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%

Fat Little Fritters at Small Block

I think Small Block deserves an upgrade to at least 16/20, with full marks (3/3) for the "other" stuff, ie, things other than eggs. These were some fine corn fritters, with a tasty side of creme fraiche and some kind of chili relish. Good bacon, too.



The Small Block menu also deserves special mention for variety. Oodles of choice, and plenty of creative twists.

Pepper, Flemington

These days, 44 Pin Oak Crescent, Flemington is a cafe called Pepper, Tel +61 3 9372 2726. Back in the good old days it was known as Girdwood's Hygienic Library. Not a filthy, disease-ridden library where any old scum could poison the books with their nasty germs. But a nice, clean, private lending library where the books were fumigated with formalin between each read. I'm guessing Pepper smells much better than it did in the good old days. But you never know what you might catch off the communal newspapers.



With quite a few glowing reviews under its belt, I was hoping for a top tier breakfast. The sweetcorn hotcakes, however, were no match for Mart 130 or Replete Providore. They were good enough, but nothing to rave about. I quite liked the combination of crispy bacon, rocket, tomato and aioli. I was also impressed with the poached egg I ordered as a side. A nice, fresh, free range egg, poached pretty well.

Other food options worth noting include the Breakfast of Champions (eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato and homemade beans on toast) and the Pepper's Breakfast (smoked salmon, homemade potato latkes, tomato, spinach and tomato relish).

Service was a bit slow, but friendly, and the Monte coffee was good (for an extra 20 cents you can upgrade to an organic East Timorese brew). Weather permitting, they have a few tables on the street outside, where you can fumigate your lungs with Marlboro Lights.

14/20 "latkes"



Eggs & Bacon $8.00 BB100 -20%

Bluecorn, St Kilda

For some reason, every corn tortilla I've had in Australia looks and tastes like an oversized mutant corn chip (crunchy, brittle and u-shaped). You can get soft flour tortillas. But soft corn tortillas are as elusive as drop-bears. And, as I discovered this morning, you can't even get proper blue corn tortillas at Bluecorn, 205 Barkly Street, St Kilda, Tel +61 3 9534 5996. Very disappointment. It's not like they're hard to make.



Luckily, when I grumbled about the crunchy, greasy corn "tortillas" they were quick to switch them for nice soft flour tortillas, so I could get on with enjoying my Sizzling Breakfast Fajita. Basically, you shovel stuff off your cast iron hot plate and onto each tortilla, add some sour cream and guacamole, roll it up and eat. Ingredients include scrambled eggs, bacon, chorizo, corn, red peppers, black beans, mushrooms, spinach, tomato and pine nuts. Very tasty and very filling.

The real problem is that once you've had Mexican food in California (and presumably Mexico, but my first hand experience doesn't extend that far), everything you get in Australia is second rate. Comparing Bluecorn with, say, La Taqueria is like comparing Salma Hayek with a Chihuahua. They're not really in the same league.

On a positive note, Bluecorn does seem to cater well to veggies, vegans and anyone trying to avoid lactose or gluten, and the menu is far from boring. Choices include: tortillas; waffles; fruit bread French toast; porridge with Cuban banana and lime jam; and poached eggs with creamed spinach and grilled ocean trout. They do a decent Genovese coffee, too.

12/20 "fajita"



Eggs & Bacon $11.00 BB100 +10%

Bills Reloaded

Last time I accused Bills of being a two trick pony. Great scrambles, great hotcakes, and not much else. I stand corrected. I am upgrading this particular pony to three, and possibly four tricks. The corn fritters are also very good (although not as good as Replete), and it looks like the bircher muesli deserves high praise too. But that's it. Bad luck if you want something exotic, like, hmmm... poached eggs. Sorry, we don't do those.



This morning's brekky was made all the more exciting by the presence of Agent Smith, right across the communal table from us. Yes, Bill's lived up to its star-spotting credentials, and I am now able to say that I had breakfast with Hugo Weaving (we shared a table, after all). I kept hoping Trinity would join us, but the damned agent scared her off.