Friends of Mine (Melbourne Food Review)

When I think about food in Melbourne even before I think of dumplings, or multicultural cuisine, I think of brunch. Melbourne is famous for offering some of the best brunch in the world. Any blog post or travel guide on Melbourne will mention it’s huge coffee culture and with this coffee culture emerges a breakfast/brunch culture. There are so many quality cafes offering great brunch options and my next couple of posts will feature reviews on some of them.

Friends of Mine is a well known Melbourne brunch spot.It’s featured on many of ‘Melbourne’s Best Brunch’ lists and many of my friends have raved about it so I was really excited to try it out when given the opportunity. I was hosting a friend from Austria and decided what better way to introduce her to the culture of Melbourne than with a Saturday brunch. Being just around the corner from my work Friends of Mine seemed perfect.

 

The atmosphere at Friends of Mine is really nice, we sat outside as it was a really sunny and warm day. The service was also pretty good although I grabbed my own menu but that is more of a reflection of my impatience than a luck of customer service.

 

I’m guilty of being one of those people that usually order the exact same thing every time I order brunch- smashed avocado with poached eggs. Smashed avocado is the healthy brunch option that is especially popular in Melbourne at the moment. Different cafes offer a different mix but the one key ingredient is smashed avocado. Some of the better ones will add lemon, salt, and my favourite ingredient- goat’s cheese usually of the Meredith variety. I expected great things from one of the Friends of Mine’s twist on Smashed avocado.I ordered the ‘hung over’ dish which was herb and cheese toast, avocado, two poached eggs and bacon. I was really disappointed. Everything that could be wrong with this dish was. The avocado was overripe and had taken on that slightly liquid/slimy texture and had no lemon or feta that makes a good smashed avo, the toast was too soft and more like bread with cheese on it than actual toast, the bacon was not the crispy goodness I was expecting, and the eggs while still runny were slightly overdone. Needless to say Friends of Mine did not live up to expectations and there are plenty of other brunch places that  I feel you can get a better meal at (look out for my upcoming review on Crabapple Kitchen for an example).

 

Friends of Mine had one saving grace, the juice was super yummy. But I guess its not very hard to get juice right.

I don’t think I’ll be going back to give Friends of Mine another try.