Melbourne

Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne

~ culinaldi ~ Leave a comment

I love discovering new places to eat and finding hidden gems. Walking through South Melbourne this morning, on a whim I saw a café within a historic looking building and decided to walk in. There is a sense of old world charm when you enter Dimattina’s from the street. Your eyes take in the quaint French bistro style chairs, faded and worn wooden tables on wrought iron stands, the cushions and banquette seating along the window, the beautiful copper-coloured pressed metal along the front counter, walls decorated with art deco style wallpaper, and the ornate ceiling rose and large antique chandelier overhead in the middle of the room. The series of black and white studio portraits and movie stills of the actors from yesteryear drinking coffee, adds another touch of class to the café.

Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne
Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne
Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne

The wonderful thing that I have discovered about ordering coffee in the South Melbourne area is that if you ask for a large coffee, you really do get the super-sized version. The coffee blend is strong with distinctive malt and toasted wheat flavours on the first sip. The art of roasting and coffee-making is taken very seriously at Dimattina’s, with a coffee roaster on site in addition to a dedicated barista training area and specialist equipment showroom towards the back.

Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne
Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne
Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne

The service is laid back and casual. The breakfast menu is up on the wall, which the staff will cheerfully tell you as you first walk into the café. The majority of the specialty dishes have a heavy emphasis on eggs for breakfast, with toast, muesli (including Bircher), fruit salad and porridge also available on the menu. It took me a few moments to decide what I wanted to order having had my fill of smoked salmon and poached eggs during the last few weeks, before deciding on the Eggs Benedicte with brown butter hollandaise, mint salad and yoghurt scone (sic).

Although the café wasn’t busy for a Saturday morning, there was a little bit of a wait before my order arrived, but I think that might have been attributable to the fact that there is only the chef in the kitchen and that there were three tables that happened to be ordering breakfast at the same time. I happily read the Saturday newspaper and continued to slurp on my bucket of coffee. When my breakfast did arrive, it looked great. Nothing fancy or pretentious but rather rustic with a hint of retro, with the addition of the twisted slice of orange on the side to garnish the plate. I did wonder what had happened to the mint salad as I gazed at the abundance of rocket leaves in front of me and then started attacking my breakfast with gusto.

Eggs Benedicte with brown butter hollandaise, rocket on yoghurt scone - Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne
Eggs Benedicte with brown butter hollandaise, rocket on yoghurt scone – Dimattina Coffee, South Melbourne

The burnt butter hollandaise sauce is fantastic and has a sweet and nutty flavour that is intense but not overwhelming and the quantity is ample to cover the eggs, bacon, the crispy scone underneath, and even the rocket. The grilled bacon is lean and substantial enough to match the sauce. Actually I was rather glad that bacon was served with the dish as I don’t think slices of ham would have been an ideal pairing. The scone at the bottom of the dish took me by surprise. A touch of crispy, dry crust at the edges and not too large or thick, they had a slightly sweet flavour of their own. With a scrape of melted butter on top, they were still firm and moist to eat even without any of the other elements added. The yoghurt scone base really was delicious and not too heavy or stodgy on the stomach.

I’m excited to find that I have discovered something truly unique, a place with delicious unpretentious food and excellent coffee, with an ambience that harmoniously draws the past into the present.

Dimattina Coffee on Urbanspoon

The Little Man Cafe, Seddon

~ culinaldi ~ Leave a comment

I really had to eat. Although I was heading off to a cooking class at Spice Bazaar in Seddon for four hours of hands-on cooking and eating at 10am, the five consecutive Body Pump classes I had subjected my body to during the week meant that my appetite when I woke up on Saturday morning was off the Richter scale. Surely a little something to eat beforehand couldn’t hurt? The last time I was in Seddon, I had a wonderful breakfast at Common Galaxia which was in the vicinity of where I needed to be and so I headed in that direction.

Walking along the shopping strip in Victoria Street, I could see Common Galaxia in my line of sight and then as I walked past a large window, I could see a communal table in the front with a small crowd of people seated, enjoying coffee and chatting in what appeared to be a new café. The sign on the timber door said “Closed” and I took ten more steps further before I decided to circle back and see if it was a café that was open for breakfast.

The Little Man Cafe, Seddon
The Little Man Cafe, Seddon
The Little Man Cafe, Seddon

Thankfully the place was indeed open and I was greeted by the counter and allowed to sit wherever I wanted. Located on a street corner, the café was full of light from the front and side windows. The brick walls have been painted white, complemented by pale timber floors and tables, white timber chairs, turquoise blue tiles and matching crockery accents all come together to create an elegantly designed dining space.

The menu is not exhaustive but has offerings of toast, baked eggs, scrambled eggs and the traditional Atlantic/Florentine/Benedict options. Yoghurt panna cotta and vanilla bean rice are wonderful substitutes for porridge or muesli and there is Mocha Brioche French Toast dish on the menu that sounds both exotic and delicious. With a fondness for haloumi, my ravenous appetite gravitated towards the Sweet corn hot cakes with smoked salmon, rocket and haloumi, and also took the option to add poached egg.

The Little Man Cafe, Seddon
The Little Man Cafe, Seddon
The Little Man Cafe, Seddon

The café tends to become busier as the morning wears on, however from the moment I sat down, I was well and truly looked after in the customer service department. The same person who greeted me at the door went to the trouble to locate a newspaper for me, replaced my cutlery as soon as it accidentally flew off the table (I blame the Herald Sun), took the trouble to ask if I would like another coffee and had the nous to ask how I wanted my poached egg cooked. Definitely two thumbs up.

The coffee is excellent and the barista is constantly busy but still manages to weave his magic in the presentation of each cup.

Sweet corn hot cakes with smoked salmon, rocket, haloumi and poached egg - The Little Man Cafe, Seddon
Sweet corn hot cakes with smoked salmon, rocket, haloumi and poached egg – The Little Man Cafe, Seddon

When you read something on a menu, your mind tends to conjure up an image of what that dish may look like. The presentation of my breakfast when it arrived exceeded my expectations. Three pikelet sized hot cakes filled with kernels of sweet corn underneath a handful of rocket, topped with slices of smoked salmon, poached eggs and wafer-thin strips of grilled haloumi cheese. Interspersed among all of those ingredients were thin slices of radish, tomato and the most finely chopped pieces of red onion I had ever seen.
The haloumi was crispy and due to its size it didn’t have its normal soft texture and taste but was delicious nonetheless. All of the textures and tastes worked well together, from the crispy cheese, soft egg, the smoky and salty flavour of the salmon, the bitter taste of fresh rocket leaves combined with the firm and slightly sweet hot cakes, made each mouthful an absolute delight. At that point I was rather glad that my appetite got me out of bed early in search of a hearty breakfast and that I found something special and unique in Seddon.

The Little Man Cafe on Urbanspoon

The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra

~ culinaldi ~ Leave a comment

My friends like to have a little dig at my inclination to gravitate towards sweeter the breakfast options than the savoury variety. One friend even commented that I was only allowed to have French toast for breakfast if it was served with Gallic bacon, which seemed like a tall order at the time, until I discovered The Meeting Place Café.

Nestled towards the back of a small arcade off Toorak Road in South Yarra, this café has a distinct European ambience with a row of French bistro-style chairs and tables outside the entrance and a large ornate garden urn. It would be easy to imagine that you had been instantly transported to a village in France, rather than in inner city Melbourne.

The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra
The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra
The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra
The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra

Beneath the warmth of the outdoor heaters and market umbrellas, I had a fantastic view of the comings and goings of the arcade in both directions and was treated to an impromptu Thai cooking class from Marion Grasby showing on the TV screen directly in front of me, inside the café.

The coffee is made with roasted beans from Sensory Lab; sweet, creamy and subtle flavours of chocolate in the blend.

The all-day breakfast menu is eclectic with a variety of traditional dishes but with some interesting inclusions. Having found a café that served a style of French toast that met my friend’s brief, I felt that I had license to order the French toast with cinamon poached pears, crispy bacon and maple syrup (sic).

The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra
The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra

I’m someone who usually cannot tolerate poor spelling. The menu, temporary signage and the blackboard specials at the café have quite a few spelling errors which would normally make me cringe. But with further reflection, the service at The Meeting Place is extremely friendly and attentive with a customer focus, and the chefs appear to be putting their heart and soul in creating delicious food rather than directing their efforts elsewhere, so with that in mind I continued to enjoy the European odyssey and overlook the obvious.

French Toast with cinnamon poached pears, crispy bacon and maple syrup - The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra
French Toast with cinnamon poached pears, crispy bacon and maple syrup – The Meeting Place Cafe, South Yarra

When my French toast arrived, the presentation of the dish was spectacular. Two thick slices of battered bread, wedges of poached pear, fresh strawberries, a rasher of bacon decoratively wrapped around a quenelle of cream, decorated with a fresh sprig of mint and artfully drizzled dollops of maple syrup, and a fine layer of cinnamon dusting over the top.

There were a few unexpected taste elements in the dish, both good and not so good. While the toast was served hot off the grill, the poached pears appeared to come straight from the fridge so the extreme difference in temperature came as a complete surprise when pairing the two together, but only for the first mouthful. The French toast was well cooked and delectable especially when mixed with the maple syrup and cinnamon. The bacon was also delicious, not overly crisp, and went well with the bread and the sweeter options on the plate. I was expecting the cream on top of the French toast to be mascarpone or crème fraiche, which would have been unobtrusive in terms of flavour, but discovered it was actually sour cream. Quelle horreur! Sour cream unfortunately has a distinctive flavour and the taste was overbearing which didn’t pair well with the other sweet and savoury flavours and textures. Aside from this, my breakfast was substantive and enjoyable.

The next time I need a budget-friendly European escape for breakfast, I have my eyes set on the Nutella & banana pancakes with roasted hazlenuts, strawberries served with vanilla custurd (sic).

The Meeting Place Cafe on Urbanspoon