chez dre

When I first started working in South Melbourne I resented the extra 15-30 minutes (trams, always so late! So cancelled! So angst! Sweaty!) I had to take to get from the train station to work. Unlike 1405 who breezed into his CBD office almost always half an hour early. Then, I discovered cafes like Chez Dre that surround the area.

Chez Dre is located off a small cobblestone street, a real patisserie boulangerie. The cakes at Chez Dre are famous. People actually come from far and wide to have a coffee and choose a treat from the big glass case at the register. This is why:

I live - I mean work - literally less than 100 steps away so on a few sunny days my colleagues organise group lunches.

Winter lamb and barley salad.

I think the draw card of the place is still the cakes. The rest of the menu is so-so, which is sad because the interiors and atmosphere is great, but many people I've spoken with who eat brunch here are disappointed by their high expectations. The cakes will never disappoint, I've eaten my way through all of them. All carefully made, subtle flavours, very fine.

Living - work! I mean working! - in South Melbourne has its perks. In the form of these places that I probably take for granted. Also, suddenly the trams weren't so annoying when I started leaving home earlier.

Chez Dre
Rear of 285-287 Coventry Street
South Melbourne
9690 2688

wonderbao

I am late to the Wonderbao craze, a tiny little Asian bakery within walking distance from Melbourne Central, specializing in a cross between Taiwanese gua bao and northern Chinese bao zi. 

So on one lunchtime when I am in the CBD 1405 takes me to the place which is hipper than any bao zi bakery I have ever been to in China, complete with yellow wall tiles and naked lightbulbs. 

The bread is sweet and fluffy, with traditional fillings like roast duck and pork belly, with interesting trimmings like pickled carrot and crushed peanut. Wonderfully filling and a light taste of China in my lunch break.

Wonderbao
19-38 A'Beckett Street
Melbourne
9654 7887

admiral cheng ho

Eating vegetarian while you are in your 20's and do not have any religious or actual medically diagnosed health problems is choosing to be cool. I joke (half joke) with my friends that I am 70% vegetarian. So technically, I am 70% cool.

Admiral Cheng Ho is the sister cafe of the wildly popular (but such a pain to access if you don't live in the area) Monk Bodhi Dharma.

We got here on a windy September morning and were surprised at how cozy this place was.

It was bright, airy and unpretentious. I tend not to drink coffee because it makes me super high and ostensibly hit people in the face in my excitedness. But I have second hand information that it is very, very good here. The gravity with which ACH takes coffee is evident in the fact that half the menu is about bean varieties.

Despite the waitstaff all looking like they belonged in a special magazine for beautiful hipsters (one exists, yes?) the service was not great. Maybe I am spoiled by the super peppy wait staff at other Melbourne cafes - I felt that here the staff didn't know the menu very well nor were very enthusiastic. Maybe just hung over from partying with other beautiful people?

Northside quinoa pancakes

Umami mushrooms

Food was great. Pancakes according to 1405 tasted "healthy" - I think quinoa is still an acquired taste. I liked it. It was very dense and satisfying.

Mushrooms were a highlight. I loved that everything was vegan so even the cheese was made from cashews. Super vego-luxe.

As we left the cafe we saw what looked like a motorcycle rally - men, women, children, riding bikes. Wearing leather on what was now becoming an unseasonably hot day. God, north side, you're cool.

Admiral Cheng Ho
325 Johnston Street
Abbotsford 3067
9534 7250

kinfolk

I love eating breakfast with friends before work, there is a kind of zen-quality to the early commute, an honesty to your conversations because maybe your work-self masks aren't fully on yet, and a feeling of virtuousness at having gotten out of the house so freaking early. Also I am never late to work when I have a prior-work engagement, bonus!

Kinfolk is a cafe in the Spencer Street end of the CBD which runs 100% on volunteers, and 100% of the profits are donated to a charity. This is so double bonus. Also, the coffee is solid, and the food is absolutely beautiful.

Quinoa porridge with poached pear, dehydrated fruit crisps and blueberries.

purple peanuts

It's a well known fact that Purple Peanuts is one of the most reliable lunch places in the CBD. Fast, tasty, efficient, and the food is always of a good quality for lunch fare. This is not fine Japanese food like sushi (although that is available), the crowds come here for the salads and the hot foods.

The cafe is decorated with cutesy lights, blue knitted octopus (I am not making this up), a poster for a Bruce Lee film from the 60's and outfitted in simple wooden tables and stools. There is a small seating area jostling for space in the open kitchen. The menu is written in coloured marker on to pieces of brown lunchbag paper and blu-tacked to the walls.

And there is always, always a line for lunch. There is a reason for this - lots of cheap lunch options, with no skimping on the right ingredients.

Brown rice salad with vegetables.

Kakuni pork.

Tsuke don.

It is a big ask to consistently roll out good food in one of the busiest areas of the city while still retaining some kind of eccentric identity and authenticity. Purple Peanuts has this, and continues to make food that gives comfort to hundreds of people a day.

Purple Peanuts Japanese Cafe

620 Collins Street

Melbourne

0403 235 410

kokoro ramen

Remember the first time you went to Japan and realised you were in love with ramen? How could a bowl of egg noodles in hot broth make you so happy? The collective "irasshaimase" when you walk in from the crisp cold wonder of the neon world outside. The wooden tables and chairs with whimsical fabric seats. The delicious smells wafting out of giant cauldrons of bubbling soup. The fact that you were overseas with your boyfriend. I distinctly remember a fight in a Tokyo laundromat over whether we should split the load of washing into two (me) or whether we should just stuff it all into one machine and buy a bowl of ramen (1405).

Kokoro Ramen is yet another ramen place in Melbourne. It is on Lonsdale Street, a block from Melbourne Central train station. The place is warm and almost always full. Cheap and cheerful, it is also authentic in a way that some franchised chains could never be.

Sapporo miso ramen with corn, bean shoots, pork, egg, bamboo, seaweed and a block of butter.

 Despite the fact that there are no greens on the menu (I am a stickler for greens with every meal), you can get black fungus mushrooms in your ramen.

Tokyo shoyu ramen with egg, bamboo shoots, spring onion, seaweed and soft shell crab.

Hakata Tonkotsu ramen with spring onion, red ginger, black fungi, ajitama egg, roasted sesame seeds sweet-marinated pork belly.

This was the vegetarian option... with extra pork.

There is usually a line for tables on these winter nights but wait time for a table on a weeknight is like 10 minutes - everyone is in and out. Hugely filling, rich creamy pork bone broth. Perfect after work quick dinner.

Kokoro Ramen
157 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
9650 1215

stove monkey

You know those friends that you never see - sometimes due to the fact that they live in another continent, sometimes because you are a lazy ass (who doesn't deserve friends) - but when you do, it's like no time has passed? 

My friend C is like that. She was in London but she's back and we're right back where we left our last conversation. We go back to a time when girls hung clickety things from pink flip phones and she has stuck with me through all the fucking psycho phases of adolescence.

Stove Monkey feels like Aix in Centre Place, a hole-in-the-wall cafe C and I used to go to a lot during uni-times. SM has those comfortable seats, mismatched crockery, French music, and a feeling that the owners really care about making everyone eat well. SM do sandwiches and other lunchie items but their main thing is soup.

Pea and and ham soup.

Beetroot soup.

Winter happiness is a big bowl of tasty soup, a good friend and a warm window. Also, I heard a rumour that they do crumbed poached eggs...

Stove Monkey

191 Clarendon Street

South Melbourne

9090 7844