving ever northward, it's only a matter of time before Coburg is the new Fitzroy.

The Victoria St mall is the obvious candidate to fill in for Brunswick St. But what to eat and sup while posing? Felafel, for starters.

Half Moon Cafe is drawing punters from afar for its famed felafel - made with fava beans, rather than chickpeas - and accompaniments both traditional and inventive. Their special offers cauliflower and eggplant alongside a smoky babaganoush; other mixes offer fetta and olive; or more traditional tahini and pickle.

A couple of shops along, at Cafe Sarabella, carefully prepared Indian food is on offer, with at least half the dishes vegetarian, and many gluten-free and organic. This isn't a run-of-the-mill Indian takeaway, however. Its decor and cosiness is the match of the shabbiest of chic inner-suburban cafes, and it offers a range of sweets to nibble alongside a specially prepared cup of marsala tea or coffee.

The proprietress roasts a mix of six spices, chops them, then grinds to powder, sieves, and grinds again. There's no caffeine in the mix, but she adds the blend to tea or coffee at the customer's whim. If you like your hot drinks a little spicy, she can also add some pepper. Or, if you like to do the mixing yourself after someone else has done the roasting and grinding, her marsala mix is available to buy.

Sip, savour, and soak up the new inner north.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

So the saying goes. I had to question that theory yesterday, however, as we once again navigated the seating, ordering and paying chaos that is Green Refectory.

I love the place - as an eating establishment it has a helluva lot going for it. The salad plates alone are worth elbowing your way to a distressed timber table - pick any three salads for an assemblage of more veg than most can put away comfortably in one sitting, and it's about $8.

But on a day like post-GF-Sunday (or actually, any weekend around mealtime) it's an absolute bunfight. The cafe has a couple of small tables and a big communal one in the front room, in front of the counter. It's prime position for ordering, since the menu is only available via a blackboard behind the counter, and the aforementioned salads, along with a plethora of sweet and savoury baked goods, are only perusable visually. It's also bloody hot out up front, as staff heat up pies, sausage rolls and pasties, and you're definitely going to be crowded out by the throng ordering at the counter, since there's no table service.

A smaller room is past the counter, with another room out the back, which is sometimes quieter, but you do wonder how anyone will find you! The Green has one of the longest backyards in Brunswick, rammed with rickety ironwork tables and narrow benches that are fine for coffee but too narrow for food. If you do score a table at the back, schlepping back in one by one to check the menu and then order doesn't make for a great start to the visit.

Yet, it works, and I can only assume that the ongoing level of patronage means the owners see no need to make adjustments. Sticking with counter service is their prerogative, as is saving money by not printing menus, but...it's a cafe, it makes and serves food, so giving customers access to choose from what's on offer is a pretty important overhead.

Thankfully, the latest rash of newly opened Brunswick cafes haven't copied their ordering method. New Day Rising, at 221d Blyth St, can probably get away without one since it may be the smallest cafe in the inner north. It's so small you need to go with someone you're happy to talk to, as there's no guarantee you'll fit in a book and food! They do offer a Toast feast, however, with a range of toppings that you may not have on hand at home, such as Persian fetta, quince paste and tahini.

Just around the corner at 120 Nicholson St, Milkwood (owned by the same folk as Cafe Rosamond on Smith St Collingwood) have printed up a nice three-pager, offering delicious breakfasts such as porridge with rhubarb, roasted macadamias and brown sugar crumble, as well as baguettes for lunch. Their housemade lamingtons are awesome - first bite barely gets you past the chocolate coating, but persevere for the moist sponge, smeared with just a hint of jam. Milkwood fills the Sunday void when Piano is closed.

On Glenlyon Road, Kitchen Kultcha have taken the Brunswick Model perhaps a little too seriously - their front room is a mess of reclaimed furniture, looking on to the back of the prep area. It's much nicer sitting at the back, in the 'takeaway area', where you get the heads up that the sandwiches, offered on both printed and blackboard menu - come from a display. Try their pumpkin bread with passionfruit curd for a morning tea with a twist.

Looking at this latest crop, it seems another saying is just as true of the Greater Brunswick Area: if you build it, they will come.

Panettone: Va Piano II

126C Nicholson St, Brunswick East

Update: Va Piano is now Piano Piano

Brunswick East's new high performer has added a wonderfully seasonal breakfast to its succinct menu: panettone with cinnamon ricotta, honey, some macerated fruit and a sprinkle of nuts, crowned with a plume of pear.
It's a joyous way to enjoy this traditional festive season bread, and another example of how well Melbourne embraces European customs.

A quick bit of background: panettone is of Milanese origin. The acidic dough used to make the bread is proved for several days, helping to keep it fluffy. Embedded in the dough are candied fruit, zest and raisins.

As with many ethnic products, there are panettones and then there are panettones. Shop at Enoteca Sileno on Lygon St, and you could lay out $60 or so for the best, imported brand of the domed treat. Shop at a supermarket for a much cheaper, artificially sweetened version, turned out in the supermarket bakery (probably at the same time as this year's Easter buns!). Check out Mediterranean Wholesalers for the mid-range: theirs sell from $10-$20 (Va Piano use the Dias brand).

Try your panettone with a decent prosecco, for a delightful afternoon snack, and reflect on its wonderful suitability for an Australian summer celebration, in contrast to the English Christmas pud.

What about you? What are some of your favourite Christmas-time snacks?

Seven Seeds

114 Berkeley Street, Carlton; 03 9347 8664

The coffee pedigree of Mark Dundon must be the envy of roasters around the city. Dundan ran St Ali, the venerated South Melbourne cafe, before selling up and opening Brother Baba Budan in the city, an outlet so confident in the allure of its brews that it put its seating on the ceiling. And now, there is Seven Seeds, a shrine to the bean.

The warehouse space, slotted among the light industrial of the un-chic side of Carlton, hosts roasters, cupping sessions, a retail outlet and an excellent cafe. It's pumping in there, and not just with students and nurses from the closest institutions. It goes without saying that the coffee is worth crossing town for, but the food is playing just as big a part in keeping bums on seats.

The menu is a simple A5 page of delicious things on excellent bread (from Dench), augmented by some fine baked goods on display at the counter. A vivid snack at any time of day is their hommous on sourdough, with a superb dukkah and cherry tomatoes. The hommous itself is extraordinary - rich with oil and perfectly creamed chickpeas.

For lunch try a top-notch ham sandwich, with brie, rocket and onion jam.
But, if it's your first visit, don't try and resist the most delectable item on the menu: Middle Eastern 'nutella', served on sourdough with mascarpone and sesame seeds. My God. The nutella is precisely the consistency of golden syrup, and just as sticky. It's not as sweet though, and paired with the mascarpone it makes for a grown-up, indulgent, but not at all excessive brunch.

Va Piano

126C Nicholson St, Brunswick East

I love Brunswick. I love its range of food stores, unpretensiously provisioning cravings for any number of cuisines from around the Mediterranean. I love its capacity to support cafe after cafe. Before long, the ratio of foodstores and cafes to houses in Brunswick will be 1:1. I love the way its locals will drive, ride or walk past any new outlet with faces of intrigue, their intention to come back and check it out writ large.

Va Piano is the latest to add its food and coffee mix to the milieu. Perched at the top end of Nicholson, across from the Lomond, they look like they've been there forever, and by their fourth day of operation locals came to sit in with papers and take away coffees like they'd been coming there for years.

While their kitout is far from flashy, the wood on display is bespoke, rather than reclaimed. The cafe's name, cut out from the wooden front of the requisite window bench table (where better to watch the ogling Brunswickers?), sits jauntily on a shelf at the rear of its compact space.

Thankfully they haven't gone fancy with the crockery; Melbourne's stock of cute and kitsch plastic and crockery has been further depleted. It's put back into use at Va Piano to serve sourdough toast with a handful of toppings (that's tomato and hommous, below), fruit toast or baked eggs.The range of filled sandwiches in the counter display look particularly appealing, and muffins and croissants are also on offer.

Hardware Societe

120 Hardware Street, City; (03) 9078 5992

Beetroot's former owners return with a new venture across the road from their old cafe, which itself is recently closed and re-opened as the disturbingly named McSpankys. (I don't know what the chances are of someone googling 'beetroot' and 'spank' in the same search, but I guess they'll be disappointed if they end up here!)

Hardware Societe could not be less disturbing. It's delightfully fitted out with glass and faux marble counters, muted flocked wallpaper, oversized bare bulbs and bright cabling drooping from the ceiling. It suits the chi-chi clientele dropping in from the west-end business sector, but it's just as big a drawcard to anyone hankering after superb produce cooked with skill and a firm nod to French and Spanish influences.

The menu barely misses a beat through breakfast and lunch options (except for unforgivably misspelling jamon throughout). Breakfast dishes include arroz con leche; miniature, indulgent raspberry doughnuts; or a slice of brioche from a gorgeous high-tea set.

The only certainty when ordering at lunch is that you'll have to come back to try whatever you don't choose. Cod croquetas are crisp and creamy in a puddle of tomato sugo.
The aforementioned jamon, from Casa Iberica, is perfectly wedded on a bocadillo with manchego and membrillo. Another bocadillo option of tortilla, pimientos and aioli is perfectly Iberian, whereas a gooey, moreish goat's cheese and chive souffle says 'oui' to Spain's northeast neighbours.
Other lunch options include charcuterie and tapas plates (the latter perfect for putting off choice and simply sampling some of everything) and a range of exquisite tarts.

And then there's dessert. Daily-baked macaroons might be filled with lemon curd or white chocolate ganache, and the cafe's dual influences are respected with the offer of creme caramel or creme brulee. A chocolate raspberry tart provides a heavenly end to a deliciously satisfying meal, its ganache filling held in a pert pastry and hugging super-tart raspberries.

At the moment the cafe is open Monday to Friday, but Epicure reports they do want to open weekends from the New Year. Keep your fingers crossed.

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!