Out for breakfast

It can be frustrating, in a good kind of way, queuing for breakfast. At least you know you are in the right place (queuing at McDonalds doesn’t count; it’s not food (have you read ‘Fast Food Nation’??)), but if you are like me, when you need to eat, especially breakfast, you really need to eat!
When I use to live in Sydney, I remember queuing forever to have breakfast at Bills 2, I would hate struggling out of bed, just to stand in the queue, but my reward was chunky corn fritters with curls of bacon, slow roast tomato and baby spinach. My first cult breakfast.

Now I have a series of breakfast places that I refer to as ‘the usual’ or ‘favourite place’ etc in a language all of my own. First it was Las Chicas, in St Kilda East. When I use to work evenings, the owner would joke that I was there more often than she was. It was usually a late breakfast (hospitality hours breakfast, about 11am) of a caffe latte and a brekky burrito. Softly scrambled eggs, bacon and rocket wrapped in a tortilla, dolloped with house made tomato salsa and guacamole. Occasionally it would be porridge, if I was trying to be healthy or the BBB – bikini blow out benedict, (if I could justify it) of poached eggs on toasted bagel with avocado, bacon and smothered in hollandaise.

Then disaster struck… Las Chicas was reviewed in The Ages ‘Cheap eats’ book as having the best breakfast dish, their french toast, oh the queues!
So it was on to Batch a cute little kiwi-ana place just down the road. Great coffee, friendly genuine staff and breakfast all day, BUT white toast served with the eggs. Now I’m sure that they had other types of bread, but I’m not the type to ask when the menu clearly says, no menu variations. So un-fibre-d white bread it was, until St Ali in South Melbourne came to my attention.

St Ali for quite a while was one of those places that a friend would tell a friend about; the amazing coffee, the grungy space, the interesting food. It was a trip in the car away, instead of a walk, but it was refreshingly different and not packed with strollers and groups having the ‘fancy breakfast out’. The house roasted coffee was perfect, fresh orange juice, and some poached eggs on sourdough with ricotta spinach, roast tomato and salty prosciutto.
I really like this place, and would come here regularly, until again The Age brings me back to great café reality- if it’s good they will tell the (Melbourne) world about it. St Ali was reviewed as having the best coffee in the latest Cheap Eats. Again the queues, but to be honest they don’t seem as bad as when I got kicked out of Las Chicas. Perhaps it’s the alley way access or perhaps the strollers crowd prefer french toast. Although my last St Ali experience did end a little more quickly then I wanted, because the naughty three-year-old at the next table kept screaming. But I did have some rich, house made baked beans with ham hock and fresh spinach with sourdough toasties on the side. Delicious.

Las Chicas is not as ridiculously busy any more, partly I think because it has been a year since the amazing press and partly due to their renovated extensions. So now for breakfast I have two places I am equally happy to go to. I’ll let you know if somewhere else pops up, but until then I’m happy with that.
Now if only I could combine the lot to make the perfect place. Coffee from Wall Two 80 (the favourite non-breakfast time, coffee place – more in another post) with the bench in the sun, the staff from Batch, the brekky burrito from Las Chicas, and the grungy space and changing menu from St Ali. Then we would have the new perfect café and I bet there would be no way I could get a table!
Jack