Ora Cafe, Pakington Street, Kew

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The Age Good Café Guide Awards named it Best Food Café

The Age Good Café Guide Awards were announced in June. One café which garnered an accolade was Ora, located on Pakington Street, Kew. It was named Best Food Café.

It has been a while since I enjoyed a weekend brunch. With James being away, I lacked someone to have weekend brunch with in the far flung places in Melbourne. So when he agreed to have brunch, I immediately seize the chance to suggest Ora since the menu looked rather interested and it had received fairly good reviews. 

The drive to Kew was rather pleasant, though it was bit further than expected. Apparently it is about nine to 10 km away from the CBD area. During the drive, James made a passing comment that he wouldn’t mind purchasing a house in Kew if he were to settle down in Melbourne.

We arrived at Ora after a twenty-something minute drive. Thankfully there wasn’t much of a queue. We had the option of doing al fresco along a long bench, but we decided against doing so and opted for a table inside. The space is rather compact. Apparently it seats about 50 people or so.

 

James was thinking of ordering the peri peri pork roll as it seemed more substantial. But I guess he was more intrigued with the Spiced Tiffin Egg – Bombay Hash, Kasundi, Cashew Crumb. I opted for another of Ora’s specials – Prawn Toast – Avocado Whip, Lime, Sesame and Poached Egg.

 

Prawn Toast is an Asian style dish. It was interesting to pair with a poach egg and with avocado. It was like a east-west marriage, or an East-West fusion kind of dish.

 

I was generally satisfied with this dish. The creaminess of the avocado went well with the thick fluffy prawn toast. However the poached egg seemed a bit out of place in this dish though I do enjoy having an oozing yolk drench my bread. The taste/sweetness of the prawn could be a bit more pronounced. I would have liked that the café would be more generous with the prawn paste. The sesame lent a nice crust to the dish. The accompanying salad was tangy and appetising, but I enjoyed the presentation of the dish with its beautiful colours.

 

The Spiced Tiffin Egg also came beautifully displayed with a runny yolk reminiscent of the eggs that accompany ramen. It somewhat reminded me of a scotch egg, except that the yolk is much running. The cashew crumb crust wasn’t too hard. I would have to commend the chef for the execution of this dish. It takes a bit of effort preparing the egg. However, this dish isn’t as substantial as the prawn toast.

 

I had also ordered a flat white to start off the meal. The coffee was okay, I just found it lacking a bit of body and depth.

Is Ora deserving of the award for Best Food Café? It’s probably rather subjective. But the tiffin egg and prawn toast certainly allows Ora to stand out amongst the various brunch spots in Melbourne.

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.

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.