a minor place – a delicious bagel

Brunch – there is no better meal. It is by far my favourite meal to eat out for, and I just love Melbourne’s abundance of brunch locations. I must say though – I am running out of Cheap Eats recommended brunch places in my local area (and brunch isn’t a meal I like to travel far for). One place that seemed to have been missed was A Minor Place in Brunswick – so off I went on Sunday morning to try it out.

It was a bit of a chilly morning, so unfortunately all the inside tables were packed, but my friend and I braved the cold and sat on one of the outside tables. I ordered a hot chocolate to warm up and then started the hard process of deciding what to order:

In the end I went with the Bullseye Bagel and I wasn’t disappointed:

The tomato relish  (on the underside of the bagel top) was a perfect addition to the bagel and the slight spice was just beautiful with the poached egg.

The service was quick and attentive (although they did put through the wrong order for my friend, but they were quick to get on top of it and fix it, so we hardly noticed). The outside area would be absolutely perfect on a summer morning – might be getting too cold to brave as the winter comes – but I would definitely recommend popping by and trying the bagel – mmm…delish!

catching up again

Phew – now back to catching up on my posts…

On Sunday, after I had successfully slept 14 hours to recover from the Friday (see the story here), I headed to Southern Cross station to pick up a friend from Perth that was over the week. We spent the day perusing all the shops on Sydney Road, and also stopping in at Tom Phat for a quick drink and bite to eat:

I always forget how many little quirky shops are right down the road from – I need to take a stroll down there more often.

We also headed out to the city for dinner on Tuesday night. I had created a shortlist of great restaurants which I thought would really highlight Melbourne’s amazing food scene – and we ended up choosing Touche Hombre, a beautiful little Mexican place on Lonsdale St. The lighting was dim, and the music was loud but it fitted perfectly within its cardboard menus and suspender wearing waiters.

We ordered the special for the night which involved you putting together your own tacos – and oh-my-god yum! With a beautifully fresh taco, a smear of the avocado cream, the cabbage and fennel salad, the tomato salsa and the slightly spiced fish you got one amazing taco – I could have demolished the entire serving (let’s pretend it wasn’t enough for two).

We also ordered an addition topospos and one extra taco just to taste.

We were umming and ahing about whether we had had enough food (for the three of us) and we decided to fill the slightly open void with the dessert plate:

Now I know I usually sing the praises of wherever I go – but these desserts were scrumptious – just the cherry on the cake of the beautiful food. I would highly recommend stopping by for a bite (but not if you are looking for a quiet, romantic, able to hear each other talk type night).

And I think that means you’re all caught up!

more comedy

So Thursday night was a big one, I ended up spending most of yesterday recovering from it – and when I say most I really mean all. There were only a handful of times I got out of bed, and that was mostly to eat, or stock up on more water – a reminder to self that late night sangria isn’t a good idea.

Any who – back to what actually occurred on Thursday night – my work friends and I dashed all home to our separate abodes when work finished and got ready in a hurry to be back into the city for the 7pm show of Hannah Gadsby. We all just made it (and I mean literally just – 6:58pm we were seated – phew) and sat down for an hour of hilarious comedy. Now Hannah was pretty good – but she still wasn’t quite as good as I had found Tommy the week before.

The show finished up at just past eight and we made the trek from little collins to little bourke to get our dumpling on. Shanghai Village in Chinatown makes a-maz-ing dumplings. Yes you have to wait to be seated (even if you have booked), yes you have to squish six people on what is really a table for four, and yes it is an art form trying to get the attention of any of the staff to order, pay or even just to get your wine glasses (we ended up getting those ones ourselves) – but believe me the food is worth it – especially when you come out with a total cheque of $45 for six people – it is a winner.

We managed to finish up our dumplings and the last of our byo wine and headed to flinders lane to catch Dave Thornton – now he was hilarious!! Right on par with Tommy Little – we were just disappointed he didn’t seem to hang around afterwards, I would have loved to have a chat and photo. If you are like me and enjoy both Tommy and Dave’s comedy – you should really check out their podcast – Slapbang Radio. 

Feeling like we had our comedy fill for the night we headed back to Bourke St and into the Carlton Club – where we enjoyed the plush interior of downstairs:

and the tropical environment upstairs. This was definitely helped by the jugs of sangria.

The night seemed to fly by, and before you know it I am stumbling home at 5:30am not to be awoken until midday the next day. I must say the combination of comedy, dumplings and drinks was perfect and it made for an amazing night out.

round two at jackson dodds

Being the closest brunch destination to me always meant it was going to get a second round – so last Sunday I headed back to Jackson Dodds in Preston for an early morning brunch (thanks daylight savings!).

any breakfast spot with street art on the building wins points with me

it was nice to see their menu had expanded since I had been last

the jack’s breakfast – two poached eggs w/ grilled haloumi, sautéed spinach, avocado & house made tomato relish on sourdough with bacon – in a word yum!

I do think they may have forgotten our order at one point – as our food took some time – but it was worth the wait. I think round three may be in order soon.

a bit of a recap

So the past few days have been a bit hectic – so I decided to do a bit of a photo recap:

I discovered an awesome food truck when I headed to Preston Markets on Friday evening. Cornutopia is heading around for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and if you can I would hunt them down and order anything off their menu – it was absolutely delicious  and cheap! I scored an ‘el taco’ for $5.

My floors were finally finished! And I got to rearrange my furniture again (love to move things around). Now I am just living in constant fear of scratching my new floors – I think I need to invest in some rugs.

Bought some beautiful flowers at my local 24 hour flower shop (can’t believe there is a demand for 24 hour flowers – but I am not complaining). Cost me only $6 – love my neighbourhood!

Enjoyed Sunday morning cuddles.

How’d your weekend go? Hopefully none of you are affected by this crazy flooding and rain.

movida aqui

On Monday night I was lucky enough to catch up with my dad, who was only in town for a day, and my sister for dinner. We headed to MoVida Aqui in the city for drinks, dinner and a catch up.

We had a little trouble finding the place as their address is listed on Bourke St, but you need to enter via little Bourke, but we got there eventually and were treated to an amazing on the terrace spot where we could enjoy the beautiful, albeit rare, sunny Melbourne weather.

We were greeted with a delightful server who explained how their food worked as it was a mix of tapas and full servings.

I loved their menu! And by this I don’t mean the food on it (although that was delicious and I’ll get to this in a second) but actually the design of it. The typography and layout really appealed to me.

Any who – whilst we were working our way through the menu and trying to narrow down our choices we were served with some delicious bread, I think it had some sort of herbs on top, I am guessing fennel, but can’t be 100%:

We then ordered a couple of the single serve tapas arrangements:

Now I can’t speak for the first tapas dish, as this was solely consumed by my dad, neither my sister or I are sardines fans – but the second dish, a calamari sandwich was amazingly tasty, perhaps more so as it was miniature.

We then ordered a few of the larger share dishes:

Going from the top we had prawns, pork sausages with chorizo and chickpeas and lastly smoked asparagus. All three dishes went down a treat, the asparagus especially, the smoky flavours were amazing and it has got be longing to be bbq-ing again.

We then ended the night on some tasty desserts:

Homemade icecreams with figbread and churros with drinking chocolate to dip. We left the fig bread to dad as he loves anything with figs, but we demolished the icecreams (the strawberry sorbet was to die for) and my sister polished off most of the churros, although I did have quite a few spoonfuls of the chocolate.

All in all I’d give top marks to MoVida Aqui for service, food and atmosphere – a perfect dinner for a great family get together.

pomona cafe

So it seems that Preston is booming with new cafes lately. Yesterday morning a friend and I headed to pomona cafe, the intention was to walk, but we awoke to massive thunderstorms and rain, so we took the easy option and drove down.

We arrived at just past 9, and the cafe was pleasantly not packed (although it was getting that way by the time we left). The cafe was deceptively large, with tables out the front, and then a massive communal table as you walk in, and then past the kitchen there is another set of tables and another outdoor area. Unfortunately the second outdoor area was not quite free from the rain, so we settled on a table just outside the kitchen.

The menu was like most brunch menus, with cute quirky names for the items, but you also have the option to make any bread item gluten free, so perfect if you have any dietary requirements. I went a bit off book and ordered the do you speak french?

I don’t usually ordered something sweet when I head out to brunch, but the caramelized bananas just pulled me in. Taste wise the dish was amazing – it wasn’t so sweet that you felt sickly, and the ricotta was a great neutralising agent to the sweet syrup and caramelized bananas. I certainly didn’t regret my pick – it was delicious!

My friend went for the pomona scrambled:

I had a bite of the components and I loved the addition of sweet potato on a breakfast dish. Although I can’t rate the dish, he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it – so apparently a thumbs up.

The only downside was they haven’t had their business cards printed yet, so I wasn’t able to grab one for my collection – however I just think this will mean I will need to head back to grab one when they do!

L’atelier by Monsieur Truffe

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I headed down to L’atelier by Monsieur Truffe in Brunswick East for a mid afternoon catch up and a slightly belated birthday celebration.

We were greeted outside by a massive red door, but no signage (so Melbourne) and hoped we were in the right place.

As we walked inside I was just blown away by the interior. The whole space was massive – it was a warehouse type arrangement with high ceilings and a beautiful airy vibe to it. Everywhere you looked was beautiful hand crafted wood furniture, and then you also had, to the side, the beautiful equipment that actually makes the chocolate.

We choose a seat on one of the massive communal tables and I took a look to see what was on offer.

The kitchen had closed for the day, however there was still beautiful cakes and biscuits to be had, and a massive array of drinks to choose from. I went for an iced chocolate and a wheat free chocolate cake.

Both were so beautifully chocolately – but surprisingly not too heavy or rich. You could just taste the real chocolate that had been used in both – and the difference between these and a generic cafe version. The striped straw in the iced chocolate was also just too cute.

The whole atmosphere of the place was just perfect. They had a small band playing in the corner, and the room wasn’t overcrowded with as many tables as they could fit in (which I find is common in Melbourne). Looking at what the kitchen menu included I am going to need to pop back for a brunch or lunch (and another iced chocolate). I would definitely recommend if you love your chocolate to pop in through the red door one beautiful afternoon.

borsch, vodka and tears

As mentioned last week – I had booked borsch, vodka and tears for my birthday dinner last night – and boy was it a-mah-zing!

I am just going to get right into the photos:

my outfit for the night (sass and bide belt courtesy of my lovely sister)

face and hair for the night

the menu

salt and pepper squid with a beautifully spiced aioli. Please note my sister’s awesome bone necklace which sneaks into the shot – she works for sass & bide and has the most amazing wardrobe (hence the sass & bide belt I borrowed)

bigos – traditional hunter’s sauerkraut and smoked meat stew. Ok I know this doesn’t look very good, but this was one of my favourite dishes. I am a sucker for sauerkraut so it was absolutely delicious!

saganaki – you can’t really go wrong with fried cheese!

pierogi – polish dumplings. I loved these! We went with the meat filling and they were beautifully spiced and tasty.

honey vodka prawns. I am not a big prawn eater, but the sauce on these prawns was fantastic, there was a hint of coriander I think which gave them a refreshing tang.

and finally - potato blintzes (thanks for the rec Gillian – they were amazing!)

I really couldn’t fault much from Borsch, Vodka and tears – the wait staff were quick and efficient, the drinks were well made, the food was delicious – and it was a beautiful Melbourne summers night. All in all a perfect night for a great birthday.

jackson dodds

Yesterday morning, before I headed to the Preston markets to load up on tasty goodies, I powered up by having breakfast at Jackson Dodds in West Preston. Living in Coburg there isn’t an abundance of brunch spots in the near vicinity – you usually need to head to Brunswick, or Thornbury to get a good bite in the morning – so I was pleasantly surprised with both the closesness and quality of my new brunch find.

The restaurant itself is located on a corner block on a busy street, it a quite unlikely spot – I would have missed it if I hadn’t on been on the look out for it. As it was beautiful day I choose a spot outside. The menu offered typical brunch treats and would have something to satisfy most punters:

I chose the eggs benedict (surprise surprise) and wasn’t disappointed when it arrived:

Although in hindsight I should have chosen something lighter (the hot day did make it feel quite heavy) it was absolutely delicious. I think next time I may try the toast with home-made jam – maybe I’ll even walk there.