Week 13: St Kilda to Café Segovia (10.5km, 64min)

It was breakfast on the run on a tram this weekend. I am very delayed posting this week as I have been in Melbourne celebrating the 17th birthday of my youngest daughter.

Just to provide a little bit of context; we had an impromptu opportunity to greet our fellow motel neighbours on our first night in St Kilda. A fire alarm directed us onto chilly Fitzroy Road in the early morning hours. Donned in a mix of cookie monster pyjamas and assorted night attire we negotiated the streets of St Kilda past a couple of night clubs to return to the front of our motel and eventually collapsed back into bed. Given the disturbed night, Caitlyn and I left our sleeping beauty birthday girl and set off for our run and familiarization of the local area.


On advice from the concierge we made our way up Fitzroy Road into Albert Park. Although not on par with the potential Antarctic conditions of Queenstown, New Zealand, we were greeted with a crisp morning and a very light drizzle that eased off for the majority of the run. Albert Park is a beautiful and vast green space with a large lake at the centre, bordered by sporting fields and recreation facilities. There is a well patronised running circuit that circumnavigates the water. The autumn colours were on display with the auburn and yellow leaves lightly sprinkled over the track. We maintained pace with a rowing quad who kept abreast, gliding gracefully through the water. The whole experience was augmented by the morning foraging of the stately black swans.
We completed the lake circuit then followed Caitlyn’s nose towards Port Phillip Bay water front. Anyone who knows me well enough would appreciate that my nose usually leads me in the opposite direction to the intended, hence my reliance on the very capable sense of my daughter. We passed through some pretty streets with tree branches greeting each other in the middle, forming a golden canopy.

Segovia Breakfast

The foreshore of Port Phillip Bay stretches tantalisingly in either direction, however with a tightly packed schedule of shopping and touring ahead of us we reigned in our enthusiasm and kept to the jetty boardwalk and a little section of foreshore towards the South and returned to collect the third member of our party.
With the birthday girl in tow we jumped on number 16 tram into the CBD and selected a cute café on a laneway off Little Collins Street. There are a number of character filled lanes in Melbourne and the areas around Little Collins Street are typical. By this stage our stomachs were considerably rumbling.
The meals were a solid standard and, it may have been the hunger talking, but the Segovia breakfast sausage was declared "the best ever". The Segovia breakfast included poached eggs on toasted sourdough with tomato, mushrooms, bacon, sausage and hash browns. Caitlyn noted that the Victorian version of smashed avocado and feta, with poached eggs, was tasty and nicely complimented with lemon and coriander. Sourdough can often be a bit chewy but not in this case. My ‘take’ on Eggs Benedict, Eggs San Pedro was not for the faint hearted with a heart stopping inclusion of hash browns under the eggs. A purist might have been horrified but who isn’t to be drawn in by the comfort of a crispy hash brown on a cold wet morning? The café provided us well without any real stand out dish. Our meals ranged in price from$16.50 to $20.50.

Smashed avocado

San Pedro

Week 12: Highgate Hill to Habitat Restaurant and Bar (13.19km, 1:22)

Milly

There was a slight alteration of running companions this morning.  Milly the Labrador was a willing participant in place of Bronwyn who was participating in the Tour of Duty Run.  Milly is gorgeous and uncomplaining, not unlike her replacement, but does require more comfort stops.  The Husband also accompanied us, kindly accommodating the stop-start needs of our four legged friend.  Our trio +1 somewhat imitated the tortoise and hare re-enactment.

We chose a varied route.  We dropped down to South bank, crossed the Goodwill Bridge and made our way city side of the river towards the Story Bridge. We then ascended half way up the sharp hill towards the walkway of the bridge, cut under the bridge and turned north towards Teneriffe.  The worker’s cottages made way to the colonial warehouses which are rapidly being gentrified.  There appears to be significant construction underway around Fortitude Valley and the edge of Newstead.  No doubt the shopping district and breakfast cafes will continue to expand, offering up many breakfast opportunities in the future.  We tracked along the edge of the show grounds along St James Terrace and cut our way across Bowen Hills Road under the overpass towards the Victoria Links Golf Course.  There is quite a picturesque little cycle path for a few kilometres that meanders past the golf course, duck pond, and Grammar School on your left.  The path brings you to the Roma Street Parklands, which is a beautiful oasis nestled so close to the main business district of the city. Taking note of the café at the parklands for a future venue, we followed the path and dipped left down the stairs, just after the café (with one in the party making use of the escalators!).  The trail took us across Roma Street, past the Law Courts and across the Kurilpa Bridge.  We encountered the tail end of the Tour of Duty Runners as we ran past the Pauls Milk factory and made our way into West End.

HABITAT

Omletting You Know

The choices of Cafes at West End are many and varied.  The first cafe we happened upon was the Habitat Restaurant and Bar.  It looks to be a fairly new establishment and presents a perfect mix of enticing outdoor dining with funky modern interior.  The All day breakfast menu gives the hint of something special with a humorous twist.  I ordered the ‘Omletting You Know’, a delicious Japanese blue swimmer crab omelette wrapped around a tasty sesame seaweed salad and ponzo (soy based citrus) sauce on the side.  The Husband, scrutinized lovingly by Milly, enjoyed the ‘old Fashion’ eggs benedict.  The smoked ham was straight off the leg and delicious.  Caitlyn continued her Brisbane Café review of avocado-based breakfasts and was not disappointed with her ‘That’s what I’m Guaccan About’.  This version included a generous portion of avocado on sour dough toast, dukka, balsamic jelly with red chard salad and a raspberry dressing. While it wasn’t her best to date, it was yet another interesting twist on the interpretation of avocado on toast.  The 3 meals, 2 pots of tea and cappuccino cost us $59. The Habitat has all the right elements and left me with a wish to return and try some of the other appealing meals on their diverse menu.

Old Fashion

Thats What I'm Guaccan About

Week 11: Highgate Hill to LIFT Bakery Café (14km, 1:27)

It was a true circumnavigation of the river this morning.  The cooler autumn conditions make for a preferable time of year to exercise outside.  I read an article this week about last year’s Queenstown marathon where some runners were taken off the course with hypothermia after an Antarctic cold front hit the course.  A Brisbane winter is not really going to prepare our trio for Antarctic weather but, a small concession was practicing running with  a jacket wrapped around our waists this morning.

As an interim trial, we have all registered for the Jetty to Jetty Half Marathon on July 19^th. My online running plan tells me I am ahead of schedule with my current distance, so I intend to stay at the 10-15km length for a little while and consolidate.  I certainly don’t want to peak too early, after all, it really is all about the food.

Our run wove through some back streets down to the West End ferry terminal where we joined the river pathway.  We passed the Brisbane road runners club. I did call out a greeting to a local running identity, but Jon was in the zone this morning! 

The West End river loop is a great running addition to the city loop and for someone with poor directional sense it is comforting using the river as a guide.  We continued through to South Bank and onwards past the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and onto the Story Bridge.  If you have not already established this, be warned that the Story Bridge from south to north feels longer and more of a climb than the other direction.  Given we will be encountering hills in Queenstown; I tell myself this is all good physical and mental training.

Benny

The last quarter of the run was the familiar Eagle Street Pier and Botanic Gardens with the finish line at the top of the Goodwill Bridge.

The objective this morning had been breakfast at Southbank but 7:30am choices are limited and there seems to be a surcharge on meals in this vicinity.  Lucky for us, we walked back up towards Highgate Hill and encountered the Lift Café Bakery near the corner of Vulture Street and Gladstone Road.

Smashed avocado

Lift’s all day menu reads like an elevator from Level 1 to level 12.  Prices are excellent with level 10, Benny 2 Ways, at $13:50, as the most expensive meal on the menu.  Bronwyn ordered the Benny with smoked salmon, house made hollandaise with sourdough spinach and poached eggs.  The meal was delicious and plentiful.  To her delight, Caitlyn’s smashed avocado was on the menu at level 2 with sumac, dukkah, lemon and herbed cream cheese.  This was an equally attractive dish to the Benny.  I ordered off the specials menu and had the healthy big breakfast at $15. It was a delicious array of organic sourdough, pork sausage, 2 poached eggs, roasted romas, spinach and mushrooms.  

Highgate Hill’s Cafés each have a unique personality and quirks to set them apart; they have certainly thrown down the gauntlet when it comes to the breakfast experience. 

Special healthy big breakfast

Week 10: Highgate Hill to Pearl Café (14.37km, 1hr 27min)

The run this week required supplementary preparation in lieu of the Easter holiday break.  Challenges arose from sourcing a café that was open for business and selecting the optimum day to run, given the additional days available. The Bureau of Meteorology forecasts were not assisting, as most days gloomily warned of 90% chance of rain and possible thunderstorms.  An intent to head off Good Friday morning was quickly readdressed when the 5:20am alarm was drowned out by very heavy precipitation.  I made a mental commitment to run on Sunday morning, whatever conditions presented.  Despite the rain recommencing on Saturday evening, accompanied by the husband’s malevolent chuckle, the morning proved to be worth the wait.  We were met with perfect conditions with the silky smooth river as our backdrop.

Our party of three merrily departed at 5:45, conquering the Laura St hill, advancing across the Goodwill Bridge and turning right into the familiar territory of the Botanic gardens.  The route was unusually void of fellow athletes and cyclists and we enjoyed a peaceful, relaxed pace through the city, passing the Eagle Street Pier and running under the shadow of the Story Bridge then onto the floating walkway.  Our turn-around destination was the Merthyr Bowls Club (an idyllic river front spot for another time).  To avoid the pitfalls of repeating the same scenery, we ascended the roads through New Farm, conquering the steady climb towards the Story Bridge.  In no time, it seemed, we were running, like gazelles, down the Story Bridge. There is some joy and satisfaction that is felt in finding the 10km mark a comfortable distance. We descended the stairs at the southern end of the bridge and reconnected with the river at Kangaroo Point.  Like a well-trained seal, I spotted a fellow runner with ‘Pace runner’ on her shirt and gave chase.  It was a fast couple of kilometres but, luckily, we soon deviated off the path near the new Lady Cilento Children’s hospital and made our way through Woolloongabba and our breakfast spot.

The Pearl Cafe is situated in a cute character row of shops at the start of Logan Road in Woolloongabba, a football hand-pass from the Gabba oval.  Our families joined us for Easter Sunday breakfast, including my Mum, up from Sydney, one of the 2 dedicated subscribers to my blog.

Pearl café has a very appealing street frontage and yesteryear feel inside that is matched by a tempting menu. The slightly pretentious menu descriptions required some minor interpretation, but promised some delicious ‘twists’ on breakfast fare. 

Smoked fish

The plates lived up to expectations.  Amongst the broader group, the highlights included my dish: a house smoked fish, leek and potato hash, black cabbage and poached egg.  The smoked fish was beautiful and I’m told it is prepared on the premises being smoked with Earl Grey tea.  I would return for this dish again.  

 

 

House made morcilla

Bronwyn declared some plate envy over me, however, her house made morcilla, creamy corn, crisp jamon, fried egg on grilled bread, was also enjoyed.  This was despite her growing realisation that morcilla is blood sausage (a dish only for the stoic constitution).  The creamy corn had a slightly spicy flavour and the flavours combined well.  A few of the younger members of the group, indulged in ‘really French toast, roasted baby pears, crème fraiche and almonds.  The little pears made for a very attractive and tasty dish and there was little left on their plates.  The other enviable dish was the ‘autumn fruits, pistachios, Pepe Saya mascarpone and Kingaroy honey.  Caitlyn, loved her forest mushrooms, Milawa chevre, rosemary on toast, however, I suspect it would have been rounded beautifully, for her, with a side of her beloved avocado.

Autumn fruits

Really French toast

Pearl Café was a memorable visit and the popularity of this venue is understandable.  The dishes I have described ranged between  $12 to $22, which made for reasonable prices for a breakfast decidedly a cut above.  The expertise and professionalism of the staff are a winning formula.