Magic Mountain Saloon

Disclosure: I dined as a guest of the restaurant 

I’m usually a morning person. The type of person who’s alarm on the phone is the ‘Harp’ sound, because it takes that little to wake me up in the morning. Even at 6am in the morning.

However, I haven’t had that much experience with whiskey, and even after just a couple of nips, was definitely finding the following morning much harder to navigate. Crusty eyes, fuzzy brain, yawns the whole way into the city for my morning breakfast date.

Caryn later tagged us in with the caption: Why did we agree on such an early morning breakfast?

Because it was Magic Mountain Saloon…and it was exactly the type of food I needed that morning.

On a cold morning, the red glowing neon is an unusual beckoning symbol, you feel like you could be going to a bar instead. 

But pop yourself by the window once you’re in to soak in the day light as it gentle creeps in and face the rainbow mountain mural, which is awfully soothing…especially when you’re feeling a bit blurry in the head.

Magic Mountain Saloon encourages you to extend your night with cocktails prominently displayed on the breakfast menu, along with a variety of rather interesting cocktails as well. Being it was so cold though, and I was feeling a bit rough, it was a mint and ginger tea for me, for sure.

Breakfast at Magic Mountain Saloon is also not your usual eggs Benedict affair. During lunch and dinner, the restaurant-slash-bar-slash-dance all night spot serves up Thai influenced food (like it’s bigger siblings Cookie and Toff in Town), so why should that be different in the mornings?

Thank god it isn’t. 

Because when you’re hung over, the chicken and kaffir lime scotched egg, stacked high with pork ribs and drizzled in a sweet and tangy tamarind sauce is actually everything you need. The scotch egg itself is completely bursting with flavour, the kaffir lime a delightfully bright and aromatic start to the day, jumping into your nostrils and waking up the brain, whilst the abundance of chilli is also another delicious alarm. True to it’s influence, the flavours are not diluted in the slightest, and I love it. The pork ribs are lovely meaty morsels, not too fatty, perfect for just tearing off the bone. 

I absolutely adored this mother of a protein hit to start my day.

We also got the sticky lamb and shrimp rice, with green apple, omelette, coriander, ginger and chilli. Total Asian style breakfast, and it’s so okay. The lamb was sweet and jammy, tender too. The rice was delicious, well seasoned, kind of nutty, and with just enough oil through it to make it totally moreish, and the green apple added a beautiful freshness. Although I was full, was definitely tempting to get more mouthfuls of this going on.

We also could not resist the black sticky rice with strawberries, banana, coconut cream and dried mango granola. Pretty, and again, very tasty. I was surprised that the black rice was actually served warm, I loved it wasn’t goopy, the texture and the flavours reminded me of the traditional Thai mango sticky rice…but with bananas and strawberries instead. It all worked very well and definitely something I want to have again. 

Caryn and I had a great morning hanging out, complaining about how early it was and stuffing our gobs with good food. It’s a great spot to catch up in the morning as it’s not too busy (yet), so you can hear each other and just chill out in the space a bit. I also reckon the food is amazing value, even though I did not pay for this meal, I couldn’t believe our scotch egg with all it’s pork ribs, was only around $18…it was really, really big. All the meals were! Good spot to feed the menfolk for sure. 

Although I don’t often do breakfast in the city, Magic Mountain Saloon is definitely somewhere I would see myself coming back to, for something a little different, that’s also insanely satisfying. I’m pretty sure I did not eat until about 3 or 4pm that afternoon afterwards….

Magic Mountain Saloon

62 Little Collins Street

Melbourne 3000