Sowing the Seeds & Breaking the Fast

(degusted November and December, 2011)

Seed Café, Mordialloc

Our first restaurant post for 2012, and we’re ashamed to admit it, but we have judged this book by it’s cover for many years. Seed café is nicely located half-way between Nepean Highway and the beach, in the middle of Mordialloc. We’ve posted previously about Main St Café (which is less than 200 metres away from Seed), and have enjoyed the breakfasts and coffees at Main St. Recently though, we’ve found Main St to be quite “busy” and thought it was high time we tried somewhere else in this lovely town for breakfast.

Across the street from the Woolies carpark, Seed Café’s façade is not exactly awe-inspiring. It’s a fairly plain-looking shopfront – clean and neat for sure – but to us it lacks the “wow” factor and almost gets lost in the streetscape. There's no tables & chairs on the footpath, so it is very hard to tell if the place is busy. From the street, Seed always seemed to look empty, and we mistakenly took that as a sign the locals were already voting with their feet and going elsewhere. How wrong we were.

Walking through the front doors, we realised why the front looks so quiet. The back half is where the action is at, opening out into a nice decked alfresco area. It was bright, open, airy, homely, and a little peaceful haven, all in one – and this was something we felt was missing in our visits to other local cafés.

We’ve visited Seed on two recent occasions, so the descriptions below are over two days (we didn’t eat it all at once!).

First up were the portugese eggs (poached eggs, with chorizo, served on a toasted bagel – I had a side of smoked salmon also).  This was remarkably tasty – as you’d expect with the chorizo – but there’s also some red onion, which gives even more flavour.

The other dish sampled was a customised plate-up, with the ‘eggs on toast’ and sides of field mushroom and home-made hash brown. The mushroom was huge, and nice and ‘meaty’. The hash-brown was a nice thick morsel – good enough to make us order more on our next visit (see below).

Potugese Eggs, with side of smoked salmon

 

poached eggs, sides of field mushroom and hashbrown

On the return visit, we were looking for a lighter, sweeter brunch. We found this in the French toast (delicious, and lovingly covered in slivered almonds, and a side of mixed berries) and in the Organic flour pancakes with poached pears and ice-cream. Both were lapped up eagerly. Both were soft and fluffy – and oh-so-moreish. I did mention that we got a couple of the home-made hash browns again on the second visit, and they were equally good – if not better – this time around. The best way we could describe them is to say they are bordering on being a flattened ball of yummy mashed potato that had been fried off to a crisp and tasty finish. A great little savoury to offset the sweet (and miles above similar thin, pre-frozen and greasy offerings at some other places).

French Toash - we loved the slivered almonds

Fresh home-made pancakes.

Some of the yummiest hash-browns we've ever had at brunch.

 

The caffeine-fiend deguster went for a couple of espressos, which were good enough, and consistent both within and between visits. The other deguster opted for soy milk mochas, and these were REALLY good. So good in fact that the espresso drinker had to order one for himself.

Summary:

The food was good, fresh, clean. The service was friendly and relaxed (compare to Main St café which seems to be frantic and buzzing constantly). The atmosphere was nice and relaxing, and the space was good – enough space to fit a stroller, and there’s little risk of knocking elbows with the folk at the adjacent table. We like it.  For a relaxing brunch in Mordialloc, this is currently our pick.

Points of note:

-Eggs are all free range.

-The menu might change with seasonal availability of items, but you can check it here:

-Gluten free options are available

-Vegetarians should be OK here (but we’re unsure about how well a Vegan request would be handled).

-Kid-friendly – there’s a children’s menu, and room to park a pram next to your table.

-There’s a party/function room available

-Serving Breakfast & Lunch

Rating:  Nom(x2) - will be back.

Meh                      It’ll Do                   Nom(x3)                              Must go back!
 

Done and Degusted @ Seed Cafe, Mordialloc

-Portugese Eggs

-Eggs on Toast

-Sides of smoked salmon, field mushrooms, and hash-browns

-French toast

-Pancakes

-Short black / espresso

-Mocha's

New month, New Year, and Finally, a new post

It has been a little while between posts, although let me assure you this is not for lack of eating. With the silly season now behind us (and a belly full of ideas and notes), we will be looking at posting up a few of the last couple of months’ eats - if we can just find the time.

We’ve spent a bit of time re-visiting a couple of our favourite places (taking friends and family to see their reactions), and this has cemented those places in our “favourites list”. We have also tried out some new places as well (including some amazing Indian take-away). Being such a busy time of year for us, the pictures have been snapped, notes taken, but alas, the blog posts remain (as yet) unwritten.

The latest addition to the barrage of electronic media has been lightbox – kind of like instagram, but – dare I say – better. We’ll post random pictures up from time to time and provide a link shortly.

A little bit of home baking by the resident (apprentice) "pastry chef" has been fun, but the home cooking is much better eaten than photographed. That said, some quick, healthy & yummy recipes have been developed, and we reckon they are worthy of sharing. Maybe one day soon we will even release the recipe for the long-standing favourite of many of our friends and colleagues – Steve's lemon slice.

 

For now, happy New Year (Gregorian or Lunar) and welcome to 2012, the year of the Dragon. 

It’s bound to be a big year, we’re sure :)