My Sista Says… well, I haven’t spoken to my sisters in a while. This café is teeny tiny but makes up for it with a cute and cosy environment. 

A great atmosphere with a young vibe, a nice communal bench right next to the kitchen and counter. No walls which makes me feel naked, but I like it.

Funky lamps popping out of the wall for those who need extra light to read the Wallpaper* City Guides or other books they have lying around. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the city guides.

The staff were very friendly and brought a great positive vibe to the place.

They utilize their space well, and still manage to keep the place aesthetically pleasing.

Delicious coffee and a beautiful selection of food on the menu.

Poached eggs on toast with spinach, mushrooms and tomato - simple but delicious.

Dukkah poached egg, spinach with smashed avocado and feta brilliantness. Delicious healthy and light. 

Poached egg on toast with ham and tomato.

We were full after brunch so didn’t order any cakes; but my god they look delicious. Will have to come back another day.

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My Sista Says/My Sister Says
03 9646 1117
Port Melbourne
118 Bridge Street  

1000£BEND is a freaking awesome cafe/bar/gallery/cinema hiding in a secret laneway - Little Lonsdale Street. (Not that secret.) The venue is basically a big rustic warehouse overtaken by creatives and transformed into a spunkadelic restaurant-bar-cafe-gallery-cinema-venue-whatever, situated next to some quirky street art and hipsters. This place also has free Wi-Fi so there’s no reason to ever leave.

There is a variety of dishes on the chalkboard- some bar food including burgers and chips, or some more ‘cafe’ style food like burritos etc. All of which looks to be very decent, reasonably priced too - under $14ish.

All the décor and furnishings are recycled/vintage which gives this place a trendy and rustic ambiance. It’s also very open, comfortable, cosmopolitan, and very “Melbourne.” 

The cherry blossom décor had some black undies on the ceiling-what. This place had a lot of art work around too, not surprising seeing as it’s also a gallery/cinema. If you look around the room, you will be inspired no matter what corner you are looking at.

Saganaki Burger was delicious, so was the Roo Burger Nick got. The Saganaki Burger was a tad salty, perhaps some more tomato relish was needed to balance. Other than that it was delicious, and 1000£BEND is an awesome venue. I will definitely be back to try the burritos, they looked amazeballs.

1000 Pound Bend
361 Little Lonsdale St
Melbourne, VIC 3000

7/10

Speakeasy Kitchen Bar is one of my favourite spots on Chapel Street, it’s about 10 months old, serves great coffee, great food and it has a vibrant ambience. I’m in love with the shop fit out, natural light and the modern earthy feel. The lustrous new fittings and décor is accompanied by young, friendly and trendy staff, which eliminates the pretentious cockiness that this place could have easily acquired. My friend Josh seems to think that the staff need to smile more, but I actually the melancholic persona and cool edge they have. P.S Josh is a bitch!

It has three/four areas with their own unique vibe. The main entrance hall and front outdoor courtyard has a fresh-hip-cafe/cocktail-bar-vibe, where you can sit with a book and coffee for hours. When you head deeper inside, you end up in a sophisticated little restaurant area, and outside through the glass doors is an open clean-grunge restaurant/bar with graffiti art, perfect for after work drinks. Also upstairs, which I haven’t been to yet. The owners/whoever-was-in-charge somehow tied all of these different environments in very well.

Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, English muffin, spinach and hollandaise sauce. The hollandaise was perfect, and the salmon and spinach were very flavoursome. The egg was slightly over-cooked, so it lacked that oozing yolky goodness. Plated up nicely and the hero was definitely the hollandaise sauce.

Fiery breakfast, scrambled eggs cooked with harissa and coriander with merguez sausage on toast. I don’t normally eat scrambled eggs, but I had no regrets with this dish. The herbs and spices in the scrambled eggs were seasoned well, the merguez sausage was delicious, moist and tender. The toast was a little bit burnt, but I was in a good mood so didn’t really notice.

Prawn fattoush salad. Fresh and vibrant lunch with 3 large pan-fried, flavoursome prawns, with fresh crispy salad ingredients. (I forgot what was in it.) It was delicious.

Speakeasy Kitchen Bar
03 9824 0770
South Yarra/Toorak
359 Chapel St   

8/10