Breakfast Club Diaries Part 3 - No Misses at The Premises

Slow roasted pulled pork... mmmmm

Finally! We have travelled through time from the latest undocumented BC meeting at Two:bob to our most recent one at The Premises in the quaint and lovely suburb of Kensington.

The navigational double-threat duo of MK and me managed to turn what should have been a 10 minute drive from Parkville to Kensington into a 25 minute journey filled with numerous dubious U-turns and other unnameable driving stunts. Ok, so maybe this is an exaggeration - but we do seem to always attract our fair share of misread directions and wrong turns.. Ok, so maybe it isn't an attraction but an inherent snag in our mental fabric. Also, we really didn't expect this cafe to be right across the road from the Kensington train station...

Hot chocolate

So anyway, finally arrived at (the correct) final destination, and joined DS, AA and BNL at the communal table. This cafe, like Common Galaxia, had a truly intriguing centrepiece in the middle of the table! Think quirky but endearing combination of chemistry apparatus and botany.

EP was yet again missing in action from this BC meeting. But not to worry - he definitely shall be making an appearance at the next one as we have issued him a warning that missing another BC meeting would cause him to lose considerable brownie points (that may one day be redeemable for actual brownies). No, not really - I made that up. But it is never good to lose brownie points. Me and the other BC members can only hope that he heeds this warning.

About the food - I must say that I like the presentation of the dishes at The Premises the most out of all the breakfast places I have been to (except for perhaps The Hunter at Twenty and Six Espresso in North Melbourne that looks like the movie set from Narnia).

Check out the pics - and yes, the food tasted as amazing as they look!

From top: Chorizo and potato hash;
Kensington eggs; Eggs with sides

Breakfast Club Diaries Part 2 - The (un)Common Galaxia

Located in the lovely suburb of Seddon, the first thing I noticed in this cafe was the wonderful centerpiece in the middle of the large dining table. I loved it! It was like a mini-rainforest in a giant fish bowl (yes, I do have a way with words... poetry some would call it..).

Common Galaxia is the name of a unique fish that lives in the Maribyrnong River, near where this cafe is. I thought it slightly odd that the cafe also serves a dish containing said fish.. It felt almost cannibalistic... But that's just me, and that is the only thing I found odd about the place. Everything else was quite lovely and hipster-y.

This venue had been chosen by EP, who didn't end up attending the meeting due to other (obviously more important) commitments. Tsk tsk. But since the food was so yummy, we forgave him and moved on with our lives. At this point, I am not going to even try to wax lyrical about the food and instead (as I usually do when hard-pressed for time) let the pictures do the talking.

Baked eggs with potato, tomato, spring onion, grilled cheese, avocado salsa and sausage

Poached eggs on Sourdough Kitchen pumpkin bread with avocado and bacon

Breakfast Club Diaries Part 1 - Got a bob (or two)?

Firstly, apologies for the uber ginourmous gap between my last post and this one. I have been busy having a life... *coughpartyanimalcough* Well, no not really - but I have been involved in a number of interesting undertakings that have taken up a lot of my time over the past few months, the details of which I shall not bore you with.

So yes, here we are! BC meeting #5 was at Two:bob, a pretty simplistic, hipster-type cafe in Clifton Hill. It was recommended by B Ninja L (BNL for short), who had taken on his turn as BC meeting recommender with a great sense of responsibility and solemnity, having extensively researched and trialled multiple breakfast venues before deciding on Two:bob as the location of our next foray into the (mouth-)watering and wonderful world of breakfast food.

Housed in what seemed to be an old post office or bank, Two:bob's high ceiling, tall, arched windows and white and beige wooden furniture presented a bright, open dining area perfect for a cheerful and cosy catch-up with friends. The service was prompt, yet friendly - this was the day that the new iPhone5 had been released and our good 'ol Apple afficionado, Nintendo DS, had just collected her shiny new phone - much to the delight of our (very hipster) waitress, who ooh-ed and aah-ed over it for a good few minutes after taking our coffee orders.

I had ordered the omelet with pork and fennel sausage with the oh-so-delicate buffalo mozzarella that came sprinkled with some rocket salad and the optional spicy tomato relish on the side (which our waitress insisted was the perfect accompaniment). She was right! I loved this dish - my only regret was that my stomach wasn't big enough for me to completely smash the meal. I slowed down considerably towards the end, but with great perseverance managed to polish the plate clean (so to speak!). The relish was indeed the perfect sweet and tangy accompaniment to the omelet.

EP ordered the big breakfast (the most blokey dish on the menu) that came with poached eggs, pork sausages, bacon, grilled tomato, mushrooms, potato rosti and onion jam. If you had just spent a month fighting a raging war in some obscure corner of the world and returned to Melbourne, this is what you would have ordered to fill your roaring belly. Perfectly poached egg, accompanied by the assortment of sides that had been so well prepared, there really was no fault to find with this dish.

I would like to continue on about the rest of the food we had, but alas! time dulls the mind, and my mind truly has been dulled by the 4-5 month lull between the occurrence of the BC meeting and this post. Apparently, according to my photos, someone had some mushroom and goat's cheese on toast dish that looks divine and must have tasted just as divine, but I cannot for the life of me remember which Breakfast Clubber this was and what they thought of the meal... :s Err, yeah and now to the next BC meeting in this series! (see Breakfast Club Diaries Part 2)

Jamie's 15-Minute Meal (in ONE hour) - San Fran Quinoa and Blackened Chicken Salad

So this post should really be called Jamie's 1-hour meal - because that's how long it took me to make it! Oh Jamie, how you make all culinary undertakings look like a piece of cake (and sometimes they actually involve cake).

I was actually inspired to make this meal because:

1. Jamie made it look amazingly easy - he did it in 15 minutes!
2. It involved the wonderful marriage of mango and chicken *I lovee*
3. It looked full of healthy goodness and I definitely needed some after eating like a pig in KL!

Fun fact - shopping for the ingredients took me more than 15 minutes!! (34 minutes to be exact)

But I was determined to give it a go. So after hunting down ALL the ingredients (no compromises at all), I was ready to embark on my supposed 15-minute meal-making journey.

Alas, it was not to be (15 minutes, I mean) :( 15 minutes after setting out to make my meal, I found myself still peeling my spring onions, and then peeling my mango, and then freaking out because my quinoa hadn't cooked in the 8 minutes that Jamie said it would. Oh life - why can't you ever be even the teeniest bit like what we see on TV?

The aim of this post, unlike what the previous few paragraphs may lead you to think, is not to belittle Jamie's 15-minute meals for taking longer than 15 minutes to make, but actually to share what I think is a fairly successful effort at replicating something from a cooking show (albeit taking 4 times longer). And it is indeed a nice, healthy little recipe that all you health freaks out there will love to death because, get this, it actually tastes and looks amazing! The contrasting flavours - sweet mango, spicy and smokey chicken, tangy lime-drenched quinoa; the lovely colours - reds, yellows, greens; the varying textures - soft, crunchy, chewy... Mmmm :)

I kept the quinoa, chicken, and capsicum separate and only assembled my salad in single serve portions. You'll be glad to know that the quinoa mixed with the herbs keeps well in the fridge for a few days and still maintains its lovely green colour. All components can be easily reheated (stove/microwave/oven). OH and also, I think the salad would work just as well with firm tofu replacing the chicken - blackened tofu! Yummayy.

So without further ado, here is the recipe as taken from Jamie's website:

Jamie's San Fran Quinoa and Blackened Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

Quinoa salad
1 mug (300g) of quinoa (I used a mix of 3 types of quinoa)
1 fresh red chilli
100g baby spinach
4 spring onions
1 bunch of fresh coriander
1 bunch of fresh mint
1 ripe large mango
2 limes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 ripe avocado (I omitted this just because I didn't feel like handling an avocado
50g feta cheese (I used Danish feta - it has a creamier texture than Greek feta)
1 punnet of cress (I couldn't find cress, so I substituted it with snow bean sprouts. Big mistake - sprouts taste weird in this salad. I would use real cress or nothing at all when I make it in the future.)

Chicken
2 x 200g skinless chicken breasts
1 heaped tsp ground allspice
1 heaped tsp smoked paprika
olive oil
2 mixed-colour peppers

To serve
4 tbsp fat-free natural yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt - love the texture and tang)

Method:

Put the quinoa into the pan and generously cover with boiling water and the lid. Put the chilli, spinach, trimmed spring onions and coriander (reserving a few leaves) into the processor, tear in the top leafy half of the mint, then blitz until finely chopped. On a large sheet of greaseproof paper, toss the chicken with salt, pepper, the allspice and paprika. Fold over the paper, then bash and flatten the chicken to 1.5cm thick with a rolling pin. Put into the frying pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, turning after 3 or 4 minutes, until blackened and cooked through.

De-seed the peppers, cut each one into 8 strips and add to the frying pan, tossing regularly. Peel and cut the mango into chunks. Drain the quinoa and rinse under the cold tap, then drain well again and tip on to a serving board or platter. Toss with the blitzed spinach mixture, squeeze over the lime juice, add the extra virgin olive oil, mix well and season to taste.

Sprinkle the mango chunks and cooked peppers over the quinoa. Halve and de-stone the avocado, then use a teaspoon to scoop curls of it over the salad. Slice up the chicken, toss the slices in any juices and add to the salad. Crumble over the feta, scatter over the remaining coriander leaves and snip over the cress. Serve with dollops of yoghurt.

 

Divine Experiences @ St Ali

Sorry guys - this post is more about the food at St Ali than the coffee at St Ali... Just putting it out there right at the start so that all you coffee-fanatics aren't disappointed when you reach the end of it and realise that I've mentioned the coffee a grand total of THREE times. (Yup, it's been mentioned twice already in this paragraph - so expect one final mention later-on in this post, i.e. 2 + 1 = 3 :p)

So I'd never eaten at St Ali until 2 months ago when my housemates and I decided to try it out after our forage through the South Melbourne market. I'd never wanted to eat at St Ali before because I'd heard that the food was generally overpriced and overrated. Harsh.

But boy oh boy was I in for a surprise! It turned out that they had revamped their WHOLE menu and I found my eyes glazing over from the divine descriptions of each item on offer. Did I want a "My Mexican Cousin" or a "63 Degrees Above (Not Below)" or "The Full Spanglish"? So much to try, but so little stomach space... (Did I hear someone say "first world problems"?)

Sigh. Life is tough sometimes.

So after some serious life/death contemplation, I decided to give the 63 degrees dish a go. Eggs cooked at 63 degrees for 63 minutes, sprinkled with "migas" (crispy fried bread), topped with cauliflower puree, white truffle oil and candied prosciutto. It was like I'd died and gone to heaven. Seriously. The white truffle oil and prosciutto were the icing on the cake for this dish. I was one happy person :)

My housemate's mom, who had joined us for brunch, ordered the syphon coffee - I must say, for a person who really isn't into this whole scene, it's a pretty cool concept. Watching how it was brewed and passed through the filter using a siphon made me really miss my chemistry lab classes. Nerd much?

63 Degrees Above (Not Below) - how precise...

So good was my experience that 2 months ago that I vowed to return to try the other dishes on the menu. And so I did, a few weeks later. This time I ordered the "My Mexican Cousin" with St Ali's home-made chorizo on the side. Warning: this is one massive meal - small bird-sized eaters like me will definitely be better of sharing it with another person. If the 63 degrees eggs had taken me to heaven, this meal was the god of all gods. I cannot remember being more blown away... (Except that time when the crazy Melbourne wind literally blew me away..)

Secret recipe corn fritters - so light and fluffy and corny (they are made of corn after all) on the inside and crispy deep-fried goodness on the outside. The beauty of it almost brought me to tears.. Topped with fresh tomato, salad leaves, grilled haloumi & kasundi (tomato relish) with poached eggs, and not forgetting the awesome chorizo on the side. Guys, if you only have one chance to check-out St Ali, THIS is the dish you want to be ordering. Trust me - you won't regret it.

My Mexican Cousin

The service was your regular hipster-style experience (i.e. more cool than warm). The ambience was great - giant warehouse, lots of natural sunlight, lively brunch crowd - you really can't ask for more.

Defs worth checking out. Mind you, expect to be around $25 poorer at the end of it.

Breakfast Club Meeting Numero Cuatro @ The Duchess of Spotswood, Spotswood

After a looooong break, the BC is back in action!!

My musical forays are temporarily over, and so now I can focus on my love of food again!! (NB: I'm ABLE to multi-task, I just don't have the TIME to..)

So the Breakfast Clubbers (sans good 'ol Nintendo DS who was away partying it up in Singapore) happily trudged to Spotswood. It had been about 2 months since our previous meeting so we were naturally very excited! (And also slightly sad that DS couldn't make it). It had been EP's turn to choose a cafe - and The Duchess it was.

So MK, the walking map of Melbourne, and I made our way from Parkville to Spotswood through the secret back roads that we knew so well - zipping through industrial and residential areas that we knew like the backs of our hands (no need for GPS!). Until we reached a road closure... Uh-oh. Then the real test began... Using our natural sense of direction, MK and I managed to wind up in 2 consecutive dead ends before we finally conceded defeat and consulted the trusty iPhone navigator.

We managed to arrive at our destination only 15 minutes late! EP and AA were already inside and gave us amused smiles as MK and I giggled and guffawed recounting our journey. It was another 10 minutes before BNL (formerly known as BL - the newly added N stands for Ninja, coz he so stealthay!) literally stopped traffic as he crossed the road, en route to silently materialising in the empty chair at our table. We enquired regarding his secret ninja training, but he wasn't going to give up the secret that easily to us non-ninjas!

The service was laid-back and friendly - no super hipster types here. The ambience was bright and welcoming - I really liked the white walls and the glass door and windows that let plenty of sunshine in.

The menu consisted of interesting and quirky-named dishes like "Breakfast of champignons", "Poetry (in motion)" and "Duchess of pork". Loved the names! EP ordered the breakfast of champignons - mushrooms on a potato+barley hash with poached eggs and English stilton. Stilton is a type of cheese - it was very yummy. The poached eggs were poached to perfection, which was good because the first time I'd been to Duchess, my poached eggs had been overcooked..

AA ordered a more traditional eggs on toast with mushroom and bacon on the side, BNL had the Duchess of pork - crispy pig’s jowl with fried eggs, rich truffle sauce, and sourdough toast. Oh. Man. The. Pork. And that truffle sauce. What a combo. Yum. If I hadn't had so much pork the night before (birthday celebrations at Hoffbrauhaus), I would've ordered that dish too. So I decided that I was in the mood for some Poetry (in motion) instead. Poached seasonal pears, apricots, and prunes with puffed grains and vanilla yoghurt. The mix of soft, crunchy and chewy textures was absolutely delightful! 'Twas poetry indeed. MK had the Simple Pleasures - thinly sliced toast with roast beetroots, candied walnuts, goat curd and poached eggs. So easy to please.. Haha.

And so we talked and ate, and were (very) merry. I was particularly off my rocker that morning for some reason, much to the amusement of the others. Think lack of brain to mouth filter. EP kindly photographed each of us (except himself) to send to DS, to show her what she was missing (what a friend). To which DS replied "but where's EP?". Lollers. All-in-all, another fun BC outing.

And so with full bellies and light hearts, we parted ways, knowing that another BC outing was soon to come.

Already looking forward to the next one!

Breakfast Club Meeting Numero Tres @ The Cornershop, Yarraville

The Cornershop!

It's actually at a corner!

(I only figured this out as we were leaving the cafe.. Brilliant minds can be a bit slow sometimes...)

It was MK's turn to choose a place for our next BC meeting and having a friend who calls Yarraville home, The Cornershop was suggested. Being a bit of a noob when it comes to suburbs other than South Melbourne, North Carlton, North Melbourne and a select few others, I hadn't realised that such a quaint-sounding suburb even existed! Well, I should have known better. Yarraville is the epitome of trendy suburban Melbourne. Its main street is packed chock-a-block with all sorts of weird and wonderful-looking shops, the roadways lined with cars on either side, leaving just enough room for only 1 car to drive through at a time... (wait for it...) on a TWO-way street!

And so fate would have it, that just as DS and I were trawling through this treacherous narrow twig of a road space thing, we came face-to-face (as close as road vehicles go) with a giant Land Rover! Seriously?! Yes, apparently so.. So after some nifty maneuvering by DS, we finally managed to get past and drove on to find a parking spot.

BC newcomer AA was at hand to get us a table. What a chilly morning it was! AA, DS and me waiting at the corner of The Corner Shop, shivering in anticipation of our 3rd BC escapade (and also the cold). Oh what fun. There was however, a very cute beagle puppy that made waiting outside so much more bearable. It was absolutely adorable! But was unfortunately whisked away all too quickly by its owner who expertly packed it into the lower rung of his baby's pram! Yes, the little beagle puppy has its own little pram spot. I nearly exploded from the cuteness of what had just unfolded before me.

We were soon joined by good 'ol BL, all smartly dressed, looking like a local who had just strolled down to the cafe for his regular cup of coffee. And then we were given a table! Yes, finally.

Our table was around the back, in a very interesting enclosure that consisted of timber columns and beams supporting a frosted roof and transparent plastic walls. It felt like were outdoors, but not really. I thought it was pretty cool. The inside is quite different in that it has a bit more of an old school charm - perhaps it was the wooden shelf behind the counter, lined with bottles and jars that made it feel so (or the ladder leaning against the back wall, or the ceiling fans hanging from the dark timber ceiling, or a combination of all of the above..). Yes, I will stop my (somewhat poetic) rambling now.

You must be waiting to hear about the food.

Ok, so about the food:

I ordered myself the (erm...) potato cake thingy on some yoghurt other thing, and I think there were tiny bits of cucumber in there somewhere? Definitely drizzled with olive oil... Yes, I have left this post for too long, and alas have forgotten the name of the dish I had ordered! But all's good - a picture does paint a thousand words. So I shall say no more about this dish of mine, and let the pictures do the talking. Hah!

BL's scrambled eggs looked gooood - nice and fluffy and soft and packed with eggy goodness. YUM.

'Twas a nice meal indeed - and good service too. I was happy. And relaxed. And full. And so were my fellow BCBs.

And so, with our hearts warmed, and our bellies filled, we made our way out of this precious cafe, back to where it all started - the corner. And it was at precisely at this time that it occurred to me why the place was named so.

And with that ended our 3rd BC meeting. More fun times ahead!!

BC meetings have been put-off for a while due to my musical commitments, and the fact that everyone else seems to have something on on Saturday mornings. Those social butterflies.

But they will be back soon :) Hopefully in 1 month or so. The 5/6/7 of us will be gathering to share our love of Melbournian breakfasts once more.

But until then, more random blog posts :D