I love Patch and the delicious range on offer. I always go for the Chilli eggs, I should really go…read morefor something else, but why change it up when it's always delicious. My partner in crime tends to go for the eggs bene - the best he's had apparently. Light beautiful Benedict, it does look delicious. There is one waitress that is absolutely fabulous - she has an English accent. My experience is always a zillion times better when she is around. Patch to me is everything breakfast should be, delicious, filling without the carb overload.

Patch cafe use to be an amazing place to get a coffee or a great breakfast. However since the…read moreowners have sold up and the new owners have taken over, things have gone downhill very quickly. Coffee isn't great any more and the food is terrible.

After coming home from a year long trip around the world most people would be craving some nice…read morehome cooked meal from their mum. Not me, I was craving the Jerusalem Manakish from Edna's Place. When I arrive I don't even need to look at the menu and some of the waitresses don't even give me the menu, they just place my order. Now that's services! Some may be repulsed by the idea of eating chicken livers, but not me. The Jerusalem Manakish is the perfect combination middle eastern spiced chicken, chicken livers and onion on chewy flat bread with tahina I have tried to replicate but cannot come close, topped with fresh baby spinach leaves. If this does not sound appealing to you they have more than enough options to make you happy as well as a beautiful courtyard that will make you forget walking down the busy main street to get to this delicious little homely place.

I moved to Elsternwick in August of 2012…read more Being a gourmand, I tried several places and the best, hands down, is this little unpretentious gem. The breakfast wrap is to DIE for. Seriously. Coffee's great too, haven't had a bad brew or feed since starting becoming a (on average) fortnightly regular. You want a good, reasonably priced breakfast feed on Glen Huntley Road, this is it.

For a good, quick, healthy lunch, this place is a treat. A small soup with a piece of crusty bread,…read morean apple, and a little square of chocolate is only $7 which should make anyone smile. Sandwiches are fresh-made each day, an there's also a great variety of breakfast options as well. Worth a quick stop in the famous Hardware Lane.

I've been frequenting this place for 4 years now. They have tried different things over the years…read moreand I genuinely respect the attitude of experimentation and reinvention about them. The decor is getting refreshed every now and again, they had a fruit juice bar and then a soup bar. Whatever is next, I'll be sure to stick my head in and check it out. It's never as busy as many of it's competition in the same area and I've never been left wanting for a seat. The coffee is much better than it's food. I like this place because the owner is a really lovely bloke, always smiling, always says "hi". I never buy their savouries and the reason is simple, it's not very good value and it's just a bit... normal. There is nothing wrong with any of their savouries, sandwiches or rolls, it's just that Bon a Manger are in the unfortunate situation of being surrounded by masses of competition in the savouries category that quite simply are more interesting. Their sweets on the other hand are another story. I would highly recommend their pistachio Danish, coupled with your poison of choice, is a real winner. The venue is neat, if not a bit plain, but in an assured and deliberate sort of way. Polished concrete floors, custom wood furniture and an outdoor seating and proudly perched on the corner of Hardware Lane and Little Bourke, makes Bon a Manger an easy choice for a quiet meet up.

I've been here twice so far. Once to grab a late lunch. I ordered the Buddha bowl, which was a…read moresimple bowl of greens and mashed sweet potato and avocado with some homemade tortilla chips. My sister ordered the zucchini fritters, which came with two poached eggs. They were really good, especially with their a thousand island sauce. The second time I came here was to grab a sandwich to go. I love their sourdough bread, and the sandwich had the multigrain bread. It was tomato based, so no cheese, and had grilled eggplant and mushrooms and spinach. It was very tasty, and even more so if you get it lightly toasted.

This is a hidden gem. The best bistro/cafe of its type in the southern suburbs on our experience…read moretoday. It's better here than at more fancied places including the famed Leftfield. We loved the space. It's bright and airy with plenty of room to spread out. A small thing, but I loved that there is seating with decent cushions instead of hard, flat immovable surfaces. Also, whoever chose the music playlist really knows their stuff. The music playing throughout was fabulous. We were advised that there is a new menu offered here now and that the chef has over 15 years experience overall and has been in Australia 6 years. The menu looked contemporary and very interesting: we quickly selected the corn fritters and the Tunisian baked eggs. We were knocked out by the sheer quality of both dishes. It's beautiful food. The corn fritters were with smoked salmon and poached eggs. They're lovely fluffy fritters with great flavour including a fascinating hint of spice. Ditto the gorgeous baked eggs. These are the best I've ever had. The previous best were those at Jerry Joy in Thornbury but these topped those to my astonishment. They are rich and substantive again with delicate hints of spice. And, whoever decided to add the slice of lemon is a visionary too. The acidity is just beautiful with the dish. We finished with coffee and red velvet cake. Both were wonderful again. The coffees were expertly made, a real Melbourne coffee. The cake was excellent too. Lovely, tasty and moist. The perfect finish. This was an unexpectedly great meal. We loved the place, the food and the service. The world's most stunning woman and I commented to each other that this was a pretty much the near perfect brunch. Put Servery and Spoon in the inner suburbs and they'd be fighting off customers and have lines around the block. It was that good. Finally, I'm conscious that I'm giving another 5. This is another case of not having the capacity to give a half mark. A 4.5 would have been optimal, but a 4 far too low. In those circumstances, there's no option but to choose the higher mark. (Our sincere thanks to Nitin and Ritika for the invitation to visit here. Put simply, we loved it. We wish them and their venture the good fortune that it and they deserve.)

A small little friendly neighbourhood shop that has been around for yonks…read moreThey do tend to close very early though; 2pm or so each day. when you enter, it has a homely welcoming feel. There's always a great selection of freshly made food to choose from at the counter. A lunch deal will see a hot food item, paired with a salad for $10. (At the moment at least.) Emerald hill also does a fair bit of catering to off site client's, so if you like what you seen, you are always able to order it. There's a section of ingredients, that can be chosen to fill a on the spot made sandwich, a salads area, and another display for hot food items. All in all, it's comforting house made food that works. It's an old space that doesn't see the need to change itself; not everything has to be new and shiny.

10/10 this place is amazing ! The food was outstanding I definitely recommend the breakfast…read moretoastie. The staff are super nice very lovely people. Great location very nice vibe. Would definitely come back !

We stopped here for a coffee during our Melbourne walking tour! The place is very peculiar inside…read morethey have tables with fruits everywhere, like pineapples, apples and pumpkins. We had a cappuccino and an ham and cheese croissant which was pretty good. The staff is friendly and welcoming and outside there are also some tables where you are allowed to smoke. Reasonable prices. Recommended for a break during a busy day!

Brother Alec most certainly lives up to its healthy rating. It's a mighty place that delivers…read morewonderfully. Reading the menu nearly induced a (further) personal crisis as I found it most difficult to choose the optimal breakfast. I ultimately chose the huevos rancheros which is nominated on the menu as a house speciality and which previous reviewers have commented on most favourably. I'm delighted to report that I have rarely made a wiser food choice in my time on earth. The dish is superbly composed and astonishingly satisfying. Again I found myself thanking a nearby deity for locating me in this great city of Melbourne. I found every element of the huevos rancheros to be spot on the mark. The tortilla was fresh, light and fluffy. The scrambled eggs the same and so light they risked becoming airborne without their tortilla casing. The beans were black, moorish and so so good and tasty. The cream was luscious and gorgeous. And so on, and so on. It's just a magnificent dish. Whoever designed it deserves an order of Australia. To the chef, the same. If they're one and the same person, give them a hefty cash gratuity from commonwealth coffers too for outstanding and selfless service to the nation and the physical and mental health of its people. And, while we're at it, and in a spirit of inclusion, give the server an award of magnitude too for conveying the dish so elegantly and efficiently over several metres from kitchen to my table. My best to you all. I haven't talked about the cafe itself. It's not large and I can see why it would quickly get busy sometimes with people having to wait a bit. So be it. Sometimes the small places are the best. We found a table quickly. It did get noisy quite rapidly because they were a few young rowdy kids there with their parents. The only kid that bothered me was the one held directly at us face first from the adjacent table. I'm not entirely sure why someone would think it was acceptable to directly face a screaming child at people, but there you go, they did that. Perhaps it was because the kid had been denied the huevos rancheros on this morning. Who cares. We were in a benign almost zen like state and resisted a momentary urge to scream back at the kid from a few inches away. Good food can induce this sort of calm. So I'm putting it down to the trance like afterglow from the huevos rancheros. I had a couple of coffees and they were outstanding. Rich, luscious and creamy with deep and elegant flavour. Coffee as good as I've ever had anywhere. Finally, I liked the service here very much. The server was a tall happy young soul who either loves his job and people or is a very skilled actor. He was calm, polite, interested, engaging and efficient throughout. All power to him. I was also impressed by the smiles I was seeing behind the counter and in the kitchen. My point is that this looked and felt like a happy place and even had a saying to that effect over the kitchen door. It's obvious I loved it here. I rarely give fives but went extremely close here. It's a 4.8 from me and I'm returning as soon as I can.

I come here every week (usually in a Saturday with the whole family). and have done so for years…read morenow. I love it. Supper friendly, great food, even better coffee. Try the rancheros: beans and chorizo. OMG. Love your work guys.

"Tucked away" in a lonesome part of Brighton - as far as cafes and stores go - is The Little Ox…read more It's in an area much more conducive to finding good parking, and has a nice, welcoming feeling to it on the inside. I came here today on a warm, sunny day, and they have a big outdoor seating area, and plenty of room on the inside, with big wide open windows to make you feel part of the outside still. They have a great all day menu full of your favourites, and a good selection for lunch. Admittedly, I really only ordered a salmon Eggs Benny, which yes, is something I can make at home, but it was still presented well and these things always taste better when someone else makes it for you (though I would have had a side of butter with mine if I knew how dry the toast was going to be). I had a Mango Smoothie too, and that was nice, though the passionfruit inside it, almost overtook in flavour. Everyone at my table LOVED their coffees, and their burger and Ruebin sandwich were apparently great too. Overall this was a great lunch outing. I can't really fault it at all. All well priced and everything tasted good and was presented nicely. I had been wanting to come here for a while now, so I'm glad I finally got the chance and would highly recommend it.

This hidden gem is the kind of place that you have to be told about otherwise you would have no…read moreidea that it existed. The food here is amazing, fantastic kitchen. Sometimes I find the need to talk to the people in the kitchen and tell them how satisfied I am. I have seen on TV a lot lately the use of micro herbs but never actually eaten somewhere that put them on my dish, I got that fancy schmancy treatment here. I didn't actually need it, but it did look nice. On my way out I fell for my temptation and brought the best meringue that I have eaten in my entire life. Just before being put into the over to cook a shot of coffee was poured into the mix and swirled around. So chewy in the middle. Perfect.