Mellow Beans — Restaurant in Melbourne

Google found this place for me so I'm telling the googleplex about it. Staying at a nearby hotel, this was an obvious choice for someone easily bored by hotel buffet breakfasts. The menu is pleasingly eclectic; you'll find variants of the brunch staples you know and love but with a few creative twists and turns that I really enjoy. In a very crowded marketplace, I for one love a venue that dares to depart from the road most-travelled. My choice was the house-branded Mellow Brekky with an espresso (short black coffee). The plate was more abundant than I should have eaten but I did anyway because everything on it was wonderfully delicious. At the current asking price of $22.80, I consider it astounding value. The coffee - and let's be honest, there's nowhere to hide in a short black, was refreshingly pleasing; a mellow, medium roast taste with enough complexity to interest me, clearly curated very well on the grind and pour side if things. Were I to single out a negative, on my plate I'd have loved it if a little more water had been squeezed out of the grated potato before it was turned into the house-hash-brown, but you know, maybe that's just me being a pedant or this was not the usual standard. Either way, kudos for making them rather than buying in some vile facsimile of the awful thing a certain Scottish-named franchise pass off as a hash brown. In short, if you are looking for a good value, high food quality brekky or brunch, with some sould of it's own and imagination on the menu, I commend this place. Of course I'm all about the plate but worth mentioning it's spacious interior and abundant décor. They could probably cram another 20 tables in this space a-la those miserable fit-outs that afford you the enjoyment of every word the next 3 tables utter. Me, I prefer the option Mellow Beans have taken.

RETURNED FOR ANOTHER BREAKFAST Back at Mellow Beans a few weeks later, this time with my wife. Hera field mushroom omelet was amazing and abundant as was my homemade baked beans. Everything I thought after my initial visit was affirmed second time around. BACK AGAIN Quite a while since I've thing at MB, but the quality, service, and abundant portions remain unchanged. Eggs Florentine with Apple batons is a clever and refreshing twist...

This was a last minute decision to go here. Their online presence is a little iffy about whether they actually serve full meals, so we did pick out two other backup options.

Fortunately for us, they did have full dine in service available. Unfortunately for me, they serve two types of chili scrambles - one in the menu, one on the specials board, and the name is slightly different.

When I ordered, I specified the one in the book, and the waitress asked me a question that is only relevant to the one on the specials board. I clarified that the version I ordered (pointing again at the menu and directing her attention to the description) does not come with flat bread, but with a rosti.

Lo and behold, I was served the version off the specials board. 😬

The waiter who sat us also did not clarify there were several types of fresh juice, merely asked us if we wanted drinks before we'd had the chance to look at the menu. It would have been appreciated if he had mentioned there were varieties other than plain orange juice.

That said, every element was cooked well, and the flavours were good.

I'd still come here again, but I'd probably be more proactive...

Came here on a Friday morning at around 8:20am. No one greeted me and I had to go and ask the Asian lady at the counter to see if they were doing breakfast and she handed me a menu. Didn’t give me any direction as to seating or anything and I just chose a seat. Another server came to me within 5 minutes to take my order. I order the chilli scramble eggs on croissant with a hashbrown on side and a hot chocolate. Hot chocolate arrived promptly at around 8:30am and was subpar extremely hot and the chocolate powder unmixed at the bottom! The chilli scramble didn’t arrive until 9:15am after asking multiple times about the status of my order. The hashbrown was out of this world delicious but the chilli scramble was quite bad! Eggs were not properly cooked and was served with a green salad on the same plate which...