Thursday, January 8, 2015

Blood Orange


Am I in a grocery or cafe? 

Why not both? 


Cafes seem to be coming more multi-functional these days, day to night, night to day, eating and shopping, why not do it all? 



Blood Orange in Hawthorn (well technically Hawthorn East, but I’ll claim it into Hawthorn…) is a charming addition to a sleepy stretch of Burwood Road, with it’s bright, light and unpretentious space, coloured by gorgeous looking produce and shelves heaving with all sorts of interesting condiments and yummy cookery things. 



The cafe is deceivingly big, with an average sized shopfront that stretches all the way back, and then peeks out the side a bit (or a lot) to fit a dining area in. 

With all the bustle and people generally walking around anyway perusing the shelves or doing a late morning shop, rather than take your order, orders are made and paid for at the counter, before you take a number and sit back down. 



The girls at Blood Orange are quick and efficient, our hot drinks appearing quite quickly. Nothing to complain about here at all. 

The breakfast menu wasn’t too big, and looked like they were keeping things pretty simple,  just allowing the produce to shine, but looks can be deceiving and I was pleasantly surprised with how impressed I was when the food arrived. 




I honestly cannot think of a more artistic way to plate portobello mushrooms with feta, pine nuts, grilled asparagus and house made rosti with a bit of avocado on the side. Seriously. It’s so pretty, it could be an entree at a restaurant rather than brunch at a cafe. The fetta was delightfully creamy and smooth, everything beautifully seasoned and the rosti with nibble crispy edges that I didn’t want to stop. Beautiful.



Brad’s big breakfast of bacon, chorizo, mushrooms, tomato, eggs, avocado, potato rosti and sourdough toast was a visual and literal feast. Definitely one of the most laden plates we’ve come across recently, but yet surprisingly, not a sea of brown as big breakfast’s can often be. Again, crispy potato rosti’s meant I was stealing Brad’s, the tomato chutney was so good I was smearing it on my mushrooms too and although the dish for the most part is pretty simple, the produce is good, it’s well seasoned and well cooked. Not much more you could ask for. 



Blood Orange is honest goodness, I kind of arrived not expecting too much, and found myself enjoying it far more than I thought I would. Maybe next time I’ll grab some cake on my way out too… 

659-661 Burwood Road
Hawthorn East
Vic 3123

Blood Orange on Urbanspoon


1 comment:

  1. Those are two of the best cafe breakfasts I have seen in a long time!

    ReplyDelete