Manchester Press has a new menu!

I've been here 3 times in the past 2 weeks, and dozens of times in the past year and a half. Strangely enough, I've never properly blogged about the place.

Manchester Press
8 Rankins Lane, Melbourne VIC
03 9600 4054
Mon - Fri, 7am - 5pm, Sat - Sun, 9am - 5pm
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Manchester-Press/171807409566156

I was really excited to see a the new menu! The old, plastic boards with the embossed stickers, yeap, long gone. Let me start by pointing out what's new, or what's been changed as far as I remember.

For one thing, this is their weekend menu; I did go 2 other times on weekdays when they had their (new) weekday menu, but I've lost the photos on that memory card :(

What's Really New

1. Breakfast: Cereal of the week
2. Bagels: Grilled Blue Cheese with grapes, roquette and walnuts
3. Bagels: 12 hour Roasted Pulled Pork with lettuce, BBQ sauce and homemade apple slaw
4. Salads: Beetroot and Chickpea with mixed leaves, cherry tomatoes, red onion and fetta

What's Changed
1. Breakfast: Raisin bagel now comes with Pineapple and apricot jam instead of blueberry passionfruit jam.
2. Bagels: Thick sliced Pastrami now comes with tomato, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island instead of dill cream cheese and roquette.
3. B.L.A.T is now topped with cranberry and plum relish instead of homemade basil mayo.

What's Gone
I can't be too sure what's not there anymore, but I do know for a fact that their Baked Eggs aren't on the weekend menu, but is still available on their weekday menu. Also, either their Hungarian Salami or Chorizo bagel has been omitted - I'll go back and check again (or does any reader out there know? Leave a comment!).

I went with Demie and Maxine on a Sunday mid-morning, and I was surprised that at 10.30am, there wasn't a line or a waiting list. The crowd was slowly building up outside as we were leaving though.

Flat white, $3.50

Manchester Press' latte art is pretty different, I must say. Demie got her coffee and immediately wailed 'WHY IS HE GRUMPYYYYY??????'

Maybe because you were late and made us all wait, little one. Just maybe.

Soy latté, $4. 

Such a beautiful rosetta made on a soy latté, really. 

Cappuccino, $3.50. 

I have a feeling the baristas observe the customers who order the coffee and try to make the latté art faces look like them, because Max's latte art lady looked pretty familiar.....

Now I really love these two to bits; for one, they ordered different items, and for another, they both ordered the new/altered items on the menu! 

Thick sliced Pastrami with tomato, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island, $13

Demie's dish looked pretty magnificent: the approximately 1cm thick pastrami just kept me gawking and wishing that I ordered that instead! I tried a small portion, and the pastrami was really good. The taste of the swiss cheese and thousand island didn't come through very well though. I was just really impressed by the portion and quality of the pastrami.

Grilled Blue Cheese with grapes, roquette and walnuts, $13

I liked it when I tried a bit a few days prior with my new housemate, Nicole. Grapes and blue cheese is a definite combination you should try. I didn't really like the amount of roquette on top though that's a personal preference, and the bagel itself was a little more chewy than crunchy that day. That aside, the bagel was surprisingly extremely filling, even for me.

12 hour Roasted Pulled Pork with lettuce, BBQ sauce and homemade apple slaw, $14.

I've had this twice now, and Max ordered this that day. This dish gives you plenty of bang for the buck; what you see in the photo is probably 3/5s of the portion of pulled pork given to you. You barely have to think about chewing the pork as it was, shall I say, pulled very well. It actually shadowed the apple slaw too. This bagel probably ousted the fruit and nut bagel as my favourite thing to order at Manchester Press! I kid you not. 

I'm usually told that Manchester Press is overrated and I used to agree, but really, I think it's because people are bored of the old menu. Give their new stuff a try, really!

Food: 8 (this includes the other things I've tried there)

Coffee: 7.5

Ambience: 6.5

Value: 8

Staff: 6 - 7 (they're pretty hot and cold, really. Some are pretty great but some treated me like I was annoying)

do you guys think i should give my blog layout a makeover?
may.

The Bell Jar of Sandwiches

I haven't used the jar of cafe's* in ages, but I did for brunch on Sunday. Jason and I have a slight bias towards Collingwood since we've got a few favourites in that area, so picking out yet another from the area made us pretty excited.

The Bell Jar

656 Smith St, Collingwood VIC

03 9482 7980

Mon - Sun, 7am - 4pm

[ tram 86, stop 23 (Queens Pde/Wellington St) ]

I didn't get many pictures of my surroundings cause I was preoccupied with the cute dogs sitting outside. It looked like they have an outdoor area at the back, but i didn't check it out. The place was small, but not the smallest and it was relatively quiet for a Sunday morning. The girl who served us acted a little too-cool-for-everything though, but she was nice when I complimented her leggings. Hmm..

Organic orange juice, $3.80.

Skipped the usual soy latté cause I just wasn't feeling it that morning. I didn't really like the orange juice there though, but then again, that's beyond the café's control. 

Strong latté, $3.50.

Jason did mention that the coffee was pretty good. We noticed that they do have Market Lane beans there, though I'm pretty sure he got the house blend. +1 for using Market Lane though. Again, we're a little biased.

Roasted pumpkin, pear & caramelized onion relish sandwich with gorgonzola and rocket, $12

I think i'm going through a massive pumpkin phase right now. I really liked the sandwich though I would've preferred a little bit more pumpkin in it. It's always the bread that gets to me though: the crusts were nice and crunchy and it gave the sandwich an extra texture to bite into.

Poached eggs with pan fried haloumi, avocado, kasundi, pistachio dukkah and lemon, $17.

I tried out the haloumi and it was really salty and the texture was a little weird. I really liked the kasundi, though I'm not sure if it's meant to taste exactly like sambal from back home. 

Jason, as usual, enjoyed the kick of poached eggs on toast. He seemed to enjoy the dish, but then again, he's never tried haloumi prior to this. 

I relatively liked the rustic look of the place. What i liked even better was that the place seemed to attract plenty of dog owners taking their pooches out on a Sunday morning. 

What we really noticed, upon paying our bill, was that the barista had pretty damn excellent latté art skills. His hands have so much control; it was such interesting thing to watch.

Food: 7

Coffee: N/A (for me)

Ambience: 8

Value: 7

Staff: 6.5

*jar of cafés : I've been picking out where I've wanted to go over the last few weeks; i use the jar when I really don't know where to go for the morning. If i pick out a place we've already tried, i'll just throw the rolled up paper away and pick another. Heh.

So i've watched enough Vampire Diaries. Anyone can recommend anything else? D:
may.

Dead Man Espresso, Campfires and unconventional BLTs

So.. hi :D

I know I've been gone for a while. I've had a few things to settle, and I also had a couple of guests visit me as well. But now that everything's back on track, and life's back to normal, I'm back to blogging.

Dead Man Espresso
35 Market Street, South Melbourne VIC
03 9686 2255
http://www.deadmanespresso.com.au/
Mon - Thurs, 7am - 4pm, Sat - Sun, 8am - 4pm.
[ tram 112, stop 127 (York St/Clarendon St) ]

 It's a short walk away from the tram stop, but it's also a very short walk away from the market. There weren't any cafés along the adjacent street if i can recall correctly; the only thing i remember was the garage-converted-into-a-crossfit-gym along Clarke St. 

You know you've reached when you see a building that looks like it's made out of crate planks and when you hear the typical buzz of a café. I was really surprised that the place wasn't as busy as a café would be on a Saturday morning, given that Dead Man has quite a good reputation. I'm not complaining though.

Ordered the usual strong latté and soy latté. I've forgotten how much the coffee is over there; usually i take a photo of their menu but even their menu didn't have the price. Oh well, it can't be far from the $3.50-$4.30 price range. Blend was by Seven Seeds, which is one of my favourites.

Dead Man BLT: pork belly and spinach puree on brioche with pickled fennel and apple slaw, $16.50.

Review after review, this was the dish that everyone seemed to order. Maybe because you can never really go too wrong with pork belly. It wasn't really a BLT at all, but it's by far one of my favourite pork belly dishes here in Melbourne.

The brioche was fluffy and the crusts were crunchy - the best kind of bread to have for anything. As usual, what i really liked about the pork belly was the lack of smelly porky taste and smell; the spinach puree cut the fattiness of the pork well too.

I was rather disappointed with their fennel and apple slaw though: there was one full circular slice of green apple sitting in between pickled red cabbage and overly pickled fennel. I almost always finish whatever that's on my plate but i really didn't like the slaw.

Camp fire brekky: bacon, pork and fennel sausage, confit tomatos, Heinz spaghetti, two fried eggs and sourdough, $21.

Yep. This dish was pretty darn big hence the price. Usually I'd turn away from items above $18, but after seeing how much was on that pan, it got my stamp of approval. Jason took one look at it and he said it immediately reminded him of Scouts back in the day, sans the bacon.

I was a little confused about the Heinz spagetti, but maybe that's what campers eat here. Haha. Only thing missing would be baked beans and charcoal and/or ash in the dish. Jason seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed it; it took him ages to finish up cause there was just so much on a plate. 

I've been told that Dead Man Espresso was in the same category as all the other over-rated cafés, but quite honestly, I liked the place. The staff who served us was a little on the blur side, and another staff just kept taking away the plates and cups without asking, but other than that, I enjoyed it.

Food: 8

Coffee: 7

Ambience: 8

Value: 6.5

Staff: 6.5

I will be blogging about my cousin and my sister's trip over the next few days. Don't worry, i've already started. I'm just working out how to piece two similar trips together into a couple of posts.

On a side note: Things didn't really go the way I planned for uni, and I was a bit of a wreck inside for the last two weeks. But after finally facing it and working things out, I've decided to drop Accounting and take on just Marketing. I was supposed to do an Accounting subject over the summer, but upon dropping the major entirely, I'm doing a breadth (elective) subject on Sports Coaching. How awesome is that?

Can't wait to watch Life of Pi later! Thanks NuffnangAU!

may.

Two couples, One breakfast at Two Birds One Stone.

If there's anything I'm wary about with cafés, it's an overhyped one. There was such a massive response to this café that it made me curious, yet uncertain about going there. 

Two Birds One Stone

12 Claremont St, South Yarra VIC

03 9827 1228
http://twobirdsonestonecafe.com.au/
Mon - Fri, 7am - 4pm, Sat - Sun, 8am - 4pm
[ train to South Yarra Station ]

It was a chilly morning in comparison to what we've been experienced over the week. When we got there at early 9am, it was already relatively full with the exception of the tables outside and we were put on a waiting list. At 9am!! Wow.

Demie and Billy were a little late, and Jason and I were seated about 15 minutes before they came. We got a couple of dirty looks from other customers who had their whole group ready to eat, and even from one of the waitresses handling the waiting list.

In a way, it was our fault and dirty looks from the waiting customers were completely understandable, but really, the dirty looks from the waitress was completely unnecessary and it really put me off despite feeling bad about hogging a table.

Strong latté, $3.80, and soy latté, $4.30. 

We thought the coffee there was good, but on the whole, pretty average in comparison to their competitors. I'm guessing Two Birds focuses a lot more on their food as compared to their coffee. Didn't really leave that big an impression on us.

Blonde omelette with hot smoked salmon, fennel, chili and coriander, $16.50.

Demie's smoked salmon omelette. Again, she said it was pretty average. Some parts of the salmon were overcooked and others undercooked. I find it a little strange to put fennel with salmon, but maybe that's just me. 

Scrambled eggs on toast, $9.50, with mushroom, spinach (+$3 each) and sausage (+$4).

Billy ordered a kinda custom made breakfast. I didn't really ask how it was cause he was relatively new to my dictatorship at the table and I didn't wanna scare him. But I do remember him saying that it's good, though in a non-committal way. 

Two Birds: eggs, bacon, tomato, pork chilli and fennel sausage, mushrooms, spinach and tomato relish, $18.50. 

Jason ordered their spin on a big breakfast. I tried a bit of the scrambled eggs and those were pretty good. Had a good look at the sausages and the bacon and I thought they were pretty oily but no one else had a problem with that. The tomatos were grilled well though.

25th Nov Specials: Beef Wellington - Scotch fillet, puff pastry, salsa verde, horseradish, and a fried egg, $16.50.

I was so excited when I saw this on the specials menu. I've been meaning to try beef wellington for ages; I've watched too much MasterChef US and Australia. 

Now, a beef wellington, as far as i know, is supposed to look like this:

And the one here, obviously, didn't look anything like it. It was more of a deconstructed beef wellington. If only they'd mentioned it in the menu, then I wouldn't be as shocked when it was put on the table.

(Yes, I actually ate the yolk. U proud?)

The puff pastry was really nice and crispy. The salsa verde was really good: it was sour but not too much, had a hint of salty and was just yummy. I really liked the mushroom as well. However, the main part of the dish, the Scotch, was rather average and the egg was slightly undercooked (saw a little bit of translucent egg white).

Naw cutie patooties. Thanks for joining us for breakfast, guys!

You could probably guess by now that I'm not very impressed with the place. It was all pretty average overall, to be very honest. What makes it worse is that it's miles away from it's origin, Three Bags Full in all aspects. Maybe it's because I expected so much more because of that, and because it was overhyped.

Food: 6.5

Coffee: 6

Ambience: 8

Value: 7

Staff: 6

Can't wait to have some guests in Melbourne again!
may.

Aye, aye, Captains of Industry!

In my opinion, good cafés around the city are the ones hidden in little laneways. I've passed by this café before when heading to Little Mule the other time, and I've read about it too.

Captains of Industry
Level 1, 2 Somerset Pl, Melbourne VIC
03 9670 4405
http://captainsofindustry.com.au/
Mon - Sun, 9am - 5pm, Tues - Sun, 24 hours advance booking required for bistro dining.

This café is more than just a café: it's a barbershop, a tailor, a shoemaker, and it's a bistro as well. I like how some of the cafés in Melbourne have other elements to their store.

The deco around the area was really old school. A few of the tables had these little old school, grandma's era sewing machines, and there was a really antique looking piano in the far corner too. 

Quite honestly, it felt as if I stepped into the 1940s/50s when i stepped into the café. The vibe, the deco, and even the staff donned haircuts worthy of the era. I kid you not. There was one customer who had his hair cut there, and it looked pretty good. 

(I think his name is) Matt, with the menu board he brought over to our table. The staff there were really friendly, and I think Matt over here was a really good marketer. He made us feel like ordering everything on the menu!

Soy latté and strong latté, $3.50.

The coffee was pretty average. The crema on the coffee was completely wiped clean off the glasses, and according to Jason, that means the beans weren't as fresh. I honestly thought it tasted pretty okay, and that the milk was frothed pretty well. Guess that's the difference between one who knows about coffee and another who doesn't.

Pork belly with red cabbage and apple, $19.

When Matt described the dish, Jason was pretty sold. But when the dish was placed on the table, we were both so shocked at how small the portion of pork was. It was about 2.5x2.5 inches. The crackling on top was slightly chewy, and the slaw was rather average. We were pretty disappointed, to be honest.

Steak sandwich with aged cheddar, onion jam, tomato and lettuce, $14.

In contrast, I really, really liked the sandwich. The bread was excellently toasted and it was amazingly crunchy. There was a good portion of steak that was cooked well too. The onion jam, tomato and the cheddar really complimented the sandwich.

Look at all that cologne and shoe polish by the counter! Gosh. It's such a man's shop. 

Overall, we both had pretty mixed feelings about the place. On one hand, the sandwich was a real bang for your buck but on the other, the pork was a real disappointment. I guess this shows that cafés with really good food can have their little hiccups too.

Food: 7

Coffee: 6

Ambience: 7.5

Value: 7

Staff: 8

I'm starting work at Virgin Active's V-Café on Tuesday. Yay to familiarity!
may.