No more.

There is some cafe royalty at Merchants Guild, bringing Little Ox and Inkr7 blood into suburbia. Proper suburbia, not Brighton suburbia. And maybe that meant my expectations were high, but I am nothing if not lazy and also very demanding of others. So I bundled my brother and my niece in a giant plastic bag and forced them to come along with me.

Schmick fit out

Whilst the interior of Merchants Guild is very nice (albeit maybe a slightly cheaper version of some of the inner-city equivalents) you will absolutely miss it from the street. I was actively looking for it, and I’m a Bentleigh East local, and I still drove past three times without seeing it. In the end I just parked my car in the middle of the road, climbed out and started screaming, “WHERE ARE YOU MERCHANTS GUILD? WHERE??” at which point I was arrested. Luckily, this is all imaginary.

The menu at Merchants Guild is extraordinary, especially when compared to the other menus in Bentleigh and surrounds, which are actually just bits of scrap paper with rudimentary drawings of food on them.

Besides the excellent poshness that is sardines, smoked trout, meat and potato hash and incredible pancakes that should really be reserved for a Last Meal kind of arrangement, Merchants Guild has three appealing elements to its menu: delicious food specials, delicious juice specials and rotating hollandaise. There are few things I enjoy more than poached eggs, meat and liquid fat, but one of those things is knowing I can get a different flavour of liquid fat every time.

On this occasion the hollandaise was herbed hollandaise, though I have been back several times now and had paprika hollandaise, basil pesto hollandaise and some kind of lime arrangement. My brother complained that the basil pesto was “too pestoish” so I punched him and told him he was adopted. All have been excellent.

My only gripe with the food thus far has been the fact that the ham and bread are toasted together. Which is to say, the ham is placed on the bread and the two things then rest under the grill until they are cooked. The upshot is bread that’s soggy underneath. I’ve managed to push through the pain only because the ham itself is so good.

On the whole, this is such an exciting breakthrough for Bentleigh eating that I don’t care if I have to sit on the floor. Thank you, Merchants Guild, for bringing home what has eluded us for so long.

Eggs benedict with rotating hollandaise (this one is ‘herb’) $16.00

Notes:

• The seating here is frustratingly limited. It offers a number of “booths”, but squeezing more than two adults into them is a struggle.
• There is a large communal table at the back, but the stools are hard to sit on comfortably.
• The outside seating looks great, but it’s been too cold to sit there so far.
• Merchants Guild is proving popular amongst the school run crowd, which means that there are often prams in corridors, further restricting seating.
• Probably not suitable for large groups. We went with six people and had to take up almost the entire front section.
• It is very, very, very loud.

Porridge, poached fruit and crumble $11.50

Side note: it’s funny how when you go to suburbs where people drive badly (Armadale, Toorak, Brighton), some part of you becomes one of them. In the interests of full disclosure, I drive a motherly SUV, and this morning I mounted the curb more times than a tomcat before throwing my hands in the air and leaving it half parked in the street. What is that about?

The cafe itself is gorgeous, breezy and open. I took a seat in a private little corner so I could write things about the staff without them spotting me.

Presentation

I audibly gasped when I saw this food.

Toast

Because I had Eggs Benedict (again), I had just your standard English muffin. Fortunately, this time they weren’t stale or burnt.

Bubble and squeak croquette (house made)

My first thought when I read through the menu was “Hmph, I really felt like a hash brown this morning,” but I thought it reasonable to substitute with the croquette. They’re both made of potato, yes?

Not this one. This croquette was made of actual julienned angels (and onion). When I started judging breakfasts, I wondered how much difference there could really be in flavour from place to place, and this croquette took me to school. The highlight of my food in 2012 thus far.

Avocado

A fan of soft, green avocado with a splitterysplash of olive oil.

Grilled ham

It was grilled to perfection – no longer just the flesh of a dead animal, but not yet a stick of carbon. Dear little piles of it. Delicious.

Eggs

Frankly, the eggs were just a smidgen undercooked, but everything else was so wonderful that I hardly noticed. Organic free range and full of flavour. I honestly, truly, hand on heart cried a little bit when I was eating them. Sure, it’s been an emotional morning and I’ve been crying on and off since 4am, but these were happy tears.

Price

At $21 for eggs and $7 for fresh juice it was on the steep side, but worth every cent and probably even several more cents.

Note

The stuff you see at the rear is a herbed hollandaise that should be bottled and then given to me every day for the rest of my life. Amazing.

It may come as a surprise to you to learn that I love poached eggs. I have mentioned once or twice also my great fondness for avocado. In a past life, I believed the only way to eat these two things together was to go to a high class restaurant and pass a note under the table outlining one’s desire to participate in the closely guarded secret that is hard white, runny yolk.

Then one day I was crying because I was too poor to go to breakfast, and my brother said to me, “I can teach you to poach an egg!” so I punched him in the face for being a stinking liar. But after he stopped bleeding, he pulled out his saucepan and an egg and I decided to hear him out.

This recipe is my favourite breakfast of all, and one that I often have when I’m out judging other people’s breakfasts. There is no need to judge mine, it was a perfect ten (until my cat ate the ham from my plate and my dog tried to eat the cat).

Smashed avocado and fetta with a balsamic dressing, poached eggs and ham

You will need these things:

• A really, really good bread. I can’t stress this enough. No white square loaves. So much of this dish hinges on the bread. I chose a ciabatta from my favourite boulangerie, Mattisse.
• 2 eggs. Again, choose good ones. Don’t buy cage eggs, they’re bad for chickens but they also taste like a beaver pissed in your eye.
• Half a slightly underripe avocado
• About 50g of Danish fetta
• A handful of shaved or sliced ham off the bone (substitute for bacon if you’re a normal person)
• Good quality olive oil
• Even better quality balsamic vinegar
• Poor to moderate quality white vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Then you do this:

Before you’re really awesome at this, like I am, you should use a very small saucepan. When you are confident in your poaching abilities, you can move on to a regular sized saucepan, but never before.

Secret Tip #1: White vinegar holds poached eggs together

Add about one part white vinegar to 15 parts hot water, and pop over medium heat.

While you’re waiting for your water to heat up, you can make your smashed avocado. Despite the name, you won’t actually throw it on the floor or against a wall, but cut it with a knife. It’s easier if you scoop out the flesh before you cut, Hannibal Lecter. Dice it into pieces about 2cm x 2cm, then put it in a bowl.

Crumble the fetta over the top of the avocado. Add about one teaspoon of olive oil and half a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar. Mix it all together with a spoon, try not to eat all of it right now and set aside any remnants.

Making the eggs

YOU GUYS THIS IS SO EXCITING. OKAY. OKAY. When the water is hot but not boiling, get a big spoon and make a cyclone in the saucepan. Spin it around and around and if it splashes on you and burns you, all the better. Spin spin spin spin. Put some psychosis into it, man!

Secret Tip #2: Spinning makes hardly any difference, but it is super fun

When everything is spinning, use the other hand to expertly crack the egg without dropping the spoon. Plop it in the middle of your vinegar water whirlpool of doom. The vinegar will make the sides of your egg curl toward the middle, and then you can just leave it for a few minutes. Not too hot. If it’s too hot, crazy shit will happen and your mother will probably come over.

While it cooks, make some toast, wash your rocket and get your ham out of the packet. Don’t leave the ham on the bench, your animals will eat it and you’ll have to go back to the supermarket.

You’ll have to use your brain a bit to figure out when it’s ready. The white should be firm but if you poke the yolk, you should burn your finger and it should squish a little bit. It should also be that dark orange colour. If it turns yellow, it’s overcooked and you should chuck it in the bin and never speak to me again.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the eggs from the saucepan, then dry the eggs on some paper towel before you put them on the plate.

Pop some of your amazing avocado concoction on top of the toast before you add your eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste, a little oil and balsamic mixed together as a dressing and a few pretty chive stalks for texture.

Cut open your egg and spend a few moments being amazed by the incredible feat you have just achieved.

When you are finished, pretend you are in a restaurant and let someone else clean up.

I had seen The Corner Store at a distance but dismissed it as the kind of suburban shiny-floored-and-glass-cabineted place that would poach its eggs in the microwave, if indeed it offered hot food at all. Because I am lazy I didn’t attempt to find out any more about it via Google, but on about my ninth drive-by I realised just how many people cram themselves inside and threw caution to the wind because Breakfast Renegade.

Let it be known that I am very glad I did. The Corner Store is the gender non-specific sibling of Main Street and Parkers Cafe. The relationship with Main Street is obvious: the menu is almost identical and so is the quality of the food. Its connection to Parkers Cafe is less obvious, but if my maths is right (and it usually is) that makes three breakfasteries from the same folk in the same 2km stretch of Nepean Highway.

In recent weeks I’ve been to Main Street Cafe and ordered their Smashi Tashi. At Main Street, this is an avocado and feta mash with poached eggs and toast, whereas at The Corner Store it’s more of a pureed avocado with goats curd, rocket, poached eggs and blistered cherry tomatoes ($16). You know what? I’m happy with either. If you put an avocado in a blender and then put it on my plate, we are going to be mates, no two ways about it. So that’s what I ordered, but minus the tomatoes because frankly my dad fed me too many when I was a child and if I don’t direct my anger towards the tomatoes then my dad will suffer.

The waiter was such a complete and utter darling that I would have ordered whatever he suggested, but instead of taking advantage of that fact he just let me order what I wanted, so kudos to you, nice waiter. I sat on a long wooden bench and worked in relative peace and quiet, and the sea breeze came up along Balcombe Road and leapt into The Corner Store and the only thing missing was Emma Stone fanning me with leaves made of chocolate.

My food arrived quickly, but not abruptly, and for the most part it was sound of form and rich in flavour. The goats curd was inspired–I think I now prefer it to feta–and the eggs were perfectly cooked. The toast did drop the ball a little: the edges were so burnt that they crumbled into dust when I cut them, but the bread itself was salty and chewy, as good bread should be. A fine effort, for the most part.

I had one pineapple juice that tasted like crushed pineapples, and another that tasted like vodka, so that was a bit weird. I still struggle with bottled juice poured into a glass being $4.50, but unfortunately that’s pretty consistent across the board in this part of town.

Unlike its relatives, The Corner Store is not a cosy nook in which you can play footsies. It is expansive, clean (save for the drink spilled under my table that my thongs kept getting stuck to) and light, with a wee nautical feel. There is extensive outdoor dining and three kinds of indoor dining, so you may find yourself crippled by choice. This was the second time I’d been, and when I sat at the same table as last time the same group of people sat next to me. One of them pointed and said, “Having the eggs again, dear?” so I slapped her and said of course I was, the eggs are amazing.

Hobart is a great little place, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not great if you want to go shopping on a Sunday or during the height of tourist season in January (because everything is seemingly closed), but its pretty much awesome on every other level.

Zum was chosen in an attempt to impress me because some of the building has been carved into a quarry that sat here tonnes of years ago. The outdoor area is particularly beautiful because not only is it enclosed in high sandstone like walls from the quarry, but it’s also decked out with lush greenery and lovely little dark wooden tables. Impressed? Check.

The interior of Zum is spacious and warm. Heavy, dark wood sweeps through while gorgeous, oversized light fittings hang low over the heads of people who probably want to get hit in the noggin by a big piece of wood. Each to their own, I say.

Taking our seats, we were quickly offered menus which was home to all the breakky favourites: bacon and eggs, eggs benedict, bircher muesli etc. There was a fabulously decadent-sounding option called the Breakfast Trifle, made up of seasonal fruit, yoghurt, toasted and bircher muesli and berry coulis as well as a delightfully musical option of Italian Beans. I couldn’t risk it, so opted for something that will please my vegetarian friends and family members – the Trio of Mushrooms with herb butter on sourdough and lemon pepper avocado.

Not stating the actual types of mushrooms used, I felt like I was really on holidays. Livin’ crazy-like. Ordering a dish that I didn’t know the exact ingredients of? Madness!

While waiting, watched on as the café filled very quickly, and because my brother and I were two people holding a table for six, we had to partake in a lot of ‘these are taken! These are taken!’ squeals ala Elaine from Seinfeld.

Coffee arrived first, and to my utmost delight it was hot. Hot coffee? Who woulda thought! Listen and learn, cafes of Melbourne – it IS possible to deliver a coffee of a warmer temperature than Paris Hilton. And feel free to deliver it to me any time.

Meals came out soon after, and I was utterly delighted at the thickness of the sourdough. Pondering what other uses it had (foundation to a single fronted brick duplex, one shoe in a Lady Gaga-style outfit, spare bed for when people visit), I dug into the mound of brown happiness. Some of the mushrooms were perfect. Just the right amount of grilling and sautéing, and they danced around ‘crunchy’ and ‘chewy’ like a sugarplum fairy.  Unfortunately not all mushrooms were born equal, and about half of them were slightly overcooked and dry. Nothing that a little pan juice could fix though.

The avocado was a vibrant green that pepped up with otherwise brown dish. Oddly, however, the ‘lemon pepper avocado’ was more pepper avocado, with a wedge of lemon on the side…I assume for self lemoning. I didn’t realise this until I had almost finished the plate. Go me.

It was a pricy dish, but there was no doubt that the quality of ingredients was what I was paying for, and I’m ok with that. It could have been knocked way out of the park should the chef have decided to spray the mushrooms with a touch of extra oil and the avocado was slightly more seasoned (and lemoned, of course).

Otherwise it was a beautiful dish with a wonderful combo of still unidentified mushrooms. I am sure one was button, and judging by my complete dissatisfaction at the jokes my family members were delivering one option was definitely not magic, so really, it’s up to the diner to decide what’s what.

Note: because this was an interstate review, it’s expected that I eat off everyone else’s plates to ensure the review of the café is fair (like I need that as an excuse). So here is my snapshot of other items at Zum:

Eggs Benedict: Offering a poached egg that could make you cry, Zum delivers a Benedict with thick sliced ham on sourdough. Not an overly impressive take of this well-known dish, but the sauce was solid and the ham was tasty.

Bircher Muesli: I’m not really sure what to say about this except for; if I were ever going to cheat on my partner with an inanimate object, this muesli would be my lover. A combination of poached, fresh and dried fruits and what I can only describe as dissected food fairies, this is by far the best bircher muesli I have ever tasted. The thinly sliced green apple cuts through the creaminess of the muesli, and the dried fruits pack a sweet punch that is often underrepresented in a meal like this. Also, slithered almonds in muesli remains one of the simple pleasures in life. I love you, bircher muesli! Marry me!

I once tried to master the art of riding a penny farthing. The result was a bruised ego and the realisation I won’t be getting a job in a circus during the 1870s any time soon. Hoping Penny Farthing Espresso held a happier ending for me was the catalyst of the visit. I entered the creaky doorway with bright eyes and high hopes, only for it to be bashed out of me almost immediately when seated next to the barista who was giving the coffee machine a right talking to. Perhaps it disobeyed and produced small kittens instead of coffee. I don’t know.

After ordering a coffee and pleading for another table, we were reseated in the cosy back room of the café, with walls decorated with – whaddya know – a penny farthing and penny farthing-related images. Settling in, we browsed the menu and waited.

And waited.

After 25 minutes and a frantic wave-down of a staff member, it was agreed that the coffee order we placed came with a threat to kill small furry animals loved by many, and was as such ignored. Order was placed again, and promptly arrived.

By this time, I was feeling mighty fierce and opted for something I knew would test the tastebuds – Fig, caramalised onion and bacon chutney served on sourdough toast with two poached free range eggs dressed in rocket and lemon. It was a risk, but I’m livin’ on the edge these days, so it was the obvious choice.

For some reason I thought this would be a power play of tastes. Fig? Yes please! Caramalised onion? Who doesn’t like that? Bacon? Hand it over. No life is complete without bacon. Plus the poached eggs, sourdough…argh! The list of amazingness goes on! And then it arrived.

I admit, I didn’t know what to expect. The plate was decidedly brown with only a punch of colour from the beautiful rocket. The chutney was brown, the toast was brown the eggs were hidden. Overall, it seemed a bit…well, brown. But never fear! Some of the ugliest foods are the best in the world (looking at you, bratwurst), so we push on!

Sadly, not in this case. The chutney was so sweet any flavour mixed with it was drowned out. One eggs was slightly undercooked, one was slightly overcooked. The toast was too hard to cut without an aggressive assault and although the rocket was beautifully coloured, it was also overdressed

The sugar content in this dish may have come from the figs, but it was so overwhelming that, in the end, all I could muster was a half-hearted pick at some of the bacon bits and a slow chew of the eggs with rocket (which I dried up with my napkin). I was sad, particularly because I wanted to like it. Thinking it was my poor meal choice I proceeded to eat my friend’s option. It wasn’t as inspiring as I had hoped. Luckily the penny farthings made me happy.

Oh well. Next time’s a charm.

Prospect Espresso – so named because of its location on Prospect Hill Road, and not because it is a place for people to find husbands, which came as a surprise and disappointment to me – is a slick, shiny spot to rest your tired legs (refer “Hill”).

Parking in Camberwell is a nightmare at the best of times, but just assume that there is no on-street parking outside Prospect Espresso. Don’t let it be a deterrent though – there is a huge car park around the back and you might even score a hit from some hoodrats hanging outside Target. Am I saying that right? Target?

The best reason to go to Prospect Hill Espresso is to meet friends you really like, which is what I did. However if you insist on being a braggart and going in very large groups of friends, this is probably not the place for you. It’s not poky, it’s just cosy. Although I have no proof, I can imagine this would be a very nice place to go on a rainy day or a snowy day, but probably less so on a humid day or the apocalypse.

I ordered this darling dish, which was the house cured salmon, poached eggs, avocado and hollandaise (and salmon roe and some watercress). Predicting my total ineptitude in life, they cut the toast into small squares that I could more or less swallow without chewing. Oddly, my dish came on a very nice serving board (though we’ve talked before about poached eggs being served on wood, and the fact that wood is porous and now my wood is egg flavoured which isn’t so bad I guess) but my friends’ dishes came on white ceramic plates. I’m not sure whether the board is specific to the dish I ordered, or whether the staff just didn’t like my friends very much. I have a feeling it’s the former.

At any rate, after I had finished moaning about whatever crap I was jabbering on about that day, I ate my meal. The eggs were poached beautifully and the avocado was a perfect end-of-season Hass that isn’t brown yet but is no longer hard like a pear. The salmon was truly beautiful, like a big pink sheet that no one has soiled yet, and the watercress gave it a delightful crunch but didn’t break my teeth, so that was good as well. On the whole I did feel there was quite a lot of salmon and maybe not quite enough of the other bits, but I am a tart for salmon so I just shoved it in my gob anyway because let’s face it, wasting cured salmon is an insult to all of our mothers.

Prospect Hill Espresso is a dear place with enthusiastic staff and tables with chairs at them. I will almost certainly be back, but maybe once the weather cools down a little.

Fandango is teeny tiny. I suggest you not have a massive dinner the night before to ensure you can fit into one of the Barbie-sized tables on offer. Laden with adorable tea cosies, mini potted plants and plenty of jarred ‘Boozy Cumquats’, everything screams, ‘I AM SO ADORABLE!’. And that in itself makes it worth the ‘few doors down’ walk.

People generally keep to themselves here, with many sole diners scattered around. This means you can eat breakfast without being bailed up by an over-zealous couple who are keen to make friends (ala Monica and Chandler). It also means, however, that if you are one half of this couple (*cough*me*cough*) you’ll feel a bit lonely. But don’t worry! The wait staff want to be your best friend, so you can just pretend you’re there with a friend, but they call called away to help in the kitchen.

To be honest, the menu is fairly limited, but the beauty of it is that there are some amazing condiments you can add to any option to jazz it up. I recommend the Weird Sauce, for no other reason than its name. You’ll see the typical French toast, pancakes, and bacon and eggs on the menu, but also some fun stuff like beetroot eggs and curried eggs. The rationale used in the Fandango menu is also difficult to overlook, with the vanilla pancakes stating, ‘Adding bacon to pancakes is always a good thing’. Correct.

Faced with this common sense approach to breakfast dining, ordering the beetroot eggs took some serious inner strength. I did it though, because I will find any opportunity to eat feta. Any reason. I didn’t know what to expect, so when a Mardi Gras-like rainbow hit the table I high fived my partner, sung to the Kylie Minogue Gods and wished I was armed with these eggs when last at Sydney’s famous pride parade.

What lay before me was probably the happiest place on earth. Essentially, it was Disneyland on a plate, and it wasn’t just visual happiness, but an exquisite burst of joy for all the senses. The vibrant spinach softened the beetroot fragrance slightly, while the eggs oozed calmly across the sourdough toast. The beetroot and feta relish was so decadent that it could be carved up and distributed equally across each mouthful, which is ideal for OCD sufferers. Yeah ok, the dish didn’t make any noise, but I certainly did. Mostly whenever my partner tried to try some of my meal and I screamed like a banshee to keep him away.

The serving was enormous. ENORMOUS. You may think $19 is a lot for a breakfast meal, but Fandango is still listed in the Cheap Eats guide, and I suspect it’s not just because their dishes scrape in under the $20 mark. Instead it’s because of the generous piles on each plate. I tried, and failed, to finish my serving, leaving me with nothing else to do but blubber about being a total failure in life.

The final word – people of North Melbourne: why you no tell us about this place? What did we ever do to you to insist on hiding Fandango from us? Is it because I am yet to distribute Christmas chocolates to you all? I promise I will.

Cuteness of outdoor dining at Fandango

The Windsor part of Chapel Street seems to fluctuate in popularity with the brunch crowd. Sometimes they swarm around it like flies to a spit, but as the weather heats up they seem to migrate beachward and end up in places like Dr Jekyll (which, incidentally, I haven’t been able to go to yet because parking on Grey Street just kill me). At 8am on a weekday, it is very easy to find a park and even easier to find a table, so avoid the weekend crowd and just call in late to work or whatever.

Dukes is a clean, sleek place that manages to retain a little pizazz anyway, and in my mind that is pretty much the perfect cafe. You don’t feel like you’re going to end up with ironic dirt and pencil shavings in your breakfast, but you also don’t feel like you accidentally went to the Hilton and now your personality will be physically removed from your head. That’s a thing I feel sometimes. It’s one thing to have pretty painted chairs, but anything more boho than that and I start to feel like you might spike my food just so you can laugh with your stoner mates. To reiterate, Dukes is nothing like that. It is a sensible older brother with hot friends. It is shopping at Aldi and pretending you’re in Europe. The best of both worlds.

I humoured the wait staff and pretended to deliberate over the menu, knowing full well there was only one dish for me: avocado hummus toast with poached eggs, honey candied bacon and dukkah.

Most of the time I order my food and know that I have between ten and fifteen minutes to get a little work done before I have to man up and eat my meal. This morning I didn’t have the chance – they brought it out in five minutes flat. “Sorry,” I said, “I just have to write this email and then I will eat it, I promise,” and they poured new water into my glass and I applauded them because everything was perfect.

The meal itself was like a breakfast rainbow – visually rich. Whoever made this had obviously been to some kind of finishing school for breakfast makers, what with all the boxes ticked so assuredly: colour, height, freshness. And then the various textures: the smooth avocado puree, the eggs round like moons, the shimmering bacon, the sandy dukkah and the cascading forest waterfall and maybe actual fairies made for an extraordinarily appealing and comprehensive dish. I popped the eggs like a tube of Pringles and the plate became a pool of hearty flavoursomeness. The quality of the ingredients was excellent, with dark yolks and chewy bread and fresh greenery.

Wait staff were attentive but not stalkers, though unfortunately I hadn’t completely avoided People Who Annoy Me, and moved myself twice: the first bench partner wouldn’t stop jiggling, so to avoid sea sickness I sat on a different bench, where my ears were treated to a stream of loud profanities courtesy of a smarmy ginger with a business degree and a mobile phone. When he finally stopped to take a breath, his breakfast partner clung to me like a juvenile orangutan and asked me about breakfast blogging. Ref: above conversation.

On the whole, Dukes offers a predictably excellent meal in a space that feels welcoming without being too cosy. Long may it continue.

There are few tables to choose from, but the expected share table is there and houses months of out-of-date Frankie magazines, speaking volumes of the people who work and frequent here. Please don’t read one if you’re a 24 year old boy in board shorts. It won’t do you any favours with the ladies.

I tucked myself into a corner of the share table and pretended to read the Fin Review (like everyone else does). Wonderfully, the folk here serve everyone pretty darn quickly and with a genuine smile, but don’t expect super hot coffee (it sits on the cooler side of hot). Because I have pretty much given up trying to find a hot coffee in Melbourne I no longer feel the need to rant about it. I have lost this battle. You win, cafes of Melbourne. Serve your cold coffee – see if I care!

I do love a cafe that takes breakfast seriously enough to offer a ‘specials’ menu. Squeeee! Specials! However, I never order off them for fear that I’ll review a dish that is so good it literally blows my head off my shoulders but then judgers go there and it’s not on the menu anymore (and I don’t have a head). So, with this in mind I asked the waitress what she recommends. She said the ‘avocado, lime and goats cheese on Turkish bread, topped with a soft poached egg…and bacon on the side of course’. Of course. I expected slices of avocado, some chunks of crumbled cheese and a mass produced boiled egg slapped on the side. Yawn. I mean really, what is there to do with these ingredients? Yes, they’re all great and I occasionally wonder if I could swap one of my cats for the perfect avocado, but really – it’s an avocado. Don’t write home about it.

However, when the meal did arrive I was surprised that the avocado, lime, and goats cheese were all smashed together. It was like what an avocado and a cow would give birth to should they ever be able.  But not in a weird way. A good way.

The mashing of all three items took away the typical overwhelming creaminess of the avocado and replaced it with this fresh, tart, cheesy concoction which livened up the perfectly poached egg. The dish came with a little moat of delightful olive oil and balsamic, which mixed together with everything else to make a mad hatter-style tea party in my mouth. And the bacon. Ohhhh, the bacon. A generous pile of it tittered on the side of the plate and was cooked just the right amount that it remained juicy, but not wobbly. Oh, how I love you bacon. Welcome back to my tummy.

The beauty of Balderdash is that it offers a solid menu, but they have been able to freshen up the traditional fare to make it the perfect dining spot not so near the beach, but close enough for you to think you could walk it comfortably, but then get there and wish you had driven.

This place is a cracker, and I would definitely take my Aunty Mavis there, homies.