Friends of Mine

The people of Porgie and Mr Jones have a new cafe, and it's fantastic!!! Perhaps even better than Porgie itself!  The bright yellow doorway leads to a massive space, with all the random quirky touches of Porgie but in a more spacious and grown up setting.  The menu has many of the same items as Porgie (breakfast scrambled, smashed avocado etc) but with a more extensive lunch menu.  

We saw Mr Jones, the owner himself run around and making sure that everything was perfect.  I even saw him brush some crumbs off the floor!  He was wearing ridiculous hipster glasses but was super friendly and obviously very enthusiastic about his new cafe!

I had a massive chicken baguette.  The bread was super fresh and crusty and the chicken was from the happy chicken company which claim to be free range.  Given my recent enthusiasm for animal rights, I was particularly pleased to read this.  

My brother has the massive goats cheese scrambles with mushrooms and bacon to top it off.  It was quite disgustingly delicious!

The staff were lovely, with many of my favourites from Porgies.  They seemed a lot more serious and focused on the service, which was a pleasant change from the too cool attitude that too many waiters seem to have these days.

Friends of Mine is definitely a new favourite.

Auction Rooms

Errol St in North Melbourne is such a quiet street.  The street is creepily quiet and makes you feel as though some crazy person is about to jump out and stab you.  Perhaps I am just associating North Melbourne with some of the crazies that hang around the tram stop at Vic Market and all the way down Elizabeth St. 

This is why it is a particularly pleasant surprise when all the quirky cafes and shops pop up across the street, almost out of nowhere.  There are tiny boutiques selling buttons, clothes and toys for children.  Cafes like Auction Rooms and Fandango fill the street, along with quiet hairdressers and clothing stores.

Auction Rooms is definitely a favourite though.  The place is enormous, with a really comfortable spread of tables and wide open spaces, unlike some of the other more cramped places in the area.  The service is very efficient and the coffee is incredible.  I managed to have 3 coffees when I was last there, which is quite a feat for me as I rarely drink coffee.  The day long buzz I was left with is another story.

The Courtyard is very relaxed and is a great place to sit on a sunny day.  It is filled with smokers though, and is quite a tiny place so may be less appealing to some.

New favourite street in Melbourne!

Ate: poached eggs wtih spinach on Dench Bakers bread.  Yummy but tiny helping.

Cornelius cheese, wine and coffee

I've walked past this strange shopfront many times when walking down Maling Rd, always attracted by the bold lettering and hints of orange in the window.  I finally walked in yesterday to find a tiny cafe, filled with numerous types of cheeses, coffee beans, wines and many of the other nice things that seem to fill Melbourne cafe/food stores. 

We managed to sit at the front table by the window.  I'm not sure if it was the bright orange seats reminiscent of the House of Orange Store in Armadale (http://www.house-of-orange.com.au) or the sun streaming in through the window but I really did enjoy my afternoon at Cornelius.

I ordered a chicken club sandwich, with super fresh crusty bread, chicken and a spicy aioli sauce, on top of crushed tomato.  I'm not sure if what came out really did constitute 'crushed tomato' through.  It was more like just a bit of tomato surrounding the sandwich, but the description amused me nonetheless.

The pungent smell of our neighbouring table's cheese tart was slightly putrid, but I guess one should expect this from a shop that has 'cheese' in its name.  

A very modern cafe in the heart of Maling Rd Canterbury.  Will definitely go back to satisfy likely cheese cravings.  xx

http://www.corneliusfoods.com.au/

Fandango.

Their pesto scrambled eggs are incredible.  There's something about pesto that makes everything taste great.

The place is tiny.  We managed to grab the last remaining spots despite it only being 8am.   I guess this adds to the cosy, homely atmosphere they are trying to create.  I hate homely places, so I did not really love the general vibe but the staff were incredibly attentive and the food was great.  

TRY THE PESTO EGGS.

Ladro, Greville St.

This popular Melbourne pizza restaurant just opened up in a new location in Prahran.  The crowd at this side of town is very different from the super alternative regulars at the Gertrude St restaurant.  Insert spray tans, tight clothes and oodles of flashy skin.  Obviously this relates more so to the people walking past the restaurant, rather than the uber cool trendy kids inside.   This place is slightly pretentious, notably the Italian movie running on its website.  It works though.  I haven't had a chance to try the food but have heard amazing reviews.  They do lots of snacks and woodfired pizzas throughout the day which are very popular for a Sunday afternoon lunch. 

 (Coffee is served in super cute white cups.)

http://www.ladro.com.au/

Comme

Down a very clean Melbourne Lane, just off Collins St is this beautiful restaurant and bar.  Clearly it was not designed for breakfasts, and seems to be a lot more popular for dinners and drinks.  Nevertheless, it is a great breakfast spot.  Quiet, with very attentive waiters, the service at Comme really does shine.  Despite the restaurant being near empty for the entire duration of our epically long four hour breakfast, the staff were more than happy to let us sit in the corner and enjoy our morning, interrupting us occasionally just to refill our water glasses and offer us more coffees. 

The coffee is delicious, creamy and rich.  The perfect start to the morning.

The food was very simple and the menu quite limited, but it delivered everything in elegant style with a focus on strong flavours.  My cheese omelette was perhaps slightly overdone in terms of strong cheese flavours (a sentence I never imagined myself to say!).  This may suit others though.

The grand staircase out the front, accompanied by a giant mirror adds to the glamour of this restaurant. 

The actual highlight for me is the beautiful sign for Comme.  I love the writing and the choice of a striking neon yellow/green sign.  It is a treat to walk down Alfred Place just to see the sign in the doorway!

Capital Kitchen, Chadstone Shopping Centre.

Chadstone's recent renovations promise all kinds of luxury at the 'Fashion Capital'.  Whilst the new stores are new and very shiny, they somehow lack the glamour of Collins St, and sit oddly amongst cheaper chain stores and people going about doing the weekly groceries in tracksuit pants.  The hoards of bronzed teenage girls gawking outside these stores with their gangster boyfriends detracts further from the experience.

Walking into Tiffany & Co was particularly horrific, as I watched a woman argue with the storeperson about the authenticity of her charm bracelet despite it having fake diamantes falling off the side of the label.  All class.

Capital Kitchen is nestled amongst all this.  It feels like a dressed up Food Court, with tables packed in there and generic decorations brought in straight from Ikea.  The random placement of cookbooks and random ornaments like lemons and bread baskets is highly unoriginal but works in the sense that it gives the feel of it being a giant homewares store with a cafe in the midst of it.  (mmm much like Ikea actually.)

It it quite a pleasant cafe though, with a wide range of sandwich and sweet food choices and efficient service.  The coffee is solid, as are the muffins and sandwiches.  My coffee companion (a strapping young man who is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime to America), complained about being served his peppermint tea with a tea bag despite the cafe's pretense of being a more upmarket cafe, with prices to match.

My favourite thing about Capital Kitchen is definitely its logo. I love the big white writing and unnecessary use of a full stop.

All in all though, it is definitely a massive step up from most other food establishments in Chadstone, the majority being fast food in Chadstone's multiple food courts.  It does feel removed from the rest of the Shopping Centre and doesn't have the same trapped stuffy feeling that one gets from most of the other cafes in Chadstone.  Capital Kitchen does appear to be trying a little bit too hard but this only makes it more of a perfect fit for Chadstone.