25-31 Rokeby Street, Collingwood Vic 3066
Date visited: 24th May 2014
Lemon Middle and Orange is another cafe I found out about on Instagram and have been dying to visit for some time. MerlinFan and I took the tram down there yesterday morning for brunch.
Down the quiet, rather industrial looking Rokeby St, we saw this little girl carrying her kitten and Lemon Middle and Orange was just opposite it.
There was a little bit of a wait, but that was okay. A table cleared out outside near the main entrance. The weather was rather mild bordering on warm, so we were more than happy to sit outside.
MerlinFan and I had our Latte and Cappuccino respectively. I tried mine in their Single Origin (as above). It was strong and smooth with a fruity flavour and slightly acidic after note. We really enjoyed them.
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| Latte, Cappucino |
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| Black sticky rice pudding |
MerlinFan felt the black sticky rice was still rather grainy and didn't quite have that chewiness or stick-together quality that we look for in this type of rice. Flavour was spot on though.
Now, I was torn between the Full Breakfast because I had a craving for eggs, but MerlinFan kept tempting me with the Beef cheek from the lunch menu. Our super speedy waitress appeared in no time to take our order so I made a quick decision and ordered the Beef cheeks with potato mash.
I had to admit I didn't notice when the waitress set it down as I was too busy taking photos of MerlinFan's black sticky rice, but then we realised that this looked very different to the description. Wasn't the beef cheeks supposed to come with mash? I didn't remember it having an egg either. I wanted to double check, but the food was getting cold as I tried to look around for someone (we were sitting outside). Oh well, this looked beautiful and hey, it had the egg I was craving <shifty eyed look before shovelling food into mouth>. Only kidding - we actually concluded that perhaps this was the right dish and they made a change that was not noted on the menu, I mean they still had beef, potatoes and slaw.
I had a look at the menu online tonight and I believe this was actually the Corned beef hash, mustard piccalilli puree, kohlrabi sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, bagel wafer and fried egg. The waitress probably misheard me, but it was a good mistake, for this dish was fantastic. Chunks of salty, flavoursome, tender corned beef (MerlinFan said it was reminiscent of spam - we love spam BTW), were nicely accompanied by potato cubes, Swiss cheese (yuuum!), tangy sauerkraut and the mustard puree. Loved the bagel wafer that added on that crispy element. Eggs are always good too, although I prefer poached eggs over fried ones for more of that gooey, runny yolk. MerlinFan liked my dish too - I dare say she had food envy :P
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| Corned beef hash, fried egg, bagel wafer |
<a href="http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/1785726/restaurant/Melbourne/Lemon-Middle-and-Orange-Collingwood"><img alt="Lemon, Middle and Orange on Urbanspoon" src="http://www.urbanspoon.com/b/link/1785726/biglink.gif" style="border:none;width:200px;height:146px" /></a>
The black sticky rice dish looks interesting - different to what I usually have. I'm more likely to get savoury food when I go out for brunch though, and the hash and egg looks great!
ReplyDeleteI'm more of a savoury brekkie person myself - that's why I rely on my sweettooth sister to order the more drool-worthy sweet brekkies for me to steal bites from ;)
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