Post 390, Boston

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get baked beans for breakfast in Boston. Baked beans are like Massachusetts Republicans. They exist, but they keep a very low profile. So don't be fooled by the brunch menu at Post 390, 406 Stuart Street, Boston, MA, Tel +1 (617) 399-0015. No beans there. But ask your waiter, and tell them how much you were looking forward to sampling their magnificant house-baked beans, and you never know your luck.

Book Talk, Richmond

Part book store, part cafe, an abundance of fried meat...

Auction Rooms, North Melbourne

Back in the good old days, bargain hunters went to auction rooms. Today, they go to eBay. Which leaves more room for people to open cafes, like Auction Rooms, 103-107 Errol Street, North Melbourne, Tel +61 3 9326 7749. In, you guessed it, some former auction rooms. Not only do they serve great coffee, they even roast their own beans.



They also serve interesting food, like hazelnut-crumbed lambs brains on saute bacon and spinach with sweet onion jam. Brains for breakfast. Not exactly my cup of tea. I prefer to avoid foods that give me mad cow disease and gout. But I'm sure some of you are far more daring than me. Knock yourselves out.

Panificio, Boston

You'd think that with Mrs Heinz living up the road you could get some baked beans for breakfast. But not if you go to Panificio, 144 Charles Street, Beacon Hill. Not a bean to be found. So eggs benny it was, served on "English muffin bread", whatever that is.



Turns out to be some kind of vaguely circular toast, with very little in common with an English muffin. Not that this was a problem. The muffin-toast, eggs and hollandaise were all pretty good. The weak link was the so-called home fries: four chunks of potato, none of which seemed to have spent much time in the frying-pan. Another weak link was the mysterious slice of cantaloupe, which was caught in the twilight zone between side and garnish. It wasn't much good as the former (too thin and dry). Nor was it much good as the latter (it made the dish look stupid, not pretty).

Looking back at the Panificio menu I can see that I misspoke, Hillary-style, about the beans. You can, in fact, get yourself a tasty serve of huevos rancheros, black-beans included. It's only if you're looking for Heinz baked beans that you'll be disappointed. But this is probably part of a deliberate environmental initiative of the Heinz Endowments. Never mind that Therese jets about in a Gulfstream and drives three gas-guzzling SUVs. The real solution to global warming is to boycott baked-beans at breakfast. Join the BBB@B movement and reduce your carbon fart-print today.

If I go back to Panificio (which is not out of the question), I think I'll try the French toast. The only question is: which version? The apple-cinnamon raisin-bread version? Or the Challah version stuffed with cream cheese, blueberries, strawberries and banana? Decisions, decisions...

Enni, Thornbury

At least a couple of people have tipped me off to the baked beans at Enni, 915 High Street, Thornbury, Tel +61 3 9484 8288. Unlike the crappy beans you might use to pelt the paparazzi, these are fancy house-baked beans, with a nice light tomato sauce. Not better than Babka, but very good nonetheless.



The corn pancakes were also good, although I prefer fritters with a high corn-count. They serve them with bacon, tomato, a poached egg and a splodge of tomato and capsicum chutney.

If you're on a budget (and let's face it, working families are doing it tough... just ask Kev), Enni offers some tasty $7 options: two eggs on sourdough toast; creamy oat porridge with berry compote and white chocolate chunks; or Bircher muesli with yoghurt, sultanas, dried apricots, honey, roasted almonds and grated apple. Yum yum yum.

14/20 "beanz meanz..."



Eggs & Bacon $9.50 BB100 -5%

A Minor Place, Brunswick

I wonder if Kelvin Thomson ever wrote a character reference for the nice people at A Minor Place, 103 Albion Street, Brunswick, Tel +61 3 9384 3131? Maybe not. Something tells me they might vote Green. Not that Kelvin needs to worry too much. With a big fat margin of 20%, this is safe labor turf.



Which means there's not much chance of Kevin 07 dropping by for an espresso and a quick bite of earwax. Better to focus on the marginals. Like Bennelong.

This is good news for the voters of Wills. They can eat their breakfast in peace. Simple things like homemade crumpets with blackberry butter. Sweet things like french toasted casalinga with pistachio ricotta, stewed rhubarb and maple syrup. Savoury things like a toasted "brontosaurus bagel" with currant relish, fresh tomato, cucumber, avocado, rocket and lemon mustard dressing. And satisfying things like "a minor breakfast" of poached eggs on toast with grilled ham, roast tomato, white beans and spinach (a few leaves of raw spinach, unfortunately).

The food is all good quality stuff (organic free range eggs, etc), but falls just short of top marks. And while the service is efficient (no mistakes), it wouldn't hurt them to throw in the odd smile.

16/20 "brunswick buzz"

Kooroora Kitchen, Mt Buller

Assuming you don't get run over by a sugar-mommy in a Porsche Cayenne on the way there, they serve a half-decent breakfast at The Kooroora Kitchen, Village Square, Mt Buller, Tel +61 3 5777 6712. Which is quite a surprise really, since most snow-food is about half as good and twice as expensive as what you get back in the big smoke.



It wasn't the best breakfast I've had, but the scrambles were nice and creamy, the bacon and mushrooms were good, and toast and beans were fine. The disappointment was the coffee, which was OK, but only just.

Other food options are limited (pancakes, croissants, toast and porridge); the venue is relaxed and basic (it's a grungy bar by night); and the service is fine (except that you need to place your order at the counter).

You won't find too many sugar-mommies inside the Kooroora. It's more of a shredder kind of place, where you go to sink piss and brag about how you rode fakie into a backside 360 before sticking a cab 540 under the Grimus triple chair. Or something like that.

12/20 "snow job"

Black Ruby, Carlton

I can say with absolute certainty that I have no recollection of any hot, naked lap-dancers when I had breakfast at Black Ruby, 344 Rathdowne St, Carlton North, Tel +61 3 9348 2777. But I was pissed. So pissed, in fact, that I can't recall what happened. Except, of course, that nothing inappropriate happened. That I can recall.



Actually, I'm lying. I wasn't pissed. And, unfortunately, I do recall what happened.

It was a breakfast with all the consistency of Rudd's recollections of a Soiree at Scores. Nice beans and bangers. Nasty eggs. Tasty Bacon. Bland hash browns. Sensational relish. Soggy toast. But it was the eggs that did the most damage. If poached eggs are as deformed and damaged as what they served us, then you scrape the pieces into the bin and start again. You don't scrape them onto a plate and serve them up (the picture doesn't do them justice, but you can see a disembodied yolk if you look closely).

I think the ricotta and blueberry hotcakes would have been a better option. Or maybe the honey toasted muesli with apricot, peach compote and natural yoghurt.

Service, coffee and venue were all good, without being great. A bit like Kevin's lap-dance, really. Quite forgettable.

13/20 "nice relish"

Inkr7, St Kilda

This morning I ate breakfast with what Cheap Eats calls the "professional creative" crowd, at a buzzy little venue called Inkr7, 7 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, Tel +61 3 9534 6011. I think they mean creative types with real jobs and enough money to afford nice things like black sports cars. Which puts them in the elite company of Janette Howard (apparently she liked to speed around in one when she first met John) and Nick Bracks (who used to drive a black Saab before he got pissed and pranged it).



In keeping with the crowd, the special of eggs benedict had a few creative touches. It was served on toasted pide rather than muffins. It came with spinach and ham. And there was a generous spread of Dijon mustard under the ham. Most importantly, the eggs were poached to perfection.

The standard menu has a few egg options (with various extras including grilled pancetta, grilled zucchini, pesto mayo and salmon) and "rustic" beans (5 different types) with Spanish onion, celery, capsicum and mushroom. On the sweeter side you can have muesli, fruit, banana bread with orange butter, or Dutch fruit loaf. The fruit loaf was also on special today, served with sweet marscapone cheese, fresh strawberries and maple syrup.

Despite a bad start (I stood like an idiot for a few minutes as staff walked past ignoring me), service turned out to be pretty good. And judging by the number of regulars, I'm assuming both food and service are pretty consistent.

16/20 "Dutch loaf"



Eggs & Pancetta $10.50 BB100 +5%

Animal Orchestra, Carlton

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: baked-eggs-in-a-pan is the breakfast fad of 2007. And like all true fads, I'm tipping this one won't last. Which isn't good news for Animal Orchestra, 163 Grattan Street, Carlton, Tel +61 3 9349 4944. Baked-eggs-in-a-pan is all they serve (unless you count muesli and toast). But as baked eggs go, the flavours were good.



My main objections to baked eggs are two. First, you sometimes get a slight tinny taste where the food has started to react with the iron of the pan. There were slight hints of this in my serve of eggs, beans and cheese today. Second, the dish is just slightly more annoying to eat than plain old eggs-on-toast. I can never decide whether to hold the toast and dunk it in the eggs, or to rip up bits of toast and sprinkle them through the dish like croutons. Call me picky.

I'm sure there will be baked-egg mavens who will disagree with my fad prediction. And I am quite happy to be proven wrong. But once you've experienced the tinny taste a couple of times, I can't see people going back for more. Maybe the secret is to use enamel pans?

If you like baked eggs, Animal Orchestra certainly has plenty to offer: bacon, tomato mushroom and cheese; potato, leek and shanklish; caramelised witlof and goat's cheese; smoked salmon, dill, capers and onions; and sardines and fetta.

The venue is quirky. Outside they have lots of little stools for Melbourne Uni types to perch on. Inside it looks like someone wallpapered the place with random magazine clippings, including a sprinkling of soft porn (or maybe it was art?).

13/20 "fully baked"

Cavallero, Collingwood

This morning, in an effort to dodge the Grand Prix crowds, I headed North to Cavallero, 300 Smith Street, Collingwood, Tel +61 3 9417 1377. Actually, Cavallero sounds alot like the name of an Italian playboy-slash-f1-racing-driver. And, would you believe it, there was indeed a Cavallero who drove for Alfa-Romeo back in 1933, although he was no match for Nuvolari.



Cavallero the cafe performed much better than Cavallero the driver. It was, however, an Alfa-like performance. Lots of style. Not quite so much substance. But nonetheless seductive.

The menu is loaded with temptation: panettone french toast with rasberry marscapone and rosewater syrup; black rice pudding, fresh mango and coconut custard ("awesome" according to a tip from Penny); and avocado, roast garlic, caramelised chili and lemon on rye toast. My order of potato and fetta pancake with silician style beans, poached eggs and dukkah sounded good on paper. But it wasn't rave-worthy. The Sicilian beans are worth trying, but I still don't get the dukkah fad.

Cavallero's real strength is the slick venue, with all-white paint job, high ceilings and a solitary deer's head stuck on the wall. There's a great mix of seating, with tall stools along the green marble bar, some small tables up front, a couple of booths in the middle, and a communal table at the rear.

16/20 "black rice pudding"

80 Spaces, Prahran

If we had some eggs we could have eggs and ham, if we had some ham.

This is probably a statement of the bleeding obvious, but, if I ran a cafe that opened for breakfast and lunch, I would serve eggs. Unfortunately, this is not a view shared by the proprietors of 80 Spaces, 108 Chapel Street, Prahran, Tel +61 3 9510 8288. They serve very nice coffee, and all sorts of pide, but no eggs. So I had to make do with beans.



The beans were fine, but it wasn't anything special. Just some home made beans with a tomato based sauce (with a few strands of onion mixed through), scooped onto a bit of toasted pide, with another bit plopped on top. That's it. Beans. Toast. And some individually packaged portions of Devondale butter.

I think the rest of the menu consisted of a B.L.T. (pide, of course); toasted pide with jam or whatever; and maybe some muesli. So much choice your head will spin.

So, if you don't like eggs and you fancy some pide, head on down to 80 Spaces.

[no eggs, no score]

Corner Store Cafe, North Fitzroy

Part diner, part milk bar, part caff. That's the vibe of the Corner Store Cafe, 100 Scotchmer St, North Fitzroy, Tel +61 3 9489 8505. You can buy the morning paper, order yourself a Grinders cappucino, and settle down to a relaxing breakfast at one of several retro tables. The food's not quite as good as Dench or Green Grocer, but it's got a homely X factor that draws you in. Except on Sundays, when they're closed.



I was very happy with my serve of poached free range eggs with sides of bacon and beans. The home made beans were particularly good, with a thick tomato sauce and nice soft beans of various shapes and sizes. The weak link was the toast, which was some kind of thin-sliced, processed variety. With Dench Bakers just across the road, I can only assume the decision to serve low-grade toast is driven by economics. But if cutting costs is so important, why not serve caged eggs and beans from a can?

The Corner Store menu is broad, but no frills. You can get eggs, bacon and extras, but nothing fancy like Benedict or Florentine. They also do "Lite" versions of the "Vegetarian Special" (which includes mushrooms, tomato and spinach) and the "Meatie Special" (the vegie extrs plus bacon and sausages). Lite seems to mean 1 egg and 1 toast, rather than 2. They also do omelettes, French toast, pancakes and porridge (the hot stuff), and muesli or fruit salad (the cold stuff).

For dog owners, smokers and lovers of fresh air, there's a couple of street-side tables. But with Melbourne cloaked in a brown haze of bushfire smoke, and the temperature heading for the high 30s (100+ in old-speak), this was not a day for fresh air.

15/20 "retro"



Eggs & Bacon $9.00 BB100 -10%

Back to Babka

Last time I was here I enjoyed the kind of service that makes Qantas look good. But I decided it was time for a second opinion. Stephen Downes, for example, reckons Babka is "perhaps the best café in the known universe." Then again, Stephen Downes scored Vue de Monde 13/20, so maybe he's a few beans short of a burrito these days.



Speaking of beans, I'm pleased to report that the Georgian Baked Beans with crumbled feta are still the best in town. Perhaps the Milky Way? But is this really the best cafe in the universe? I think not.

Service today was OK, but nothing special. We were attended to by at least four different people before the food had arrived, and they were all pleasant enough.

Today's specials included a Croque Monsieur, which was actually a French toasted cheese sandwich. Sans jambon. Sans moutarde. So calling it a Croque was a bit of stretch. But it was quite a nice French toasted cheese sandwich nonetheless.



Babka is also in the running for best graffiti, with some cute babushka dolls sprayed on the front wall.

Three One Two, Carlton

Mrs Jones has been replaced by a number. She is now called Three One Two, after her Drummond Street address, Tel +61 3 9347 3312. And she's had a face lift. I particularly like the splash of military-issue cammo netting hanging in the front window. Extra protection just in case Hezbollah start launching drive-by rocket attacks from Lygon Street.



Food-wise, it's steady as she goes in the McConnell kitchen. The weekend brunch menu is very much Circa, Reloaded. The trusty smoked salmon and cream cheese croque monsieur. The scrambled eggs with truss tomatoes and skewer of bacon. Doughnuts with chocolate dipping sauce. House made crumpets with clover honey.

I decided to try something new, so I took a punt on the pork sausage with white bean and tomato braise. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? Much fancier than beans and bangers on toast. And very nice it was, too. Especially the sesame crusted multi-grain toast, from Baker D. Chirico in St Kilda apparently. You only get one sausage, but I doubt you'll walk away hungry.

Perhaps the most unusual dish on offer at 312 was the prawn and sorrel omelette with green sauce. Prawns for breakfast. Hmmm...

17/20 "prawn omelette"



Eggs & Bacon $16.00 BB100 +60%

Las Chicas, Balaclava

The Las Chicas crowd - 203 Carlisle Street, Balaclava, Tel +61 3 9531 3699 - has turned designer-scruff into high performance art. Do I wear the beaten-up Birkenstocks with my three-quarter cut-off combat pants? Or maybe the cammo thongs show off a bit more of the Portsea tan? Nah... can't mix combat and cammo... better stick with the sandals. And my white Fred Perry polo. Is that gonna clash with your outfit, babe? You're wearing the black Sass n Bide slouch shorts, yeah?



But don't let the cool kids scare you off. This is breakfast paradise. So many good options your head will spin. And we're talking some serious Linda Blair action.

I'll start with what we had. My Baked Bean Brekky came with arguably the best bread I've ever had: two thick slices of warm, soft, pumpkin and polenta bread, topped with a poached egg. On the side was a tasty serve of the house baked beans, and a generous pile of spinach sauteed in butter. Delicious.

We also tried the BBB, aka Bikini Blowout Benedict. A creative Benedict mutation, it was served on bagel toast (which we switched for sourdough multi-grain) with a layer of avocado and crispy bacon. Very good poached eggs and a thick blanket of hollandaise made this another excellent combo.

As for the rest, I don't know where to begin. Here's just a sample: French toast or pancakes with fresh banana, strawberries, pistachio ricotta and maple syrup; brekky bruschetta of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, spinach and pesto sprinkled with pine nuts; roasted field mushrooms topped with a fresh rocket, goats cheese and roasted tomato salad, drizzled with an olive tapenade and lemon dressing; egg & bacon sandwich with hollandaise and rocket on toasted pide. And on and on it goes.

Not only is the food excellent (and cheap), but the venue is buzzing off the charts. A long skinny layout, the place has a tight combination of small-medium tables snaking past the coffee bar and kitchen, and a dog-friendly courtyard out the back. Skylights running the length of the building create a light, upbeat feel. Good tunes on the CD player too.

18/20 "mmm... pumpkin and polenta bread"



Eggs & Bacon $10.50 BB100 +5%

Harveys, South Yarra

It's hard to escape footy fever on grand final day in Melbourne. Today's match might well be dubbed the battle of the birds, as the West Coast Eagles take on the Sydney Swans. So it was no surprise to be surrounded by several tables full of Eagles fans (and the odd Swan) as we settled in for breakfast at Harveys, Murphy Street, South Yarra, Tel +61 3 9867 3605. Very colourful.



Which makes me wonder. Has anyone ever had a swan egg omelette? I know you can get goose eggs and duck eggs. And I'm a big fan of quail eggs, boiled with celery salt... yum. But swan eggs never seem to make the menu. Maybe it's illegal? Who knows?

Getting back to the humble chook egg, I had an enjoyable serve of scrambles on sourdough, with a home made sausage and some pesto baked beans on the side. The eggs were a little bit watery for high marks, but the snag (quite gamey) and beans (sweetened with honey) were very good. They also did a good job with the poached eggs, sauteed spinach and hash potato (a tad salty).

For the egg-challenged, Harvey's has plenty to offer. The porridge was excellent, served with poached pears and dusted with cinnamon. Ditto the fruit salad. I also liked the sound of the thyme and garlic sauteed mushrooms (served with toast and feta) and the goats cheese on toast with fresh asparagus, pesto and roasted tomatoes.

The venue and service are very polished, although it gets a bit noisy when the place is full. And I was impressed by some of the little things. White linen. Plenty of fresh water. HP sauce. They even had Peugeot pepper grinders.

It is, however, expensive. The goat's cheese on toast, for example, will set you back 17 bucks. Ouch.

17/20 "très bcbg"

Ici, Fitzroy

This morning I finally made it to Ici, 359 Napier Street, Fitzroy, Tel +61 3 9417 2274. Apart from the name, there's nothing French about this place, unless you count the "French Toast" with mixed Winter berries, roasted chesnut marscapone and syrup. But who cares? This groovier-than-thou back-street cafe is an excellent spot for a leisurely brekky. Very impressive.



The Ici menu is anything but run-of-the-mill. There's scrambled tofu with Thai mint, white bean miso paste, mushrooms and spinach; Kedgeree spiced rice with smoked cod, egg and minted yoghurt; organic apple and oat porridge; semolina pudding with toasted almonds; and an indian spiced omelette with dukah and corriander chutney.

I played it safe with scrambled eggs, sourdough toast, house-baked beans, onion marmalade and a goat sausage. Yes... that's right... a goat sausage. Tasty. The coffee was excellent, too.

Next time I think I'll go the buffalo banger instead.

17/20 "nice goat"