Barry is a bit of a Northcote institution. It feels like it’s been there for ages, and is always busy, with people spilling out onto the tables on the sidewalk if the weather is nice. Funnily enough we’d never been there, but on one morning when we were told there would be a ninety minute wait to get a table at Tinker (yes, you read correctly NINETY minutes), we decided it would be safer for all concerned if I was fed sooner rather than later. And so we strolled down High Street to Barry, found ourselves a spot at the communal table and realised how much better I felt already, just knowing that food would be present in my very near future.

As usual, I started with a coffee, Five Senses, and I was suitably satisfied. It provided me confidence that my breakfast would be good.

I decided to go for a relatively healthy breakfast choice and settled on a breakfast salad.  My bowl was lined with slices of pan fried caciocavalo (which is the Italian version of haloumi), and balanced with crisp spring vegetables, pomegranate jewels, two poached eggs and dressed with lemon juice and dukkah. As someone that loves cheese, eggs and vegetables, this really was the perfect dish for me. The dukkah was lovely and nutty and the acid of the lemon brought the dish together.

Of course, all opinions were subject to the yolk porn test, which Barry passed with flying colours. On a side note, the gooey yolk was delicious to mix through the salad as an additional dressing!



The other half decided to completely indulge and chose one of the sweet specials. His breakfast was house made donuts, served with plum curd, pistachios and fresh blueberries. Naturally, he thought it was delicious, (how could you not when every element sounds delicious!), but it was a very small serve. He could have easily eaten about three serves before he was full!

A special mention must be made about the service we received. Despite being busy, the staff were very attentive and constantly making sure our needs were met. The fabulous staff, the bustling atmosphere and the creative and delicious food made for a lovely brunch adventure.

Axil is a name that is almost synonymous with coffee in Melbourne and so when I was trying to plan a breakfast catch up with an old friend in the eastern suburbs, I figured Axil Coffee Roasters in Hawthorn would be a good choice. At the very least, the coffee should be good!

The coffee was indeed excellent, with rich aromas and full bodied flavour. It was the coffee that I had come to expect from Axil.

Taking a look at the menu though, I found it to be rather standard and not very creative, especially when considering the savoury options. Whilst there were some exciting sweet choices like Ferraro Rocher waffles or red velvet pancakes, I have always preferred a savoury breakfast. These days, breakfast menus are full of inventive options but Axil clearly prefers to focus on basics.

I ended up choosing the fritters (duh), which were made with zucchini, corn and haloumi, and then topped with avocado, spinach, a poached egg and relish. Rather than a few small fritters, they served up one large fritter. This meant that there was less crunch, and the fritter was more cake like which was a bit disappointing. Still, the flavours were very good, and anything with haloumi makes me happy. The eggs were poached well, and whilst there is no photo, you can trust me when I say that I had great yolk porn material.

My breakfast companion settled on smashed avocado on toast with sides of scrambled eggs and salmon pastrami. (Lucky he’s already got a house, otherwise there would be no chance he could save for one!) There was a little bit of confusion with his eggs order (only one scrambled egg came out, when he specifically asked for two) but it was quickly resolved.

The space inside Axil is huge, with tables a plenty, and despite the large crowd, the service was still very good. However, with Melbourne’s café game so strong, and so many places really pushing the boundaries with their offerings, personally I am more inclined to try them rather them returning to Axil. But if you are a traditionalist, and like your standard breakfast options, this is certainly a place you should visit.

Breakfast in a weekday is an indulgence that I don’t often get to enjoy. But when it’s a Monday that you’ve taken off work, because you’ve run your first full marathon you definitely take the opportunity to take advantage of the fact that the cafes are empty and you can easily get a seat. Unfortunately the marathon had taken a major toll on my feet, leaving then battered and me unable to put any weight on them, so we had to go to a cafe where we could park straight outside the front door.

We settled on Son of a Pizzaiolo. I knew they had recently revamped their dinner menu, but I was keen to try them out for breakfast. As expected, the café was almost empty, and so we had our pick of the seating. There were some standard tables, but we decided to sit in a booth, American diner style!

The other half started with a flat white, but I declined and stuck with water. Given that the marathon had most likely dehydrated me, I didn’t think coffee would be a good idea. I did have a taste of the flat white though, and I was suitably impressed. Son of a Pizzaiolowas certainly doing the Italians proud. The pretty latte art was also a nice touch that put a smile on our faces.



The menu was full of creative options, that looked delicious but neither of us could go past the cheesy scrambled eggs. Set atop two polenta hash browns were scrambled eggs with aged pecorino, grilled mushrooms and crispy kale, all dressed with chives and red sea salt. The other half went for the standard version also had chorizo, but the staff were more than happy to swap that out for avocado for me. Rarely do we order the same dish, but this time we made an exception.

Our opinion of the dish was also almost identical. The cheesy scrambled eggs were a hit, lots of cheese, lovely and creamy with the right amount of seasoning. The mushrooms and the crispy kale were also important elements to the dish and when combined with the eggs created a beautiful blend of flavours. Unfortunately the polenta has was a bit of a let down. Perhaps it was the fact that in my head, I was hoping for something like a potato hash brown, but unfortunately the polenta was was rather heavy and stodgy, and lacked flavour. In retrospect, if I couldn’t have a potato hash, I think I would have preferred this dish with toast, but hindsight is a great thing indeed.

Nevertheless our experience at Son of A Pizzaiolowas lovely and we will definitely consider going back. The service was impeccable and I was very impressed at how friendly the staff were. The flavours they combined worked well, and left me keen to try their dinner menu some time in the future.

A while ago I visited the original Rustica Canteen in Fitzroy with the other half, for breakfast. We were both rather impressed with the food and so, when my girlfriends wanted to organise a girls brunch sans boys and kids, I quickly suggested the Rustica branch in the CBD. Like many cafes, Rustica don’t take bookings for weekend breakfasts, but I was assured that the wait for a table on a Sunday morning wasn’t usually more than 15 minutes.

I had already checked the menu and it seemed that there were lots of common items across the two outlets, and given that I had massive food envy on my Fitzroy visit, I thought it would be a good opportunity to sample some other things.

Like most groups of more than 4 women (we were a group of about eight or nine) we ended up arriving one at a time for about half an hour until we all got there! Rustica were kind enough to not make us wait for the full group before they sat us, and instead gave us a big high table at the back of the café which we all joined as we arrived. However, they also took our order as we arrived, which meant that our food was arriving at all different times, and chaos ensued.

I chose to order the chilli scrambled eggs on their infamous Rustica sourdough but minus the bacon. I had ordered almost immediately after I sat down, and about twenty minutes past before I had received my drink or my meal. As I looked around, I realised that people who had arrived after me were having their meals served, so I flagged down a waiter and asked him if my order had been missed. I think he might have been knew, because he took my query to another waitress, there was some discussion between them, and then he came back to tell me my food was on its way. Fast forward another ten minutes and the senior waitress comes to me and tells me that my order has been mixed up and to confirm what I ordered. I tell her that I ordered the chilli scrambled eggs and she tells me she will be back. This time she returns quickly with my meal, chilli scrambled eggs, but with bacon. When I tell her that I had specifically requested for the bacon to omitted, she looked really confused. I did eventually receive my correct meal, but it was about an hour after I placed my original order. Don’t get me wrong, the food was delicious, but I could have done without the delay and confusion!

 

Luckily I was the only one on our table who had a mix up with their order. Everyone else’s food arrived on time, and correctly, and everyone loved their meals. As expected, the bread was the highlight, but equally important were quality ingredients and punchy flavours.

I have often said that eating breakfast out is a huge indulgence. A meal which normally costs about $1.50 a home, can often increase to over $20 when you eat out. But admittedly, the options you receive at a café far outweigh the bowl of weet-bix I would ordinarily be having. So when you receive a message on a busy Saturday night asking if you want to catch up for breakfast on Sunday, it’s an offer I rarely turn down. After all, how can you say no to indulgence?!

A bunch of us met up in Middle Park with no clear plans of where we were given. I was happy to take a back seat and let someone else do the organising. Given how windy it was, there was a general consensus that we should avoid the beach and instead strolled along Armstrong St trying to find somewhere that looked exciting. We were a group of 7, so we needed a place that had a free table that was large enough for all of us, and we came across the Victorian Wine Centre.

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that this was a bar, or a wine shop, but it is infact a café or restaurant that takes their wine very seriously. However it was only 10am, and it would have most likely been frowned upon if we started our day with a champagne so we stuck with the traditional approach and ordered coffees.

Run by Italians, the Victorian Wine Centre clearly take pride in their coffee. Between us we ordered a variety of coffees including a flat white, a latte and a macchiato, and everyone was impressed.

The menu was heavily focused on eggs, with a few sweet options, but as usual I was in the mood for a savoury breakfast. In the end I chose a breakfast wrap. When it arrived, it looked huge! It was definitely not a wrap I could pick up, a knife and fork was essential.

Whilst the wrap was nothing exciting it was still nice. There was eggs (duh), cheese, salsa, and a dollop of sour cream. The serve of eggs was super generous but the cheese was not as apparent. The salsa was described as spicy, but it was fairly limited with the heat. Despite this, it was still an enjoyable breakfast, but nothing spectacular.

The other half chose to have house eggs. Served on a slice of sour dough was slices of tomato, spinach, feta, and two poached eggs. The plate was dressed with pesto and there was dukkah sprinkled on top. The dish was a flavour hit however it was deemed to be a little on the small side. However, we have big appetites, so perhaps it isn’t fair to use us as benchmarks!

Our morning at the Victorian Wine Centre was a good one. The company was great, the food was good and the coffee was excellent.

I have a thing for good bread. Freshly baked loaves of warm, soft sourdough, with a crunchy crust, perhaps scattered with grains of some sort, and lathered with butter is one of my many weaknesses. Cheese is my other weakness, but let’s not start with that…

Rustica Sourdough has long been on my list to try. Social media has been full of people raving about not only their bread, but also their delicious breakfasts. Located on Brunswick St in Fitzroy, is the original Rustica branch, where we decided to indulge on Good Friday morning. We got there relatively early, as early as one should wake on a public holiday, and headed down there only to be faced with a queue. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long, as long as we were happy to sit on a communal table. This was no issue for me, infact I quite like the communal table because it means I can perve on everyone else’s meals!

We started with the usual coffees, a latte and a flat white. It important to note that the other half’s flat white was served in a cup that had a handle large enough for his index finger to go through and get a firm grip. It’s the small things that make us happy.

Given that a long weekend was ahead of us, I decided to go for a healthy option of sautéed greens served with a poached egg on sourdough. The other half went on a completely different tangent and ordered the cheesy, béchamel filled goodness of a croque monsieur.

As per the description, my meal really did come with lots of greens. There was brocollini, beans, snow peas and sliced avocado,  all served with some grilled haloumi, almonds, and some salsa verde to tie it all together. It was presented with a poached egg, and sat on top of a thick slice of Rustica sourdough. This meal definitely worked. All the flavours blended well together, although, the cheese lover in me would have loved a little more haloumi. The bread was most definitely a highlight, and I was very satisfied with my meal.

The other half was equally impressed with his meal. Of course the bread was a standout, the croque monsieur was served on a pumpkin brioche which was rather unusual, but very much appreciated. It came with ham hock, gruyere cheese, seeded mustard béchamel and pickles on the side. It was also a winner.

Our breakfast that morning was a successful one, and we left very full and content customers. Rustica also have another couple of branches in the CBD and Richmond, infact I have a girls’ breakfast planned for the CBD outlet, so I hope it will live up to my expectations again!

Northern Soul is a little café on High St in Thornbury. It is slightly removed from the hustle and bustle of the Northcote end, but still close enough to be in walking distance. We had initially planned to have breakfast at Brother Alec, but as we walked past, we realised how busy it was and given that we weren’t prepared to wait for a table, we kept walking on to Northern Soul.

When we initially walked in, the café was completely empty, which made me a little apprehensive. An empty café is not usually a good sign. It’s a bit of a conundrum for me actually, I don’t like it busy because I don’t like to wait for a table, but I don’t like it quiet because it makes me question the food! I really can’t win!

Anyway, I had nothing to worry about really, because we didn’t even sit inside, instead we walked through the café, into a lovely garden area at the back. It was filled with lots of Buddhist symbols, greenery, and even a section at the back that had chalk and blackboard for children to occupy themselves, whilst their parents relaxed with a coffee. So thoughtful.

We quickly ordered some coffees, supplied by Toby’s Estate, and set about making our choices from the menu.

The menu has a mild Nepalese and Tibetan influence and in keeping with the theme, the other half decided to branch out from his usual breakfast choices and ordered the morning momos served with smoked salmon, poached eggs and dill yogurt. Momos are a Nepalese or Tibetan version of a dumpling, and these morning momos were filled with spinach and cheese. I’m not sure what makes spinach and cheese a morning food, but there is also a potato momo on the menu too. The verdict was that this meal was very… ‘different.’ Not necessarily a bad kind of different, but just not what one would expect for breakfast. I guess it depends on your taste though, one of my favourite breakfasts is eating leftover rice and curry from the night before!



I chose to order the zucchini hot cakes served with mixed greens, tomato relish and coconut yogurt. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed. The hotcakes were quite heavy and stodgy. I think I would have preferred them as fritters and deep fried. The mixed greens had an awful dressing on it, which made it inedible for me. The tomato relish, however, was quite nice, and the coconut yogurt was lovely. I had never tasted coconut yogurt before, but I am now a fan. It also provided a lovely creamy contrast to the dense hotcake which was much appreciated.

Whilst I really wanted to like Northern Soul, unfortunately the food just didn’t win me over. The ambience was lovely, the service was great, but both our meals were below par.

Hipster. Northcote. The two words almost go hand in hand. And together with the hipster in Northcote is the café that they go to have breakfast at. It should have exposed wood beams, there might be concrete floors, the café should preferably be in an old converted factory or warehouse, and the crockery should be mismatched. But most importantly, the coffee has to be good and the food needs to be creative.  The Herbert Café is just what the hipster is Northcote is looking for.

Located just next to the Northcote train station, on Herbert St (hence the name!) the café is located just off the busy High St strip. From the outset, the building really does look like a rundown or abandoned old factory, but as you step inside, the atmosphere changes. The café is very small, and there are lots of little timber tables and timber stools for the patrons. We found ourselves a table, and little clipboards with the menus were handed to us.

We started with our drinks order. The Herbert serves Padre coffee which is what the other half chose, and I got excited seeing Prana Chai on the menu and had to order myself a pot. The drinks arrived quickly and when they arrived at our table, they took up almost all the space! We had to make sure we finished them before the food arrived!

The menu didn’t have my usual option of fritters, so instead I chose to go with a breakfast burger. It had a big juicy portabello mushroom which was well flavoured with garlic as the patty, and also had roast peaches, caramelised onion, avocado, and was served on a wholegrain brioche bun. The burger was very delicious. I had never had roast peaches before, but the sweetness of them and the caramelised onion worked beautifully with the garlicky flavour of the mushroom. If there was to be any criticism, it would be that the burger was pretty tricky to eat. The mushroom kept on sliding out, and so I decided to eat it as a deconstructed burger with a knife and fork. Perhaps that’s how hipsters eat their burgers.

The other half also went for a very unusual choice from the menu, Welsh Rarebit. He had never tasted it before, and had very little idea of what to expect, but when the dish arrived, and he tasted it, he said it was one of the most amazing breakfasts he had tasted. For those that didn’t know what Welsh Rarebit was, like us, it is basically a pimped up cheese toastie. Now I love a cheese toastie, but when pimped up, it goes to a new level. With red onion, Worcestershire sauce and some really good cheese, this was one good toastie. It was the most unique combination of flavour, unlike anything we had ever tasted.

The Herbert Café was certainly a good find. Next time, perhaps we will have to ride our fixies there, just to get into the spirit.

One Saturday, just after picking up our City2Sea race packs, myself, the other half and the other half’s cousin, J, were wandering down Gertrude St trying to find a place for brunch. Generally when we go out, I have always done my research and have a place in mind, but this time I had no idea where to go.

As we meandered down, we passed numerous cafes that were either too full to get a table at, or too empty for us to have any confidence in them. Eventually we stumbled upon Arcadia. It had a reasonable crowd, but there were still some empty tables, and the menu looked interesting enough for us to give it a go.

We sat down, and grabbed some water from the table behind us. Not long afterwards, menus were handed to us and we set about deciding on what to have. We decided against coffees. We were running the next day, and it was probably a smart decision to stick to water for maximum hydration. Plus it was basically lunch time, so coffee really wasn’t necessary.

J stuck with his standard choice of a muesli variation. We always laugh when he goes out and orders muesli, but he loves it, so who are we to judge! This time he chose a porridge. It was an eclectic mix of oats, quinoa and chia seeds, combined with pepitas, sunflower seeds and almonds and topped with a poached pear, cranberries and pomegranate molasses. He was very impressed with his dish, even going as far as to say it was pretty close to his own muesli mix which he makes, and prides himself on. The serving was huge too, which was appreciated.

Whilst J’s choice was a traditional breakfast choice, the other half went the opposite way and chose a clear lunch option, the Arcadian burger. This burger was described with lots of flowery language on the menu: a Angus beef burger infused with spiced basil and tomato salsa, topped with cheddar on a bed of leaves and tomato, drizzled with baconnaise and served with pickles and hot mustard. The other half pretty much stopped reading when he came across the word baconnaise, because according to him, nothing could go wrong if it had baconnaise. He had never had this mystical baconnaise but the knowledge that bacon and mayonnaise were two of the greatest ingredients on earth gave him confidence that baconnaise must be amazing.

Alas, when his burger arrived, he tasted it and the baconnaise was really that much of a key ingredient. He commented that his burger was good, but not amazing, and definitely not at the lofty heights he had hoped it would reach.

I decided to order fried eggs with red and green salsa and spicy beans on stuffed cheese and jalapeno corn tortillas. Firstly the dish had us somewhat confused. It was listed on the menu as ‘Huevos (fried) eggs.’ Now, huevos is Spanish for eggs, so was I going to be having Eggs (fried) eggs? Perhaps double fried eggs? Or maybe an egg wrapped in a fried egg? It was confusing. Nevertheless I put a stop to the questions in my head and ordered the dish anyway.

What arrived was infact fried eggs on stuffed tortillas with beans and salsa. Just standard fried eggs. Not that I’m complaining, I love fried eggs and these eggs were good. The beans were also OK, but they definitely didn’t reach the spicy heights that I was hoping for.  But the real problem of the dish was the tortilla. As I attempted to dig in, armed with a knife and fork, I realised there was no chance I was going to be able to cut my tortilla. It was as hard as a rock. I think would have struggled to make a dint in it, even with a steak knife. As a result, my meal was a bit of a disappointment. Having to struggle so much to even eat my meal, meant my level of enjoyment was seriously hampered.

Other than the food the café was quite nice. The décor was pleasant, the staff were friendly and the service was prompt. It was unfortunate that the food didn’t hit the mark for me, although J was impressed and the other half was satisfied. Perhaps I had just picked a bad dish. Oh well, there’s always next time!