Cafe Rosamond, Collingwood

It's a wonder anyone ever eats at Cafe Rosamond, rear end of 191 Smith Street (enter from Charles Street), Collingwood, Tel +61 3 9419 2270. First, you have to find the place, which is no small challenge given the lack of signage. Then, there's a giant killer tape-worm wall mural designed to scare you off. And finally, a less-than-welcoming staff do their best to make you feel like an intruder.



But if you make it past these defensive measures, the breakfast ain't half bad. I had a very good serve of scrambled "Kangaroo Island Free Range" eggs, which were just soft and very lightly flecked with chives. The side of house-made baked beans was also very good, served on crunchy sourdough toast with a few crumbles of fetta. The weak links were the bacon, which was OK, but under-grilled, and the lack of condiments. If you decide to take the low-service road (which Rosamond does, with no table orders and almost no table service), then maybe you should stick a bottle of HP on every table. I'm not about to go schlepping across the room begging for sauce once the food has arrived.

Maybe I was unlucky, but my experience was a million miles from Matt Preston's claim that Rosamond is "welcoming and unpretentious". The venue may be "old Fitzroy" and the furniture the spoils of a big night of dumpster-diving, but I found the place both unfriendly and quite pretentious. Too much contrived quirkiness. A poseur in vintage gear is still a poseur.



The menu stretches from classic cafe to retro. There's a touch of 70's tuck shop thanks to hot jaffles filled with spaghetti and cheese, banana and nutella, or bacon and banana. There's cinnamon toast, muesli, porridge and croissants. Or for something more exotic-sounding, there's baked eggs with chorizo, corriander and broad beans, or with asparagas, spinach and "special sauce". Mysterious.

I save my final comment for the coffee. Once again, where Mr Preston's coffee was particularly good, mine was particularly average. And since we're talking Genovese (normally excellent), and the coffee-guy is said to have worked at Genovese for 7 years, it's all the more surprising that my cappucino was over-filled, under-frothed, and borderline weak. How embarrassment.

11/20 "banana and nutella jaffles"