Once a Waitress

It is my opinion that very little in this world cannot be improved by the addition of cheese, least of all the addition of three cheeses. The sandwich above is the creation of the team at Friends of Mine (watch out for the auto-play music on the website I can’t find the off button). FOM is one of my current favourite brunching spots, and they are winning extra brownie points for being open every single day through the Easter holidays.

Don’t let those pumpkin seeds fool you, this is not a healthful lunch. It was however my reward for working through the holidays while my friends lay about and drink pretty bright things with little umbrellas in them – and besides, food that is a reward has no calories.

The before mentioned pumpkin seed bread has cheeses – Parmesan, cheddar and Gruyere but what you can’t see in the photo is the béchamel sauce that lies underneath. Bloody brilliant. Depending on how much of glutton you are (or how hungover you are) you can order this sandwich as you see it here for $14.90 with the lot or you can mix and match with cheesy toast only ($10.90), with the spicy, salty eggplant kasundi in the ramekin here only ($11.90) and with bacon only ($13.40). Go the whole way I say.

I also recommend the Berocca ($3). Now if you will excuse me, I have some waitressing to do, a spot of Spanish homework to study and a trip to LA to save up for (plane tickets purchased!).

More serious reviews of Friends of Mine can be found with Jeroxie, It Pleases Us and Melbourne Food Tales.

Friends of Mine
506 Swan Street Richmond
(03) 9428 7516
Open 7 Days (I think)

Ahh Ellery & Co. The last of the promised “good” cafes in my local area I had yet to try.

It looked lovely on approach. Lovely fittings, a cosy front room (in an old butcher’s shop) and the tables were laid out well for the space. Quirky water bottles and quality cutlery and crockery, also a win. Importantly – there wasn’t a 20 minute wait for a table. The people around seemed to be having a good time, and a ratio of one toddler per 15 adults was promising.

I’d just like to say, before we proceed any further, that I don’t consider this to be a negative review, more so a mediocre one.  Other reviews of Ellery and Co (namely this one) share similar (yet not exact) views to mine, so I wanted to clarify that I have tried to put forth a fair and balanced review based on my personal experience. Granted I’ve had far worse experiences – but this doesn’t give Ellery and Co any saving graces for not quite hitting the mark nor should it force me to bin my review because it’s not particularly glowing – as suggested the cowardly anonymous commenters on the blog linked above.

Where shall we begin? 11am on a Sunday morning and the service was sloppy. The cafe was full, but the waiters were certainly not moving at any great speed. Especially not to clean the dirty table next to me, which remained uncleared for so long after a new table sat down I was tempted to get up and do it  myself. Or to give anyone a menu when they sat, or take a coffee order. Or offer a second coffee when delivering a meal. Or clear away the cop from the first coffee. A bit slack really.

The brunch/lunch menu was uninspired (and grammatically challenged) – a nod to top producers listed on the menu (Tom Cooper, Fratelli Galloni) indicating a commitment to high quality produce yet the inclusion of truffle oil on a scrambled egg dish puzzled.

More substantial meals than “eggs any way” (of no specific origin) lean towards the Italian. A classic gnocchi with Napoli and basil, or a crumbed veal schnitzel sandwich from the lunch menu sound simple yet appealing (I might head back for it next weekend).

Breakfast options are stock standard. I wanted to ask a few questions, namely ‘where do you get your eggs and bread from’ but the staff looked so listless I couldn’t summon the enthusiasm to call them to the table.

My croque monsieur  ($13) – not particularly traditional with leg ham, seeded mustard, gruyere and ‘roclette’ (sic) -  was delicious, generous with the cheese and ham, and crunchy thin cut bread a winning combination. The side salad of rocket and cornichons attempted to cut through the grease of the cheese – however a drenching of oil  derailed this intent. A croque madame is also available, with the addition of a fried egg.

While waiting for it to arrive I read The Age (and it’s accompanying M Magazine and Sunday Life Magazine) and unfortunately, also the Herald Sun. No breakfast should take this long to arrive – especially not a toasted cheese sandwich. The coffee was average, and nothing more.

I am disappointed yes – there are limited options for Hawthorn locals and I was hoping Ellery & Co would live up to it’s reputation. However, with their biggest let down being inconsistent performance from staff I can only (hopefully) imagine a different day’s service could have elicited a different verdict, yet I cannot keep returning to play service roulette on the off chance of improvement.

Ellery and Co is open 7 days for breakfast and lunch, Wednesday – Saturday for dinner. 46 Church Street Hawthorn. (03) 9853 3533. No website that I could find.

Haalo blogged about his dinner experiences at Ellery and Co here, and his breakfast experiences here. After reading Haalo’s reviews I am keen to head to Ellery and Co for dinner as a comparison study. Stay tuned.

A few of you may know, from following my adventures on Twitter, that I’ve been back in the waitressing game for a little while now. That’s why I haven’t been blogging as much. I’m working 55 hour weeks across two jobs. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – I’m loving it.

For most of the time since I started working as a writer about three years ago I’ve been pretty happy to be out of the game. I was tired, burnt out, haggard. It was time to go do something else. After 10 years on the boards, at least half of those as a full time employee, and five years of university study amongst it all, I was done.

But I’m back. I missed it too much in the end. The people, the late hours, going out to bars after 1am, eating Chinese food at 3am. Getting the first tram home. Advising tourists on where to eat for the rest of their time in Melbourne, meeting people from all over the world, right in my very restaurant.

Currently, it’s pretty much the only aspect of my life that doesn’t make me feel completely out of my depth. I need to wait tables. This is my life-line. I have a whole new appreciation for waiting tables. Where as before, I needed the money to survive, now I just need the affirmation, the affirmation that there is something I can do to make a lot of people happy, and this is something uselfull I know how to do that makes me feel good about myself.

Because waitressing is about more than just carrying plates.

Sunday is my only full day off at the moment. No gym, no writing (okay sometimes there is writing), no waitressing (never, golden rule, no Sundays no matter what). Just pure, unadulterated: books, films, beers and friends. Sunday means breakfast out as well, but I tell you what, good breakfast out in Hawthorn is getting bloody hard to find.

Sometimes I pop into new-ish Bread and Jam for Frances – in the hope of a simple, relaxing, newspaper reading, latte drinking hour away from my life.

It is ALMOST good. I NEARLY love it. But not quite.

Problem? Inattentive, inexperienced wait staff. Is it something about Hawthorn? Does this area seem to be devoid of decent waiters? Because I haven’t had good service anywhere in Hawthorn in the six months I’ve lived here and it’s a real shame. But lets start with all the good things.

Bread and Jam for Frances is a beautiful space. Perched at the back of Readings bookshop in Hawthorn it’s an automatic double win:

1. hello, in a bookshop! (locating anything in a book shop ill make it more appealing to me – and I’m already pretty keen on food so it’s a no brainer I’d want to come here)

2. it’s a lovely, calm, light-filled space that provides a wonderful respire from the revolting, vile, eye-burning hideousness that is Glenferrie Road (seriously, Glenferrie, you suck)

It like to visit Bread and Jam for Frances because the food is good. Bread and Jam for Frances is a sister cafe to North Fitzroy’s Dench, so the quality of most things is excellent. It’s easy to see that real attention to detail has been paid to fresh, quality, sustainable, whole-food ingredients. The bread is amazing, obviously (love their grainy bread), and someone who can actually cook is in charge of the kitchen. I like their range of soft drinks and juices too.

So what went so wrong on the floor? Take my last visit there for an example:

Coffees, I had two. Had to call a waitress over to order both of them, but on a Sunday, I should have been offered. Especially by the young lass who cleared my first cup when I was only halfway through my meal. Not that anyone was eager to clear my plate when it was practically licked clean. A kinfe and fork together at 6 o’clock still means “finished” right? I had to ask a waitress to take it away after 10 minutes.

There were only about three tables in the whole place for the hour I was there (I love to eat in almost empty cafes). But my tables wasn’t the only one that went unserved. The big sign near the register said “please be seated, table service provided”.

Two staff were busy folding boxes for cakes while a young family tried to read newspapers around the empty plates they’d finished eating from about 20 minutes prior. Seems I wasn’t the only one.

I dropped my knife at some stage. I’m pretty clumsy, especially on Sundays. I was almost the only customer and the cafe was deathly quiet at the time. There were four waiters on the floor and well within earshot. None of them heard a thing. I’m sorry, but a half decent waiter should be able to hear a piece of cutlery drop at 100 paces – and be able to tell you whether is was a knife, fork or a spoon, while they are walking towards the table in question with a replacement.

They were very pleasant waiters, may I add. Smiley, accommodating (if you got up out of your chair and went to the counter to ask for anything – there was little offering, as we have discussed). But it was classic mistake after classic mistake, almost all of them caused by not paying attention to what was happening on the restaurant floor. What do your customers need? – this should always be the first, most important element.

Now, I know it was a Sunday, and good staff are hard to find. But, I don’t know. It’s not really that hard, these kids just needed a guiding hand. And if I was paying staff Sunday rates I probably wouldn’t want to see them slacking off. Although I’m very, very glad Bread and Jam for Frances is nearby (and I’m not the only one).

Bread and Jam for Frances
1/701 Glenferrie Road Harthorn, enter through Readings bookshop, or the side street next to Coles