reviews
Not Quite Nigella http://www.notquitenigella.com/2010/05/23/love-grub-alexandria/
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SMH Good Living
Reviewed by Rachel Olding
Address 38 Mitchell Road, Alexandria, 9318 2323
Yes, this place is a little bit dishevelled but we're in Alexandria, not Double Bay.
Motley chairs and tables that have a garage-sale feel sit akimbo on the footpath under a huge golden honey locust tree.
Toys wait for children in the small community garden next door and dogs are always welcome.
The coffee is the Six Degrees Darker blend from Melbourne coffee company Gravity ($3). It's good but not great; dark and sweet but under-extracted.
The drawcard is the menu, a quirky fusion of cafe favourites and Japanese dishes. All-day breakfast, burgers and organic sourdough sandwiches are served alongside nori rolls, sushi lunchboxes and crunchy Asian salad.
The burgers are chunky and filling and the sushi is made on the premises. The breakfast sushi is a big seller - a bacon and egg sushi hand roll, which is sushi rice wrapped in a nori cone with slices of bacon, pieces of scrambled egg and cucumber, topped with a zesty Japanese mayonnaise ($5). It also comes as a full breakfast of two bacon & egg sushi hand rolls with avocado, tomato, mushrooms & potato hash ($17).($17).
Just like the funky menu and colourful furniture, the service is fun and friendly. The waiters say ''sweet as'' and they really mean it. It's a little bit what-the-hell but it works.
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Review – Sunday Telegraph – May 3, 2009.
Sunday Brunch Love Grub – 3.5 stars.
Time to get grubby – in a good way of course. This little café brings a funky, no-frills approach to breakfast, blending it with Japanese style just for fun. It’s a curious mix but I’m all for it, based on a visit last week.
Judging by the crowd, so are the locals. There aren’t many tables, and most of them were taken when we arrive. It stays that way the whole time we’re there. A happy buzz of mothers, children, leisurely couples and lazier drifters keep it busy as some of Sydney’s friendliest waitresses feed the masses.
We begin with easily the best breakfast item I’ve eaten this year; a bacon & egg hand roll ($4). Essentially breakfast sushi, it sounds so wrong, tastes so good. Sushi rice is wrapped into a nori cone with slices of bacon, pieces of scrambled egg & avocado, all toped with that piquant Japanese mayonaisse. It’s brilliant, so we order another.
The vegetarian breakfast ($15) is less Japanese but still packed with honest flavours. Perfectly poached eggs (I’d asked for them scrambled, but stifled my complaint when I cut into them) sit atop thick slices of white sourdough. Thin bars of somewhat squeaky haloumi, whole oven-roasted tomatoes and mushrooms dripping in butter complete the platter and fill us up.
Our coffee – Gravity ‘6 degrees darker’ blend, from Melbourne – is full-flavoured, robust and chocolatey, but under-extracted. We console ourselves with a huge raspberry and chocolate muffin ($3.50) and waddle out the door, already planning home-made breakfast sushi for tomorrow.
- Banjo Harris Plane
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http://www.eatability.com.au/au/sydney/love-grub/
http://yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/love_grub/
http://www.twothousand.com.au/eat-drink/love-grub/
http://awolmonk.blogspot.com/2009/04/love-grub.html
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/70/1452295/restaurant/Sydney/Waterloo/Love-Grub-Alexandria
