#YOLO @ Fitzrovia

I haven’t ventured out to the south with Poor Student Eats, so the end of ‘FREEDOM WEEK’ was the perfect opportunity and my friend Yalei and I visited St Kilda Cafe, Fitzrovia for a splash out, lets-celebrate-the-last-days-of-freedom brunch on Saturday. Fitzrovia is appealing a soon as you enter, with a delectable bench of baked treats lining the front counter. What could be more enticing then mountains of beautiful food on arrival?

The Saturday we visited was the perfect day to pop in,  as the cafe was drowning in sunlight from a warm afternoon. Fitzrovia is beautiful and spacious, with fantastic light fittings and interesting details; crates of fresh vegetables and bunches of flowers that give it modern-day general store vibe.

We found a table immediately and sat down for a few minutes before some staff realised we were there. I ended up ordering the haloumi and zucchini fritters, while Y ordered some kind of prawn pasta. We were both feeling flashy, so threw caution to the wind and ordered polenta chips to share. In hindsight, this wasn’t a great idea. Too much food. Not enough stomach. The worst of all first world problems, but Fitzrovia's menu is excellent and it's difficult to hold back.

The Zucchini and Haloumi Fritters; a meal that would serve me well for the rest of the day.

The haloumi fritters though, were a wonderful idea. Perfectly portioned and served with a poached egg and chutney on the side, they meal’s components were complementary to each other and when combined created a sweetly-savory dish. The chutney added a necessary moisture to the dry, but still crunchy fritters and went well with the slight zucchini flavour that gradually came through. My friend reported back that her pasta was really good, substantially sized and included plenty of fresh seafood.

With so many great places offering them, it’s hard to mess up polenta chips and Fitzrovia’s truffled polenta chips too were also v. good. Crunchy, beautifully coloured and sprinkled with salt and parsley, they were everything you could want in a polenta chip selection. But there was no sauce.? Come on, guys. We all love condiments and there aren’t many crunchy things that can remain enjoyable without some kind of moisture.

However, Fitzrovia checked all the boxes for my ideal brunch: A good, solid serving size, an interesting meal, a touch of sweetness and the requisite brunch 'egg'. Fitzrovia really demonstrates why I like to eat out - food like this isn't food I would regularly experience by cooking myself which was my favourite thing about this cafe. Do you remember a few posts ago when I was talking about how I loved that feeling of being excited after ordering a meal?  You get that feeling here and they certainly deliver on their menus promises.

If you're considering ordering juice; ask for ice on the side. Although freshly prepared, they are as think as smoothies.

Staff at the cafe were a little slow considering that we had just missed the rush and the cafe was quite empty, but were also quite friendly when we did see them. The wait for the food wasn't too long, but service could have been a little more attentive.

The meal was kind of horrific for my $20 budget. A good way to justify this is to say that it would be a long time until the next brunch, so I may as well buy two brunches in one sitting. As my total came to $30, this is almost what happened, except I’m never been very good at maths so my adding up can probably take part of the blame for the unexpected price hike. So, I’ve said it; Fitzrovia, as fantastic as it was, was not exactly a Poor Student Eats Eat, but if you’ve got the resources, it’s a great place to dine and has an excellent menu to boot.

Later, I read that it’s some kind of store policy that all ingredients used must come from within 100KM of the store. I felt slightly less guilty after hearing that. At least I’m doing my bit to support the Victorian economy. This was last-week-of-freedom-week after all. YOLO.

FITZROVIA

155 Fitzroy Street
St Kilda 

Tue to Sun 7am–11pm

Good for: A solid breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. The menu is great. 
Vegetarians: Will be happy with the selection on the menu - it's fantastic, and caters for most eating preferences.
Wait time: The cafe was quiet when we arrived, around 1.30 on a Saturday. We walked right in and found a table.
Food waiting time: Not too long, but there was a considerable amount of time between arriving and receiving menus, which wasn't a great start. 
Cost: I paid around $30 for my fritters, a juice and half of the polenta chips. It was an expensive meal, but a great one and although it's a lot more then I generally spend, the food was really great. It's just a shame the service wasn't so snappy. 

 Somehow, we fit in dessert a few doors down at YO-GET-IT. Yam Yam.

SMALL FISH, BIG POND @ Three Bags Full

It’s funny how once you start food blogging, every social occasion becomes surrounded by food. Every catch up is another opportunity for a post, another meal with someone I love spending time with. This is the upside of writing this blog. The downside is that because I have so much on right now, I am eating and working more then blogging and thus, my little patch of internet has not been tended to for some time. I’m going to try and rectify this.

My mum and I went to brunch at Three Bags Full, which sit around that Abbotsford, Richmond area. You know how occasionally in American shows, when a place is really busy, someone will say something like 'It’s like Grand Central Station in here' ? Well, at 10AM on a Sunday, Three Bags Full is Grand Central station, for breakfast.

The vibe of the cafe was good and due the number of people inside and the levels of noise, the pace of the establishment is energetic, maybe even too energetic for a Sunday morning. It's a little dwarfing walking in It's also huge and is spread over the multiple rooms of a converted warehouse. Diners belong to no specific crowd and instead, there are just all kinds of bods, everywhere, on every table, and on every stool, eating, drinking or waiting to do both.

We arrived just- and I mean, just minutes before the cafe got seriously crowded, right on 10am.
 Not wanting to join the line for a table inside, we scooted outside in the slightly windy sunshine. At the rate Three Bags Full fills, if you find yourself in the same situation, I strongly suggest you do the same. You’ll also be able to hear your eating companion talk, which is always nice.

After a while pondering the menu, I ordered the Roasted pumpkin + sage fritters ($16) with grilled haloumi + a parsley, pinenut, parmesan + pomegranate salad, while my Mum choose the Roasted field mushrooms, garlic, rosemary, goats cheese + almond dukkah ($15)

I have to admit, I didn’t enjoy my meal as much as I thought I would. Although it looked great and was nicely arranged, it was lukewarm, and the fritters were dry. For this reason, I suspect it had been sitting on a counter somewhere for a while before it got to me. I love haloumi, I eat it like it’s a magical, wonder food, but halomui cold has the texture of rubber. That was kind of a bummer. - because if all the temperatures had been right, it could have been a great dish. Although for $16, I also expected it to be a little more substantial then it was.

My mum on the other hand, loved her choice of mushrooms. Her dish was sizable, and the mushrooms large and meaty.  You can see from the pictures that the goats cheese was also plentiful and according to her, the meal was a substantial and well cooked brunch.

I don’t quite know what to make of this eatery. The menu is fantastic- versatile, expansive, and presents lots of options for the variable modern day Melbourne eater. And, the coffee was good, but could have been hotter (I seem to be finding this a lot, is this a 'thing' now?)

But organisation seems to be a problem, and getting things from the kitchen to the table quickly was certainly an issue that Three Bags Full needs to work on, especially in the case of my meal, and the coffee we had. I know that Sundays are crazy for most businesses, and I have an inkling this is may be an issue of staffing. The waitstaff in fact, were very friendly and weren’t slacking off by any means - the problem was that there just wasn’t enough of them to go around.

I was disappointed; I've read so many great reviews, and heard so many great things about Three Bags Full that it seems my expectations had been set a little too high. I suppose the obvious answer to this is that everyone else has read these same reviews too, and perhaps peak-hour on a peak day isn't the time to really enjoy this cafe.

THREE BAGS FULL  

60 Nicholson St

Abbotsford

Open daily: 9am- 5pm

Good for: A really great menu. Hopefully next time I visit, it will live up to its promises.
Vegetarians: Have lots of options for interesting and fulfilling meals. 
Wait time: Quite a while - I strongly advise visiting outside regular weekend brunching hours. 
Food waiting time: Quite a long time- Half an hour during peak time over the weekend. 
Cost: Including a latte, my meal sat at $19.50. Had the dish been delivered sooner, I would have considered it better value.