St Edmonds

Sunday brunch again, this time St Edmonds in Prahran.

It was extremely busy with all tables taken this fine morning, and the staff promptly pulled back the overhead shading as the sun came out.

Me, Cute A, LB and CoffeeBean squinted in the blast of sunlight as we perused the substantial menu.

I was in a sweet mood, so of course I went for the orange blossom, sunflower seed and hazelnut bircher. It was nice, but something about the orange blossom flavour was a bit overpowering for me. CoffeeBean chose the excellent sounding potato rosti eggs served with sauteed spinach, d'Affinois cheese and thyme field mushrooms. Unfortunately, even at 11.30am on a Sunday morning, they had run out of potato rosti, so they offered sourdough toast. A travesty! No potato rosti?! A dish that had the potential to create food envy in the rest of us suddenly turned into a normal toast-and-eggs deal.

The exotic-sounding spanner crab and chilli omelette, roti and sesame crumble took Cute A's interest, and she reported that it was good, but perhaps not earth-shattering. LB went with the Istra ham, tomato and brique d'affinois toastie with poached free range eggs, which she said was nice, but again, in LB's words, it 'lacked the WOW factor'.

Perhaps like our whole experience 'lacking the wow factor' seemed to be the go at this cafe. Especially after two coffees each, and a big plate of food, we were admittedly lingering a little, laughing and catching up with fine stories, and the staff began eyeing us and urging us to move on. It's a pet hate of mine to have that happen, especially on a Sunday catch-up brunch. Of course I understand their reasoning, it was busy, and there was a lot of demand for our table for 4, but as we haven't experienced this anywhere else, even on busy days at other cafes, we felt a bit uncared for. And being the nice souls we are, as soon as we noticed we were being hurried, we quickly paid and left.

So, the verdict: the food was ok, but nothing special. The coffee was good. And the company was the best!

6.5 out of 10 WOW factor points

St Edmonds

Rear 154 Greville Street,

Prahran, 3181