Rathdowne Street Foodstore
| Where | 617 Rathdowne Street, Carlton North, 3054—View map |
Contact | 03 9347 4064 |
Website | www.rathdownestfoodstore.com.au |
Open | Breakfast Monday to Sunday 8.00 am to 3.00 pm |
Payment | EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard, Diners, AMEX, Cash |
Diet | Soy, Gluten free |
Seating | Inside and outside |
Kids | Welcome |
Pets | Welcome |
The Village Savant
Ellie Parker 16 June 2008
Rathdowne St Foodstore sits pretty as a picture in leafy Rathdowne Street Village. It serves consistently delicious, hearty breakfasts. It benefits from long serving, devoted staff. It even allows children to transform the butcher's paper tablecloths into works of crayon doodle art. It's one of those places that comes close to being all things for all people by offering a civilised breakfast experience for all creatures great and small.
Weary mums and dads replenish their mid-30s morale with large bowls of café au lait and freshly baked, warm Chelsea buns. Party girls recover with freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juices, and French toast with bacon and maple syrup. Stripy stockinged, beret-wearing arty folk heave into mighty mounds of house-baked beans on toast.
Foodstore's menu aims to deliver across the board, from baby bacon and egg pies, to fried tofu.
The Foodstore Eggs, consisting of poached eggs, avocado, smoked salmon and chive hollandaise served on toasted muffins, is a feast fit for a king or queen. Even better is the oven-baked omelette, bubbling with hollandaise sauce, goats cheese, smoked salmon and sundried tomato. This dish provides more than your daily dose of lipids.
While we are on the topic of eggy delight, Foodstore's version of eggs benedict is picture perfect and pretty much hard to fault. The eggs are beautiful, velvety white domes. The hollandaise is neither overbearing nor resembling a mud slide. The dish is just right.
If you are feeling like a light, healthy start, the FSY (fruit salad and yoghurt) is delicious, as is the porridge with fruit compote. When I last checked, the FS included grapes, strawberries, nectarines, pineapple and rockmelon (and there was not a hint of the dreaded dried-out orange segments or soggy watermelon bulk that I particularly love to hate). Never too cool for school, Foodstore also offers Special K, banana, skinny milk.
Foodstore is a great place to take your in-laws, your baby, your lover or your publisher. In fact, just grab the person next to you and head to the village for a warm Chelsea bun and a bowl of coffee. Then think about ordering breakfast.