Coffee!

Coffee in Melbourne deserves its own post, because it is ubiquitous.   There are cafes on every block.  They serve beautiful, delicious coffee, and usually yummy food as well.

One one block near our house there are five, FIVE places you can get an espresso-based coffee.  They are all busy, almost all the time they are open.  A couple bake their own baked goods that are unbelievably scrumptious, but I'm off sugar this year, so I settle for the delicious coffee.



First, the cafe culture.  People go out for coffee all the time, and most of the time they stay and drink them at the table.  They do not surf the web or write their novel while doing so.  They come to the cafe with people and they talk to each other.  And they stay for hours over one cup of coffee, and the cafes don't care.

These two cafes are steps away from each other.  Both busy every time I've been in this shopping area.

If you do want to order food, the food is typically very good and very pretty.  I haven't taken too many photos of food, but this - poached eggs Florentine - was from a recent coffee/breakfast date I had with a friend at a local cafe.   It's also very expensive.  This dish below was $10.

Toast is a popular choice at cafes, but even toast is about $6.  Avocado on toast with feta is common as well; plan to spend around $12 for that.  The prices are shocking at first, until you decide not to think about it.  My kids like getting a vanilla slice, which is custard sandwiched in between cake and a pastry crust, or lamingtons, which are cake slices dipped in chocolate sauce, rolled in coconut, and layered with jam.

Isaac and his pumpkin, spinach and ricotta frittata. It was scrumptious.  I tried some in the name of research, of course.

Ruth and her awesome raspberry macadamia white chocolate muffin.  Mmm!

Even taking into account Australia's falling dollar, $14 is a lot for porridge.  This isn't a fancy cafe at all - just one near the Target.  Prices are fairly typical, and they would be outrageous if the food wasn't really, really good (which it is).

Next, let's talk size.  In America, I used to order huge coffees to go from Starbucks or Caribou.  Coffees here are tiny.  Even the large is smaller than the small at Starbucks, about 6 ounces.  Outside of the three Starbucks I've seen in Melbourne, one never seen gigantic cups of coffee like they have in America.  The little cups do the job.  Every cup is made with espresso; it's very difficult to find brewed coffee.

If there's no espresso machine, you have to content yourself with instant, like at work and at the  garage while waiting for your car to get fixed.  But just about everywhere else has the good stuff.  There was an espresso bar at the skate park.  Traveling espresso bars at the farmer's market and outside my kids' school dance.  An espresso machine at the inflatable jumping place and the trampoline jumping place and the rock wall climbing place and at my gym.  This is a very caffeinated culture, and they don't settle for shitty coffee.  But the drinks are small and artistic.

Flat white on the left, hot chocolate on the right. 

Flat white again

Flat white on the right, cappuccino on the left.  This was at the Melbourne Museum.

This was called a hot chocolate at a coffee/chocolate shop, but it was more like drinkable ganache (clearly before I gave up sugar).  I drank half before I thought to take a photo.  So very yummy.

An iced mocca, with melted chocolate running down the inside of the cup.  Iced coffee comes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  If you don't want the ice cream, you have to say "Iced coffee with no ice cream."  But why would you want to do that?

Coffee outside of Melbourne hasn't been uniformly good.  When we went out to the Bellarine Peninsula for camping, we were unimpressed with the McCafe we picked up at McDonald's, and the espresso from the campsite (yes, they had a barista there) was really poor.  But I promise, anyone who comes to visit us will get a good taste of cafe life.