So you want to have breakfast in the Melbourne CBD

Okay folks, here's a belated entry to my recent Amnesty Fortnight. It's the Melbourne Gastronome guide to the best breakfasts/brunches within the confines of the Melbourne CBD. Most of these were visited by yours truly over the last few months, either with the Ladies Who Lunch or with a group of housemate DJ's friends for our now regular (fortnightly) Bourgeois Breakfasts. I've got a dozen places here on my list, but if you can recommend any others please let me know - we're running out of new Bourgeois Breakfast venues!

Hardware Societe
120 Hardware Street, Melbourne (map)
9078 5992


Di and Will, the proprietors of the newish Hardware Societe, used to run the cafe opposite (which was called Beetroot but has been renamed by its most recent owners - for some ghastly, deeply unfathomable reason - as "McSpankys Famous Foods"... truly, the mind doth boggle).

Hardware Societe is just gorgeous - from the outdoor herb garden brightening up Hardware Street to the sleek, nifty interior lit by oversized naked light bulbs. They're open for breakfast and lunch Mondays to Fridays - read more about the lunches on offer in Mellie's excellent review.


On my first visit, I ordered the soft boiled eggs and 3 soldiers ($12). But these were no ordinary soldiers: the first one had gravlax and crème fraîche, the second had roquefort and rocket and the third had jamón and romesco.


The baked eggs ($11) are served in the most gorgeous little pots: there was a choice between roquefort and field mushrooms, or chorizo and pimentos.


Each coffee (Supreme) comes served with a miniature doughnut. The macarons are made in-house: they're sometimes slightly wonky in shape but taste delicious (especially the orange and passionfruit, mmmmmmm).


YES, we did order 14 coffees. Not bad for a Bourgeois Breakfast of six people!



Mr Tulk
328 Swanston Street (entry via Lonsdale St), Melbourne (map)
8660 5700


For those who don't already know it, Mr Tulk is located at the northern end of the State Library, and is named after the Library's first chief librarian. Gorgeous interior, n'est-ce pas?


Recommended dishes are the fried egg bruschetta with fetta and crispy shallots ($12) and the corned beef hash with poached eggs and Dijon ($14).



The Hotel Windsor
100-150 Spring Street, Melbourne (map)
9633 6000


If you're in the mood for something a bit different and old school, you might like to swan in for breakfast at the Windsor. The $16 Express Breakfast gets you freshly squeezed orange juice, two pastries, fruit salad and a hot beverage served from a silver vessel.


Or you might like to do what I did and order from the a la carte menu. I chose the impressive corn cakes with avocado salsa, tomatoes, sour cream and Atlantic salmon ($14). DJ had the parmesan scrambled eggs with toasted brioche and double smoked bacon ($13).



Council House 2
240 Little Collins Street, Melbourne (map)
9639 7778


When I saw photos of the interior of Council House 2 (CH2) on Lucy's wonderful blog The Design Files, I was architecturally smitten and immediately keen to check out the restaurant on level 1. I'm sorry to say though that the Ladies Who Lunch and I were very disappointed with the breakfasts we were served: the "potato hash with poached egg, crispy bacon or spinach" ($13.50) turned out to be dry roasted potatoes (no hash), and the claypot baked eggs with roast tomato, feta and chorizo ($13.50) were too dry and rubbery. Our visit was over six months ago though, and I've heard through the twittervine that things have improved - can anyone confirm?



The European
161 Spring Street, Melbourne (map)
9654 0811


The European is a consistently good city breakfast option. Last time she was in town, my friend CJ and I went to the MCG ridiculously early in the morning on Boxing Day to reserve our Members seats for Day 1 of the Test, and then sauntered through Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens to treat ourselves to a pre-cricket 8am champagne breakfast at the European. It was SUCH a nice way to start Day 1, I'm half tempted to do it again this year.

Recommended dishes include the croque-monsieur ($12.50) and the special I had last time, the wild mushroom open omelette ($17.50).


Other Bourgeois Breakfast attendees enjoyed the frittata of smoked trout and potato with avocado salsa ($16) and the seasonal fruit salad with organic yoghurt ($12.50).



The Mess Hall
51 Bourke Street, Melbourne (map)
9654 6800


Finally, there's the most recent Bourgeois Breakfast venue: the Mess Hall. On Friday morning, in the midst of the Christmas-drinks-soaked silly season, the name of the cafe summed up our collective mindset pretty well.

As per my recent visit to Miss Jackson, I decided to order the corn fritters with avocado and cream cheese ($13.50). They tasted great, and I loved the presentation of the careful stack with scattered segments of tomato.


Other prandial highlights included the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and herbs ($13.50) and the BLT with seeded mustard mayonnaise ($9.50).


Miss A ordered the bruschetta with Bulgarian feta, rocket, organic tomato and olive tapenade ($9.50), with a side serve of poached eggs. A ordered the Sicilian beans on sourdough toast ($9.50) with a side serve of spinach and avocado.


As is tradition at Bourgeois Breakfast, we ordered too many coffees. As we were waiting for the second (or was it third?) round to arrive, DJ suggested sharing custard-laden doughnuts as a breakfast second course. Wicked man!



*** EDITED 16/01/10 TO ADD:
Fabulous Melbourne Gastronome reader Poppy has done some research for you all, calling each of the places reviewed in this post to confirm what their opening hours are over the weekend. See the results of her research in the Comments section. BIG THANK YOU to Poppy!! :) ***

But that's not all... in addition to the six illustrated above, here's a list of previously reviewed places in the city that I can recommend for breakfast:

Liaison (22 Ridgway Place) does a limited but delicious breakfast menu, including gluten free muesli with fruit and yoghurt for those so inclined. Drop in and say hi to Danny and Sian from me.

Le Triskel (32 Hardware Lane) does excellent authentic crêpes and big bowls of coffee in which you can dunk your baguette/croissant.

Cumulus Inc (45 Flinders Lane) - what can I say? You MUST TRY the 65/65 egg and the lemon curd madeleines. You simply must.

Cafe Vue (430 Little Collins Street) for the French hot chocolate that is as delicious as it is outrageously expensive, and the croque-monsieur.

SMXL (542 Little Bourke Street) is at the back of my office building, so I often drop in for a m'oave or a jaffle.

MoVida Terraza (Level 1, 500 Bourke Street - access via Lt Bourke St) was written up in Melbourne Gastronome just the other week, but I went back again shortly after my first visit. In addition to the other dishes I previous recommended, you've got to try these tostadas with imported Cantabrian sardines and tomato ($10). SO GOOD!!

Menu for Hope: the Melbourne Gastronome prizes

Food blogging royalty and general domestic goddess Pim from the blog Chez Pim has organised the 6th annual Menu for Hope, an annual fundraising campaign hosted by food bloggers around the world to raise money for the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

Food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering an array of food-related items for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too – can participate. For every US$10 donated, you earn one virtual ticket to bid on an item of your choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18.

You can read more about the details of the Menu for Hope initiative here (and cheers to Ed for organising the Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand side of things). Importantly, none of the money is collected by the bloggers: all donations are collected by a third party site (a very good online fundraising company called Firstgiving) that sends the money directly to the WFP. This year the donations will be targeted towards a WFP initiative called Purchase for Progress – read more about it here.

I've been very impressed with the list of prizes that other local food bloggers have come up with, so I called upon some lovely friends of mine to help me organise two prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host.



The first prize that Melbourne Gastronome is hosting is (drumroll please)...

AP27 Six months supply of Small Batch specialty coffee worth $250+

250g bag of specialty coffee roasted by Small Batch (as seen at Auction Rooms) sent to your address each fortnight for six months. Rotating selection of whatever’s best that week, be it a blend, single origin or Cup of Excellence. Please specify if you prefer filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


Yep, like the description above says. If you are the lucky winner of Prize AP27, a 250g bag of coffee will sent to your address every fortnight from Small Batch, the coffee roasters whose coffee is sold at Auction Rooms. Each fortnight for six months, Small Batch will send you a bag of whatever the best roasted coffee is for that week: sometimes a blend, sometimes a single origin, sometimes a Cup of Excellence. Because they're lovely that way, please let Small Batch know whether you'd prefer your coffee to be filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


And the second prize hosted by Melbourne Gastronome is...

AP28 Brunch for four at Auction Rooms plus 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes total value approx $140

Brunch and syphon coffee demonstration for 4 people at Auction Rooms in beautiful downtown North Melbourne PLUS box of 12 Sugadeaux salted caramel cupcakes (or other Sugadeaux flavour of your choice), delivered to you personally at your Auction Rooms brunch by Melbourne Gastronome (schedule permitting!).


Regular readers of Melbourne Gastronome will know how much I love Auction Rooms, and not just because it's owned and run by my friend Andrew. It's my favourite brunch venue in Melbourne: read about my previous visits here and here. If you haven't already been, shame on you!


If you win Prize AP28, you and three of your friends will be treated to an Auction Rooms brunch with bonus syphon coffee demonstration. Thanks, Andy!


BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, THERE'S MORE. As well as receiving brunch for four and a syphon coffee demo, the winner of Prize AP28 also gets a box of 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes! I've taken the liberty of choosing your flavour (my favourite): salted caramel. Look at it and drool, my friends...


Like I said, I've taken the liberty of choosing salted caramel cos it's my favourite, but if you don't like the sound of it you can choose one of Sugadeaux's other flavours instead: browse the full range of flavours on the Sugadeaux site. I can also recommend these other outrageously good flavours that I was lucky enough to sample when the lovely Jess from Sugadeaux invited me along to a recent Sugadeaux cupcake tasting:

Raspberry White Choc and Strawberry Shortcake


Toffee Apple and Caramel Popcorn


Read a full report on the Sugadeaux cupcake tasting night here on Eating Melbourne. Sugadeaux cupcakes are also regularly available for purchase at Amsterdam Street, my favourite local cafe.

So, you get 12 cupcakes as well as brunch for four people! You can elect to either pick up the cupcakes yourself from Sugadeaux's South Yarra location, or have yours truly deliver the cupcakes to you personally at Auction Rooms (schedule permitting... just be sure to give me a bit of notice!).


Finally: I'm afraid I've been a little late off the mark, because the Menu for Hope finishes on 25 December 2009 (Christmas Day). So you've only got a week to get your skates on and donate to enter the Menu for Hope raffle.

How To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice (AP27 and/or AP28! But you might also like to look at the full list of Australia-Pacific prizes, and the full list of worldwide prizes).

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code. Each US$10 (a little over AUD $11) you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of US$50 can be 2 tickets for AP27 and 3 tickets for AP28: "2xAP27, 3xAP28".

4. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

I really hope that lots and lots of you will enter: at $11 a ticket (which is going to a very good cause) there are some really great prizes up for grabs. Thanks and good luck!

ps And a BIG thank you to my gorgeous lovely generous friends Jess and Andy for donating prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host! xx

Amnesty Fortnight: dinner at Rumi

Rumi
116 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9388 8255


Okay, this is a quickie, because it's Amnesty Fortnight and I have a dinner date in a few hours. These photos have been sitting in my drafts folder since a while back, but I felt compelled to share them anyway because (a) Rumi seems, somewhat undeservedly, to have dropped off the Melbourne food blogging radar, and (b) it was such a great meal.

The very generous, very delicious Rumi banquet will only set you back $40 per person - outrageously good value in my opinion.


The occasion was the birthday of Beatch, my charming friend from Sydney. We started with the Rumi house cocktail, which was sort of a Cosmopolitan by way of Constantinople: vodka, pomegranate juice and lime.

The opening entrees included green olives pickled with wild fennel, mixed Lebanese and Iranian pickled vegetables, labne with Lebanese flat bread and crudites with almond tarator.


These dishes were accompanied by a plate of lightly fried sigara boregi filled with three kinds of cheese: haloumi, feta and kasseri. Next came a salad of beetroot, shankleesh, Spanish onion and torn mint.


Then it was fried fish kofte with lemon and toum (a Lebanese garlic dipping sauce), and Persian meat balls in tomato and saffron, with labne.

Because Miss A is vegetarian, they also brought us a serve of chickpeas and lentils in tahini yoghurt and parsley. Chickpeas and lentils generally get a big YAWN from me, but I had a taste of these and they really were very nice.


The one vegetable dish that we all LOVED was the fried cauliflower, which came with pine nuts, caramelised onion and currants. BEST CAULIFLOWER EVER.


Also extremely good were the joojeh kebabs of marinated barbecued quail with muhummara, a walnut garlic sauce.


The freekeh salad contained Bulgarian feta, almonds and pomegranate vinaigrette. They also brought out an extra little vegetarian salad for Miss A.


And then there were the mains! The spiced lamb shoulder had been slow roasted on the bone until it was achingly tender, served with sirkanjabin (a sweet mint sauce). Accompanying the lamb was braised greens, a rice pilaf and a cos and herb salad with sweet and sour dressing.


The last time I'd been to Rumi was for lunch two years ago, back when it was located a few doors down the road at the site now occupied by Bar Idda. The new venue is bigger and brighter, but still retains the flowing Arabic script on the walls that was such a feature at the earlier location.


Oh and then we decided to order a SMORGASBORD of delicious Middle Eastern desserts: they included arak-poached apricots and fresh Medjool dates (each stuffed with labne), pistachio halva, Persian fairy floss, Turkish delight, ma'mool (Arabic shortbread filled with dates, rose water and coffee) and an almond milk pudding with sour cherries and rose jam.


We finished our meal off with Lebanese coffee accented with cardamom. Excellent food, value, service, setting and company!

Brunching in St Kilda? Call on Miss Jackson

Miss Jackson
2/19 Grey Street, St Kilda (map)
9534 8415


Last week I met up with the lovely Jess (aka Sugadeaux) for brunch. She suggested Miss Jackson, a cafe on the corner of Grey and Jackson Streets in St Kilda that I'd heard plenty about, but never before visited. I'm so glad we did.


It's housed in a handsome century-old building that was once a bank. Outside are a handful of outside tables on the courtyard deck. The interior consists of a row of small interconnecting rooms with white-painted walls and an elegantly minimalist, relaxed air.


The menu listed two kinds of Bloody Marys ($5/$10): virgin or superstar dj. No prizes for guessing which kind we ordered.


Jess ordered the grilled asparagus with poached eggs, prosciutto and parmesan ($13). I just *loved* the way the prosciutto was snugly wrapped around the asparagus spears!


I wanted something savoury but didn't feel like eggs, so I ordered the corn fritters with bacon, avocado and roasted vine tomatoes ($13). How gorgeous do those vine tomatoes look??! I didn't want to disturb them, but then my hunger got the better of me. A fab brunch dish - the corn in the fritters was nice and juicy, and the relish on the side went with it nicely.


We also enjoyed our coffees (Allpress) and chattering away with Steve the owner. Both Jess and I are keen to go back again soon to sample some of the other brunch menu items (eg the ricotta pancakes with strawberries and lemon curd... the warm citrus salad with yoghurt pannacotta... or maybe the herb scrambled eggs with homemade corn bread). As Jess said, you know you like a place when there are about five things on the menu that equally tempt you!