Ah, here is an interesting looking cafe but not open on weekends. Here is the famed Mi Corazon Tequila bar - peering through its large glass windows, I can see that famous Virgin Mary statue taking centre stage at the bar among all the bottles of tequila and liquors. I see assorted couches and low tables, high chairs and wood tables. Looks like a place for the tequila fan all right; open at night only of course. Here is the newsagency, ooh I better get my copy of the Weekend Age. Mmm, here is a shop with lots of white plastic bottles and looking like a laboratory but labelled Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot. Oooh, bottles and bottles of things you read about in molecular gastronomy books like pectins, powders and extracts, but there are Herbie herbs and European cooking chocolates too. This is such a strange and fascinating little shop. If only it was open on weekends.
Time to walk back to the breakfast venue. Wait, this shop calls itself the Brunswick East Project. It stocks...Padre coffee?! Wait, now I remember, the chaps at Sweet Agora told me their roaster has a shop up this way of town. A glance through the windows. The baristas in brown and black look serious, the customers look serious. The look that says, "I am here for the coffee, and I want my coffee here." I check my watch. Oh I am sure I can squeeze in a short macchiato, especially when the single origin is an intriguing 'Tanzanian Mviwambi AAA'. I perch myself on the high bar opposite the coffee machine, occasionally moving to let the pram-pushing dads go through to the big warm back section of the cafe. The barista confesses that cupping notes for this coffee is yet to come but "it has a slight tartness, like red currants".
You are right, dear sir, it does have the tartness of red currants, but also a mild sweetness, medium body and a good amount of tannin. A very well made coffee I must say, worth a good 4 out of 5 stars.
Oops look at the time, got to run. I open the doors of Hellenic Republic, and the waitress immediately asks me what coffee I want. A medium sweet Greek coffee, thanks. Not that I really need it, but hey I am in a Greek place so may as well.
Not a lot of people on this gloomy morning, so that means some decent service for us and good chatting space. Let us do a bit of dish sharing, seeing that we are both intrigued by the same dishes.
Hmm, a spanakopita with poached eggs and watermelon salad with feta, mint, rosewater and flaked almonds. The pastry is suitably flaky and crunchy, the filling fresh, the poached egg a surprisingly good complement. The salad is refreshing and just very good. FH muses over replicating the dish at home when summer comes around. The whole breakfast goes very well with my just-right Greek coffee. FH reckons the barista looks familiar...The rain is still falling, the skies are still grey. I suppose it is never too early for some loukoumades. We are the first of the day to order them, which causes a bit of consternation in the kitchen because it was not expecting to make any so early in the day. A little enquiring after an unusually lengthy wait (for dessert that is), and we get served the biggest bowl of the doughnuts I have ever seen. We stare at it, thinking, "surely this is not a normal serve..."
*imagine two Asian girls staring at a large white bowl of doughnuts. Just staring at it, smelling the honey, wondering how we should go about polishing it off.*
Looking at the table behind us, we realise that we have been given a double serve as the staff felt bad about the wait we endured. Well, dig in I say, let us not disappoint the staff.
Alas, we weaklings can only finish the equivalent of the normal serve. Pardon, would it be too much to ask for a takeaway container? No, and they even put a little sticker on it to let you know when the Best By date for consumption is. So cute! 3 stars out of 5? For the service, I give them a bonus .5 star to make it 3.5 stars out of 5 for a comfortable brunch on a gloomy weekend morning.
Tram, there comes the tram. Off we go to our favourite Italian importers cum restaurant Enoteca Sileno to find that elusive salted chocolate bar from Spain - and indeed it is elusive, having escaped our hands by a few MONTHS ("our next shipment will be coming for the pre-Christmas rush")
Those who have been following this blog since inception will notice that the Hellenic Republic has had more than the usual one mention. This is one place that we felt we needed to have more than one go at, seeing how it continues to get mixed reviews and be trapped under the weight of its big brother the Press Club.
In any event, the Brunswick East stretch of Lygon Street is worth exploring if you have not done so before.
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