Three Bags Full, Nicholson Street, Abbotsford

Not quite full. A little leakage...somehow...somewhere?

So it’s back to brunch hopping with J last Sunday. I threw in a few suggestions and J eventually decided on Three Bags Full in Abbotsford.

We arrived there almost nearing noon. Thankfully we managed to get a seat at a common table at this café – done up in a tasteful industrial chic decor in about 10 minutes.

Having embarked on a uncontrolled coffee drinking spree just the week before at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, and having my body ravaged by caffeine, I decided to pass on the coffee this week. My dining partner however, ordered a latte.

According to him, the coffee was rather strong on the palate, a little sour, probably as a result of over-roasting. Not much of a big deal, my dining partner dismissed.

Our orders came not long after. I ordered the Sunday special – slow braised lamb and pearl barley with nuts, feta, currants, poached egg and herbs.

 

I must confess that I was a bit taken aback when it was served up in a bowl. I was thinking to myself, isn’t there any toast to go with this, but then I realised that the blackboard didn’t state anything about toast.

To be fair, I felt that the dish had a nice clean, comforting feel that goes well in the last throes of the autumnal morning, and not as oily and cholesterol inducing as some other brunch items. I was joking that the presentation reminds me of the bibimbap I had at Namdaemun market – the pearl barley rice mixed with all the condiments and vegetables. I liked that that currants added a nice sweetness and the nuts lent a good crunch. The lamb was still flavourful and still moist with the meat tender, though it could have been a little bit more tender/softer. But I thought that the pearl barley made a good healthy choice from the bread options.

Meanwhile my companion had a beetroot smoked salmon with corn fritter. I rather liked the beetroot smoked salmon which came in a pretty red colour. It was infused with a nice sweetness (I think my companion might have mentioned something of bitterness which I didn’t detect) and I couldn’t detest a fishy scent. The corn fritter was nothing extraordinary though.

 rts

We did have a chance to look at some of the other breakfast items. I nearly wanted to order some braised white beans with chorizo sausage, poached eggs on top of toast when I was distracted by the Sunday special. I glad I didn’t order this as the presentation didn’t look too appealing. The beans looked pretty dull.

The scrambled eggs however had a nice bright yellow hue with speckles of green from the peas and vegetables peeking out from the yellow fluff. The smashed avocado on toast looked rather impressive on top of the toast.

Overall, the food is decent, though the presentation can be a bit lacking. Would my companion be in a hurry to return here? Probably not, when there are other places to try. I couldn’t agree more.

Proud Mary, Oxford Street, Collingwood

This Mary certainly does not serve up or eat humble pie. 

Proud Mary is another one of those cafes dotting the café culture in Melbourne. It is highly regarded and is evident by the 25 minute wait I had to endure on a Sunday morning (not that I’m complaining…I queued five hours for cronuts in New York and two hours for THW and Jamie’s in Singapore).and secondly being a coffee roaster, I would expect it to serve some good coffee.

Sitting outside under a cool/chilly morning, the flat white certainly ticked off the right notes for me. It had a nice full body to it (which is how I like it) without being too burnt or sour.  

 

For meals, James ordered the Potato Hash. Coincidentally he ordered it the last time he was at Proud Mary. He enjoyed it back then, though he commented that the dish seemed a bit different from the last time he had it.

 

I ordered the special – parmesan pudding on toast with a poached egg and ham. I really enjoyed this dish. I dislike the raw taste of cucumber or zucchini but this was different. It was palatable for me…maybe it had been pickled and therefore more appetising. The pudding was smooth and was spread on the toast and topped with the ham and egg. The taste of the parmesan was distinct which if you are not a cheese lover, would simply be put off by this, but pairing the parmesan pudding on the toast with the soft runny egg and the cured ham balances out the rather “pungent” taste of the cheese.

Overall, I was satisfied with my brunch at Proud Mary and it truly lives up to its name.  I would certainly love to come here again try out its other brunch items.

Trotters, Lygon Street, Carlton

Simple homely fare. Impressed by bread pudding

I wanted something Western for dinner and decided to let fellow Singaporean “media junkie”, Diane, to suggest a place or to head to her favourite place that serves Western fare. And so that’s how I ended up at Trotters Café on Lygon Street, Carlton on a Saturday night.

Lygon Street is a beehive of activity in the evenings, especially the weekends with many eating establishments opening late into the evening/night, and with staff competing for your attention to get you to dine in the restaurants. Al fresco dining is predominant on this street that has become synonymous with “Little Italy” or Italian food.

Trotters started out more than 20 years ago as a small café, and which expanded over the years, both physical and menu wise. Since I was knew to this place, I asked Diane for her recommendations. I had actually checked out Trotters’ website before dinner and had an inkling of what I want. And Diane recommended the gnocchi which I wanted to try.

This was my first time eating gnocchi so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Basically gnocchi are thick, soft pastas (think Korean rice cake ‘tteokboki’ without its chewiness). Diane ordered Gnocchi – its name on the menu wasn’t certainly an eye-catcher. It is described at house-made pan-fried gnocchi with roasted butternut pumpkin, baby spinach and pine nuts, drizzled with burnt sage butter. I ordered a Gnocchi gratin with beef ragu, parmesan and bread crumbs.

 

I liked the gnocchi gratin. It could have had a little bit more dash of savouriness to it, as the pasta itself is not without much taste, hence the sauce would have to make up for it. It is a feel good comfort food best eaten on a cold, chilly evening.

 

I also has a go at Diane’s gnocchi which she said wasn’t up to previous standards. In terms of taste, this was rather light. But I like the nice charred flavour or perhaps you could call it “wok-hei” that the gnocchi picked up. It paired harmoniously with the sweet pumpkin with the pine nuts lending a nice crunch to the dish.   

 

We decided to order dessert. I love desserts and I agonised a bit over what to have. The sticky date pudding seemed heavenly as with the tiramisu. In the end we opted for the blackboard special – bread and butter pudding with crème anglaise and raspberry coulis (or something like that).

Looking at it was a delight with chocolate drizzled on top of the pudding. There was chocolate sandwiched in between layers which I found delightful. Diane found the pudding a little bit dry which I had to agree, but there is nothing that the cream, chocolate sauce and the raspberry coulis could not fix.

I came to find a main meal, but I got more from dessert. 

Auction Rooms (Errol Street, North Melbourne)

I would have to give it another go

Auction Rooms, a café housed in the old auction house WB Ellis in North Melbourne, had been named Melbourne’s best café in the 2013 The Age Good Café Guide awards. And it is with this expectation that I decided to pay a visit to Auction Rooms last weekend.

It was easy to get a table for one. So I settled down in my seat in this industry-chic like cafe as soon as I arrived. But somehow I felt I wasn’t welcomed. No one had asked me if I wanted a coffee for a start. Although I was near the drinks counter, I was somewhat invisible.

Meanwhile I agonised over what to have for brunch. There were a few options I was interested in but when I settled on a Bruleed French Toast, I was told that there was none. That was it. The wait staff didn’t even ask if I wanted another food option apart from the coffee which I had ordered. I was certainly not impressed by the service.

Feeling a little deflated, I settled on the poached eggs on sourdough toast. There was another option which I was interested in, but because I wasn’t able to find out about a certain item on the menu due to a bad 4G connection, I had to settle for the poached eggs. I also ordered a side of what I believe was coffee smoked bacon to accompany the eggs.

I have to say that the bacon was amazingly good. It came in a good slab, similar to the size of your roasted pork (belly) (from the roasted meats shops in Singapore). There was a nice balance of fat and meat, and each bite had an aromatic and caramelised char to it. I don’t really like bacon, but this one is worthy of praise.

As for the flat white, I found it to be less than full bodied as compared to others I had.  

I would probably head down to Auction Rooms on another occasion to try out the other items on the menu.  

It was either hot chocolate or gelato or froyo

Where do we go after dinner?

This is one of the hardest questions to answer after one finishes dinner at around 7 plus to 8 at night.

Unlike Asia where one can still go shopping, or at least in Singapore one can shop till at least 9 or 10, the option of shopping and browsing after a weekend dinner is really out of the question here in Melbourne. So my dinner partner and I decided to chill out somewhere instead.

And so it begins, the search for a nice place to chill out that would offer a nice treat. The patisseries close early, around 5 or 6, on weekends [except for Brunetti’s in Carlton]. In Singapore, you can still get some sweet confections after 8 or 9, but in Melbourne, if you want cake, you’re not going to get it. Specialty coffee is out of the question too.

So what’s left are probably the coffee chains e.g. Starbucks, Chinese dessert places [don’t get me started on this…I tried Blackball once and for the $6.90 I paid for the almond dessert…I felt really cheated…they basically used almond powder and hot water…and added some red beans, pearls and the sweet potato and yam balls], hot chocolate chains, gelaterias/ice cream, and froyo shops.

Anyhow, Chinese dessert was ruled out. And so James drove down the stretch of Lygon St towards the city [from the quiet section of East Brunswick] to arrive at the hustle and bustle of Lygon St at Carlton. The place was a flurry of activity with many wait staff beckoning you to eat in their restaurants. Patrons were dining al-fresco – mostly Italian cuisine – most restaurants serve Italian there. I think one would eat at this stretch of Lygon St just to soak in the bustling and convivial atmosphere – think Boat Quay/Clarke Quay. There are a couple of gelaterias, ice cream shops and froyos. And I discovered a bookshop Readings that opens late into the night on Saturdays.

It took a while to find free parking along Lygon St, but we were lucky enough. So we took a slow walk round the precinct before settling on Koko Black.

Hot chocolate seems to be a fixture in Melbourne with several chain stores such as San Churro (which started in Melbourne), Max Brenner, Theobroma, and Koko Black (which started in Melbourne and is now in major Australian cities and in NZ – though surprisingly Sydney isn’t on the list).

Actually these places aren’t strictly selling only hot chocolate. They do offer other items such as desserts and handcrafted chocolates, desserts and all that. So it’s probably more correct to call them salons.

Still feeling full from the dinner, and not wanting a chocolate overload, I ordered a Hot Chocolate [Classic Belgian] described in the menu to be freshly brewed to a traditional Belgian recipe.

And the first sip did take my breath away. It was rich, velvety and smooth – not like those hot chocolates you buy off from the supermarket. There was a slight hint of a coconut-like fragrance or nutty taste that swirled in my palate after each sip. I was in heaven.

I tried making hot chocolate at home. I had bought a packet of unsweetened hot chocolate from San Churro a couple of days before my evening out at Koko Black. Perhaps it’s due to the way I prepared the beverage, microwaving the milk instead of steaming the milk, my drink turned out more Milo than hot chocolate instead; perhaps it is because I used low-fat milk instead of full cream and I used the unsweetened version over the sweetened version.

Oh well, I guess with winter approaching and with the limited places I can hang out in the evening, I guess Koko Black and the other chocolate salons would be seeing more of my business.

HELLENIC REPUBLIC AT LYGON STREET, EAST BRUNSWICK

I am so in need of dining buddies/makan khakis

 On the City Circle tram Route 35, you would hear the announcement that Melbourne is said to have the largest Greek speaking population outside of Europe after Athens and Thessaloniki, which is corroborated by the City of Melbourne’s website. According to the said website, many Greeks immigrated to Melbourne after WW II all the way till 1982.

It is against this backdrop of what I hope for would be authentic Greek food that led me to crave for it ever since I had arrived in Melbourne. And coupled with the pleasant experience I had on my birthday at Blu Kouzina, I was definitely looking forward to the clean, elegant flavours of this Mediterranean-style cuisine.

It sucks not to have a job yet in Melbourne, and not to have [foodie] friends like Dominic, Vernon, and some others that I can go out with to explore the city and its food offerings. [So far I had eaten at some place in Chinatown called Shark Fin Inn/House and a Korean place Han Guk Gwan – sorry no photos – wasn’t in the photography, blogging mood] that offers Yum Cha So I was glad to meet an acquaintance, James, through Jack’d, who is from Hong Kong. He has been in Melbourne for about two years and seems really knowledgeable [as well as critical] about some of the food establishments in Melbourne.

I was thinking of hotpot, but I think James doesn’t feel Chinese food is worth the while in Melbourne. So he suggested Greek instead, which was kind of to my liking.

So off we were to Hellenic Republic in Lygon Street, East Brunswick. To be honest, it’s such a drag to get there. And fortunately James drove so it wasn’t too bad after all.

After getting parking along the road relatively easily, we headed to Hellenic Republic and the place was full except for the counter seats. Note: always make reservations.

HR is ranked #12 on TripAdvisor and has an 85% like rating on Urbanspoon. It is not so much offering classic homey Greek cuisine, but rather a modern take on Greek cuisine by Australian TV chef George Calombaris who is a judge on Masterchef Australia.

To be honest, we weren’t sure what to order. I know that it is probably essential to order one of the dips with pita. So my dining partner – who might or might not be foreign to Greek cuisine – started scouring Urbanspoon reviews for recommendations. The wait staff did offer some recommendations. In the end he decided to order the lamb Ami Sto Fourno – slow roasted lamb shoulder on the bone. His reasoning – Australia rarely does wrong with lamb. Anyway, this dish is probably not traditional Greek, but I enjoyed it.

 

Lamb meat has a rather overpowering smell which some may not like. Personally, I don’t like it. But there is nothing a squeeze of lemon won’t work wonders for. And to be honest, the smell wasn’t really bad. I had a bad experience of having lamb shank at a particular restaurant in Singapore – fatty meat and the usual smell. But this one was different – the skin had a nice crisp to it. The meat was tender fell of the bone easily and easily pulled to shreds. Even the fats under the skin weren’t off-putting and yummy.

Meanwhile for starters, I ordered a Taramosalata or Taramasalata [the first picture], a traditional dish/spread/dip made from fish roe. Hellenic Republic’s advertises theirs as a white cod roe dip. According to research, it is made from bread crumbs/mashed potato, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil. It was rather savoury and creamy and went well with the rather charred and smoky flavour of the pita bread.

Meanwhile James decided on the Kipriaki Salata Dimitriakon – a Cypriot salad of grains, pulses, nuts and yoghurt. The salad was refreshing and rather earthly and herby – it reminded me of the Burmese tea leaves salad I had in Inle a few months back except that this wasn’t as spicy as Inle’s salad.

  

We declined dessert. Overall, we spent about $59, that works out to about $30 per person which I felt was well spent.

The Hardware Societe

I just keep coming back for more.

My introduction to Hardware Societe and subsequent interest in it stemmed from a travel guide book. It was in February 2012 that I made my first trip to Melbourne, and on the last day, I decided to have brunch there and that was how I was acquainted with its Baked Eggs with Chorizo. There is just something so comforting about this artery cholesterol clogging dish – but my review today is not focused on this.

My subsequent visits to Melbourne for a retreat in 2013 and my recent house-hunting trip in early April led me back to this familiar ‘sacred’ ground – and on both occasions – it does not take a genius to guess what I would order.  

Now back to Hardware Societe. It is located on Hardware St, accessible via Little Lonsdale St or Lonsdale St. In fact there a lot of other eating establishments on Hardware St and Hardware Lane – and some offer decent and good brunches – including Silo by Joust – just opposite Hardware Societe. There’s a lot of hype about this place. It’s an institution. It’s a must go to place for any breakfast and brunch aficionados. It is ranked #7 on Tripadvisor out of the 3000 eating establishments in Melbourne. It has garnered 90% like ratings on Urbanspoon and an overall rating of 8.1 on Eatability. It’s probably a much go place for any tourist [I won’t dare to say the same for a local Melburnian]. There are long arching queues especially on weekends [not really snaking but you get the drift]. Some critics may think this place is overhyped, but to me, this is the place to go to if you want an eclectic choice of options for brunch or you want an introduction to the brunch culture of Melbourne/Australia.

Meanwhile on my third visit, I spied a fellow diner sitting next to be at the communal table tucking into a Fried Brioches with Roasted Peaches, Lavender Panna Cotta and Sable Crumbs. I just knew that I had to have that one of the days.

So after a horrible Wednesday evening and night with no electricity due to a screw up which was totally not my fault, I wanted something to cheer me up and here I was, back at Hardware Societe.

It didn’t take long to get a seat for one on weekdays in this non-industrial look place [stands out in the often industrial chic décor in Melbourne]. Service was rather prompt today and I received my coffee and meal not long after.

In terms of coffee palate, I’m still pretty much untrained. My latte today is decent and comes with a mini-donut of sorts. To be frank, I don’t think coffee is the biggest selling point of this place – it’s about the food. Also I saw quite a number of people order the hot chocolate.

So I deviated from my usual order of baked eggs to go with the Fried brioche. And frankly I wasn’t disappointed. The brioche while crispy on the outside, was moist in the inside. It had a soft sponge, airy texture that had soaked up the egg mixture. If you don’t like eggs and I guess cream, this dish isn’t for you. And one slice of thick brioche is more than enough to make one feel full.

The panna cotta had a nice and bright infusion of lavender while the roast peaches was still apparently a little chilled and not overly sweet. Neither the roast peach nor the panna cotta is meant to be eaten on its own, but together with the fried brioche and the sable crumbs which landed an extra crunch and mouthful to the dish. This balances up the heaviness of the egg and cream mixture. Overall, I didn’t find this dish to be overly sweet.

For now, I would continue to hunt for other breakfast/brunch spots in Melbourne. I would definitely return to Hardware Societe in the future to try out the other food options and maybe the hot chocolate.