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i tell you, it's a good thing that i didn't waste my short skirt on this place, because the waiters here are utterly talentless. disappointing really, because i've been doing so well. speaking of which, did i tell you that paul the infamous barman handed over a blank slip of torn off receipt roll with his phone number on it last time i was at automatic? did i nearly faint with shock? why yes... yes, i did. right after i pissed myself laughing. paul, honey, i know you want to have sex with me, but look- get in line like everyone else, eh?
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it's a cafe. it's a bar. it's a restaurant. it's a bar. wait, i've been here before. i'm really not quite sure what amello wants to be but i suppose if you have an uninterrupted view of a glorious sunset over melbourne on a sunday evening with a glass of wine, who really gives a crap. we scored the table on point, the one right next to the chain link fence surrounding the next round of 'improvements' for st kilda. really, if they'd just leave the bloody place alone we could all just get along with enjoying it. i'm hoping they get it done and get rid of the fence as quick as possible. as it turned out, i paid little attention to the sunset as it was - i had a distraction.
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it's a very strange feeling walking into a place where pretty much everyone is looking down at the floor/breakfast/papers. like a mini depression in the middle of hawthorn. no welcome, no smiling, no talking! you in the corner! no enjoying yourself and definitely no talking! goddamit, stop smiling and shut the fuck up!
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i like automatic. every time we walk past it, automatic is open. it's owned by the same guy who owns blue train in southbank, blackbird in sydney and the new chocolate bhudda at federation square. mind you, you have to be weird to work there. and by weird we mean multiple piercings, coloured hair, tight t-shirt and walk around with a comms headset on your head. aside from that, they have a cool bar, tables practically on the riverfront and they don't give a shit what state you're in.
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i've been there before of course, but today it was just so good, it deserved a review. the staff are good (massage, anyone?) and know what they're on about, even if they are of indeterminate heritage and/or sexuality and are wearing strange make up. could it be possible they were all on drugs? even if they were, there was not one dish dropped, and not one coffee spilt the whole time we were there - i was looking.
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firstly, what sort of stupid name is bunyip? it's fucked, that's what it is. that's my professional opinion. and what the fuck is it with the dancing thing on the card?
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well, times change, people move on, a bird in the hand, etc, etc. in short, cafe blac has turned around. it's owned by a couple who know what they're doing. out with the old, in with the new. my coffee is coffee-ish, my service service-ish. all is as it should be. i can't vouch for the brekkies but coffee is nicey nice and staff are smiley smiley.
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after the awful (and very creepy) experience at auburn village deli, we headed (or ran) back up auburn road to the cafe. the cafe on auburn. which cafe? the one on auburn. opening on sunday only recently, cafe provides a breakfast alternative to the deli. mind you, i reckon a morgue on a slow day would be a better alternative to the deli.
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when you drop the menu in your favourite place, walk across the road to a new joint that's just opened...and don't regret it for a moment...either the old favourite is slipping or the new place rocks. in this case, it's a little of both. and i regret the move not at all.
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new new chapel bakery
well, clearly a lot of other people thought the same. the new new owner has reintroduced the artisan breads and has put in a kitchen (i'm reliably informed). very good to hear! the old old chapel was all about the bread and good coffee and i'm glad to see the new new chapel owner gets that. kudos to you! actually, my daughter recently bought some delectable cakes for a birthday celebration - very nice. give chapel a try again and buy some bread. actually, you know what? leave all the bread for me!
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yeah yeah, i know- more suburban reviews. but lately, i've been rocking the suburbs, (just like leo sayer did) and someone should bloody know about it! god knows, word won't get around out here in suburbia.
but moving on, this place is actually pretty good and the coffee rivals that of any found on lygon st (go the sunday latte- you know you want to.) it doesn't seem to matter what time you turn up, it's generally good here. it's a smallish place, which means that you always seem to score the last table- no bookings though, so don't even try. the people that own coco lounge also own mocha joe's up the road, but take my word for it when i tell you that coco is heaps better. it's cruisy and relaxed, and the staff don't wait on you according to the label on your t-shirt. i think they tried to do two different things with the cafes, and it's worked because they both have a very different atmosphere- one's shit, and the other's not.
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I have no idea where to go in our nation's capital. that sounds so funny - our nation's capital. it's very american, patriotic, nationalistic. french. but i digress. this has nothing to do with france or french people or even the riots that firm the basis of french culture and society. i digress my disgression? perhaps. need to stay on message, move forward, stay focussed. I am in, after all, our nation's capital. where was I? oh yes, cream.
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this place is really only good if you need a coffee whilst you are waiting for your washing next door. they're happy to give you change too, and you don't even have to buy anything. the waitress here is very cute and apparently believes in karma. i guess i've got some good stuff coming to me at some point because i walked back in to pay for my coffee after she forgot to charge me.
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apparently the carbonara is off the menu. the cook (chef on back of shirt) is sick of it and so, it appears, are you. not by choice but she has to watch her figure. you do have to eat the passion fruit and white chocolate muffins on your own or...well, it's bad ok. the waiter/terrier needs an attention span, any will do just more than absolute zero. and some shampoo. calamari salad rocks da house. well, kinda gives it a crispy stare. stay away from the special pizza. it's what was left over from all the other stuff they couldn't sell yesterday.
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i can't believe i haven't written about isa brown before now. i've had plenty of time and plenty of wine there. they have it all - open fire, yellow pvc sofa, good coffee. don't be put off by the lego sign outside. it isn't some crazy miniature lego world with lego freaks that i dreamed about when i was 12. what? oh, yeah, isa brown.
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so i'm on a quest for the holy grail a weekend breakfast in melbourne's cbd, that is. after some dreadful suggestions from friends and fellow connoisseurs (block arcade? please! that place couldn't serve breakfast if it was on a platter with a try-hard herb garnish) i was quite hopeful about hardware lane. so it was with a heart full of optimism that i approached jeremy's hardware cafe.
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i so wanted to like this fucking place. never a good sentence to start with. it just really got on my tits after a while. ok they have good, even great coffee. but a little thing called service wouldn't go amiss. it's always the same, though, isn't it. have a great idea - pay crap wages. why do it? why not do it right?
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there must be a rip in the space-time continuum somewhere behind the doors to the kitchen - it cannot take that long to make anything. and when the food does eventually emerge tortoise like from the kitchen there isn't all that much of it anyway, unless you're talking about the toast. you couldn't call it a slice, it goes way beyond a single piece, even a slab is selling the size of this thing a bit short. landmass might come close... each one is about the size of tasmania, with a couple of tiny eggs perched on top and some green garnish, a sort of easter island homage at breakfast. and the coffee isn't really flash.
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the full menu is on, it's tapas only, it's on again, off again...will you make up your fucking mind. little blue (as i like to call it) is jammed in behind the rebuilt st kilda pier kiosk. now i'm not an architect (no really, and i wouldn't tell you anyway in case you tried to track me down) but why in the hell would you spend a bunch of money rebuilding the weatherboard kiosk that burned down three years ago and then shove a steel and glass cafe right behind it?
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nothing makes me happier than to rock up to a cafe at 3pm and be presented with the breakfast menu. well, i'm sure there are other things that make me happy too but late breakfast beats most of them. except os, yes, yes, except that.
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the wankers in the gfg love this place so i've been studiously avoiding it for months. actually i've been there a number of times recently and really liked the breakfast. they do the poached eggs very well and have award winning (eggs monthly?) pancakes and eggs.
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the business card is green - so it gets a tick of approval for that. (green being my favourite colour of course - tch, keep up!) of course. it's been in my wallet for a week now and i keep getting it confused with my coffee stamp card (also green) so i'll be glad to get rid of thing.
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ahhh... strozzi. it's been a good few years since i sat here every morning with my ciabatta toast and macchiato, but i remember the days fondly. now here's a place that hasn't really changed that much. they still do very good mood lighting and coffee. yes they do food and stuff, but i've never really gone past the coffee. strozzi is located at the bottom of that beautiful building in collins st - i worked there for all of three months and loved walking into work every day.
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i have no idea why i keep going back. this is forehead-thumping stuff. why why why??! maybe it's just because it's too easy to deviate from the walking path around the lake and by all accounts it should be a great place for a super-muga-frappaccino-latte. or more likely, it's because it's too much fun to watch tourists waiting at the 'wait to be seated' sign. if you've ever been to the boardwalk you'll know that that leads to many hours of amusement.
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as you probably know i am partial to the cafes, restaurants and other eateries that offer breakfast all day. my feelings are if i want to have poached eggs and toast at four in the afternoon, i damn well will. so my saturday afternoons are usually spent either bitching about some place that doesn't serve breakfast whenever i want it, or heaping praise on a new cafe or restaurant that does. this is just so with the comfortable chair - yeah it sounds like a monty python sketch. grow up!
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it's so good! it's so bad! ok, what the fuck is going on at vanilla? if there was a prize for inconsistency vanilla would be accepting the same gold award every week.
some days we go there for brekkie and it's just perfect - good eggs, good service, nice people, good coffee. honestly, is there anything more you could want in life. well, perhaps a good cup of coffee isn't the be-all-end-all of life but it does go a long way towards perfection on a crappy monday morning where you'd rather be still in bed than preparing to front up to the steaming pile of incompetence that is your boss. but i digress. other days we go and it's hard to get noticed. we brought flags, air horns, even flare guns. but no. 'oh, did you want to order something?'. 'no love, we came for the view...'.
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look, i've heard good things about this place, but when i went it was supremely crap. cold breakfast does nothing for me- especially when we're the only people in the place. at least we got to hog the fire. the coffee might have been good, but only in comparison to the shitty breakfast. i guess they get a credit point for being open early when everything else was closed. decor's nice and i like the wall of bottles. I just hope they're all firmly secured, eh?
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if you close your eyes and think of a bar called velvet, you can probably see velour couches, darkened corners and cigars next to the fire. if, on the other hand, you actually go there you find your basic cafe with your basic tables, chairs and double decaf-mocha-frappa-ccinos. it is of course part of the new port melbourne with every try-hard double income, no kids couple running around having fun fun fun.
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we had to add cafes to the list of reviews because, well, we found ourselves in many. usually looking for breakfast at 3pm. and why the fuck not?! does the 'chef' lose the ability to crack a few egss and put toast in the toaster at midday? can they not access the pancake mix after 11am? is there some sort of bloody rule that i don't know about?!
Re: auburn village deli - 96 auburn road hawthorn east
Posted on 11 March 2011 by it's me.always good to hear something...
Re: auburn village deli - 96 auburn road hawthorn east
Posted on 30 November 2010 by Joseph.It has changed hands for the better.
Re: old kingdom - 197 smith street fitzroy 9417 2438
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