East Elevation

351 Lygon St, Brunswick East Vic 3057

Date visited: 22nd November 2014

East Elevation.  The cafe shares the same building and business with chocolate factory Monsieur Truffle - what a most excellent idea.  I've been enticed by amazing photos of their food and drinks of Instagram and have put East Elevation on my must visit list, but the final straw was when I saw this post on Evelovelle's blog.  Grrr.  Need to go now!

The cafe is easily accessibly by tram.  Like many other Melbourne cafes, the only clue that a cafe lies within this dull grey building is a nondescript entrance, in this case it's bright red door.  Enter into a open airy warehouse space, with a big chocolate machine in view.  

Just some photos of the sweet treats and chocolate.

It was packed when we got there, so service was a bit slow.  We got our menus and had our drink orders taken, but there was a little lull before our drinks arrived and the waiter returned to take our food orders.  No matter - we sat at the window seats overlooking Lygon Street and there is nothing better than having a coffee and watching the world go by :)

East Elevation is famous for their chocolate drinks, but I'm addicted to caffeine, so I as much I wanted to try it, I couldn't get past my usual coffee.  So I got my default Cappuccino.  Their coffees are from Padre - Daddy's girl which is a Columbian/Indian blend.  This was what it promised, sweet and chocolatey. 

Cappuccino $4

MerlinFan had the Iced chocolate.  Surprisingly the iced chocolate itself wasn't overly sweet - nice mixed in with the ice cream and chocolate shards.

Iced chocolate $5.50

I had their signature dish, the Croque Monsieur.  This was a disgustingly good version of the classic!  Mouth watering just writing this up.  The thick coating of cheese on the slices of sourdough looked as though they melted and bubbled up to that beautiful golden brown colour.  The corners were the best bits, with their chary, crispy crunch.  Inside was free-range ham, more Swiss gruyere, mustard, béchamel and braised leek.  The salad on the side was nice and refreshing to cut through all that richness.  It got a bit salty halfway through but that was okay, as we did swapsies!

Croque Monsieur $19

As always, MerlinFan the sweet tooth got the sweet dessert, the Ricotta and rose stuffed crepes.

Ricotta and rose stuffed crepes $17.50

The crepes were nice and thin, with ricotta enveloped inside.  There was only a mere hint of rose - would have liked that to be a bit stronger.  Surprisingly this wasn't as sweet as it looked, with a generous heap of fresh blueberries, strawberries, saffron-lemon syrup and crunchy hazelnut praline.

We both enjoyed our lunch here at East Elevation - mental note to myself that I need to come back and try the hot chocolate!




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