Brunches: Bunyip, Red Star, Panette and El Mirage

Bunyip coffee

Bunyip

We seem to visit South Melbourne every couple of weeks, probably because I like going to the market there. We tend to have brunch before visiting the South Melbourne market, and recently we brunch at Bunyip. Bunyip is located in an old Victorian, which looks like it once may have been a house. It was a glorious day, and we ended up sitting outside underneath a couple of large, yellow umbrellas. I didn’t notice until I uploaded the photos to my camera, but the umbrellas gave an unpleasant tint to my pictures that I haven’t been able to totally correct. Doh!

Bunyip baked egg

I ordered the Spanish eggs ($14). Two poached eggs came in a rich napoli sauce, with chorizo and black olives. The sauce was thick and a touch spicy and the eggs were happily runny. Initially I thought there was only one egg, but there was one hidden underneath the sauce. Happy days!

Bunyip fritters

The Boys had corn fritters with roast tomato, bacon and relish ($12). I love corn fritters for brunch, and these looked pretty good.

Bunyip Cafe,
313 Coventry Street, South Melbourne,
Phone: 03 9682 5844

Ice coffee

Red Star

The scorching weather last week was a surprise, as was the fact that at Red Star I had a sweet breakfast, while Alastair had a savoury one. I started off with an iced coffee, which was large and full of milk and ice cream. It wasn’t very strong coffee wise though, which was slightly disappointing.

Big star french toast

I ordered the french toast with maple syrup ($7.50) adding grilled banana and bacon ($2.60 each). I think I could’ve skipped the banana, and I did wonder where the other half of my banana went (in the photo you can see a nub of the other half)! They were very generous with the bacon however, and that was great with the french toast. Points off for the fake maple syrup though.

Red star big brekkie

Alastair and Pat had the big breakfast which came with two eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown, tomatoes, mushrooms and scwhob’s toast ($19). I thought it was a bit on the expensive side, even for a big brekkie. The toast was great – Pat took one bite and drooled due to the generous buttering. I ate a piece too and it was gooooooooood.

Red Star
315 Coventry Street
South Melbourne, 3205
Phone: 03 9682 1678

Panette

Panette

I have blogged about the fabulous gnocchi bolognaise previously, and Panette also do a spinach gnocchi. For some reason I haven’t noted down any details about this one, but from what I can remember the spinach gnocchi is served with a napoli sauce and topped with mozzarella.

Panette gnocchi

It’s not as light and as tasty as the other gnocchi but it’s pretty good. And if you’re watching your weight, just try and ignore the massive amount of cheese!

Caffe Panette
144 Cecil St, South Melbourne 3205 VIC
Phone: (03) 9690 2803

El Mirage coffee

El Mirage

The other weekend we were in the Brunswick East area because I had to drop by a friend’s house, and we took the opportunity to try a new cafe.

El Mirage was very busy when we arrived, and we had to wait a few minutes for a table. As we ordered, the waitress advised us that meals would take about half an hour, due to lots of people ordering at once. That was okay with us, so we ordered and waited.

Everyone in the cafe, especially the staff, seemed very trendy, and I felt like we weren’t cool enough to be there. 🙂

My long mac was very enjoyable, although I tried to delay drinking it. I knew that drinking it 30 minutes before eating would make me all jittery from the caffeine!

El Mirage gringo

Either the time went very quickly, or 30 minutes was a worst case scenario, but it didn’t seem to be too long before our food arrived. Bro and I both had the Gringo ($15) which came with poached eggs, mexican beans, tomato, bacon and “home-fries”. The eggs were soft and runny, and I loved the beans and the home-fries. I always like it when you can get something a bit different from regular eggs and toast.

El Mirage
349 Lygon St
Brunswick East
Phone: 03 9388 0966