james test

June 5, 2016 I've been taking it gently as a I settle back into wintery Melbourne. I've been choosing old favourite recipes and restaurants that remind me what I love about home - baking granola , cooking lentil tacos and eating the leftovers in toasties, slurping up legume noodle soup . There's been porridge specials at Wide Open Road, dinner after work at Good Days , and Friday nights in local pubs . Visiting the Queen Victoria Markets is another Melbourne staple. I picked up some soup ingredients there on a cold, wet Sunday and resolutely took myself across to Twenty & Six Espresso for a treat afterwards. They do M ö rk hot chocolates including a vegan one they call the Bounty ($6). It's based on coconut cream and their house-made almond milk. Its richness comes more from the distinctive silkiness of that coconut cream and less from the light cocoa content; it's just a little frothy on top. I rationed it out slowly, with a sweet little (non-vegan) pumpki...

February 7, 2015 We've had a few nice breakfasts at Brunswick's Code Black Coffee so figured we'd give their new North Melbourne branch a go on our way to the Queen Victoria Markets. It's another warehouse refit, although this younger sibling lets in more light and offers some cheery splashes of colour. With a bare floor, high-energy tunes and enough customers for a wait list, it's loud. The menu is shorter and lacks the vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free symbols that so impressed us in Brunswick. Instead there's just some small text suggesting you "chat to your server". Gluten-free bread is available, and it looks like vegans might be constrained to salad. After a brief wait in the sun, we were seated at a small table on the mezzanine level. Michael cooled down with an iced latte ($4.50). From there we were in for a bit of a wait for food, though our waiter did regular rounds topping up our water. Michael ordered black beans with a fried egg, jalape...

Mike and Jo-Lyn differ in many matters of taste. Jo knows all the cool hang-outs and likes things a bit artsy. Mike, however, doesn't hesitate to claim "wanker!" at the first whiff of pretension. So there could hardly be a higher recommendation for breakfast at Fandango than that they both love it. And now we love it too. We contributed to the very brown decor by kicking off with a coffee each - iced for me, and a habitual flat white for Michael. I'm no connoisseur but mine was pretty good; Michael deemed his 'exceptional'. I took a chance on the pancakes ($8), served in a stack of three with banana, strawberries, homemade honeyed cream cheese and maple syrup. Our waiter even left a bottle of real maple syrup on the table in case I wanted a top up. I didn't, this was perfectly sweet as it was. It looked gorgeous, it had a reasonable serve of fruit, and the cream cheese was lovely (even though I'm not usually a fan of honey). At $12 it would be...

Update 31/12/2014: Cafe Plum is closed. Cindy continues to devour the combined output of Melbourne's 8 million food bloggers, so when the weekend rolls around and I'm looking for somewhere new to go for breakfast, she's always ready with a recommendation. This week it was Cafe Plum, thanks to the rave review from Agnes at Off the Spork . I was a little worried as we approached - there were no other cafes nearby and from the outside Cafe Plum didn't look too exciting. But I was wrong to doubt - the inside was stylish and welcoming and the menu was full of delicious sounding breakfasts. After much agonising (the mushroom bruschetta and Castro's Cuban eggs both tempted me), I settled on the masala potatoes, with poached free-range eggs, spinach, herb mushrooms and tomato chutney ($13.50). As if that doesn't sound good enough, the chef apologetically informed me that they were all out of spinach and offered up asparagus instead. Winner! We'll get the negati...

Update 31/12/2014: Burger Republic has been taken over by Urban Burger - we've visited their Richmond branch but haven't been back to Errol Street to check out this outlet. After missing out on a taste of Burger Republic the other week , there was an undercurrent of chip cravings in our home for quite a few days. This manifested itself in a couple of meals with olive oil baked potatoes as a featured side dish (my subconscious at work), which were received with murmurs of "Mmmm....chips" from Emma. The situation was finally resolved on Saturday night. Emma and Simon had spent the day moving their belongings into their new home, and it was clear that beer and a burger would be a hearty and most deserved dinner for the pair. Burger Republic has an online menu , making the call-and-collect approach most convenient! Above is Michael's lentil burger ($8.50), with avocado, coriander, salad, relish and aioli. On the right is my red republic ($8.50), which contains a...

Our friends and erstwhile house-guests Emma and Simon spent Wednesday morning signing a lease on a flat in North Melbourne. Part of the pre-lease discussion had centred on the Cheap Eats Guide and particularly Burger Republic . What better way to celebrate their new place than fat burgers and delicious chips? Unfortunately Burger Republic had other plans. We arrived at about 9:15pm to find chairs stacked on tables and staff in clean-up mode. Following a brief tour of Errol Street, a glowing "Pizza" sign and a reasonably crowded set of outdoor tables lead us to an alternative: Oskar. It turns out Oskar is also featured in the Cheap Eats Guide, which describes it as a "slick pizzeria". I'm not sure I'd agree with slick - it all seemed pretty low key: outdoor tables with paper tablecloths, a tinny jazz track seemingly on repeat and a charmingly amateurish waiter. But it was certainly a pizzeria, and one with a large and diverse menu: pizzas featuring kan...