Plain Sailing Elwood — Restaurant in Melbourne

The smashed avocado dish here is one of the GOAT. The quinoa toast initially put me off ordering it but it just tastes like regular bread and the combination of avocado, pumpkin hummus, goats cheese and roasted carrot is just so flavoursome. The food here always comes out at lightning speed too which is so impressive

Most recent Got the house made banana bread which looked identical to the sticky date pudding bread they used to do and tasted pretty damn similar too. I recommend this as a shared dish after a savoury breakfast

Recent Ordered the sticky date pudding bread which was delicious but I don’t understand why every dish here comes our covered in micro herbs. Visually they look awful and nor do they add anything to the flavour profile

Latest Ordered the cherry coconut panna cotta which I regretted as the hempnola muesli had a lot of goji berries which I am mildly allergic to so i sat there fishing them out and in addition to this the dish was quite insubstantial as I watched my dining party inhale sizeable meals complete with multiple sides. Definitely the wrong order

Further update On this latest visit I had the vanilla panna cotta granola dish as I was going for a big lunch after and needed to save room. It was enjoyable though the chef is clearly obsessed with figs as they have been a heavy feature in every dish I’ve ever ordered from here and I’m not a fan. Maybe they are getting some sort of bulk discount but it wouldn’t hurt to feature another fruit on the menu

Update My original gripes with Plain Sailing per below still stand but they make a yummy iced chai and a tasty and filling bircher (though I could certainly have done without the zillion micro herbs that add nothing to the dish visually nor in taste). It’s been 1.5 years since my last visit and the menu is largely unchanged (in fact my husband has gotten the cauliflower dish all 3 times he has eaten there) but I guess they figure if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

Original review We visited Plain Sailing for brunch yesterday and given I am a fan of their affiliate cafes (Left Field, Tall Timber, Nine Yards) I expected good things. They certainly nailed the spacing of the tables in terms of social distancing and I enjoyed the clean modern interior.

Food wise my porridge was pretty as a picture and a perfect choice for a nippy winters morning. I didn’t much care for the Sunday surcharge though or for the fact that they don’t offer an all day...

Aside from how lovely this place is and how good the food is most of the time.. I would just like to talk about something that happened to me today. I ordered the chicken burger as it is my go to off any menu and I was so excited to try this one.. it showed up and it looked beautiful and then I took a bite into the giant lump that is chicken and it was grey and tasted as if it was a little old and reheated and it wasn't the best cut as there were multiple fatty parts and I was pulling cartilage bits out of my mouth... I left half of the burger and most of the chicken from the first half on the plate and just had half a brioche with some slaw. I didn't want to complain as I've worked in hospitality for 6 years, but incase I got sick or this happened to someone else, I just had to do it. My plate got taken away and I spoke to the waitress and said "just letting you know, this was quite a fatty piece of chicken and it didn't quite taste right" (she didn't come and ask me if everything was okay with the meal she was just going to take the plate with 80% of the burger still on it)... Then another waitress came to my table WITH my leftover chicken burger on it but this time the chicken had been all all cut up and she said to me "what's the actual issue with your meal.. was it fatty because it was deep fried or..?" so I explained the issues I had with that burger (tasted as if it was reheated meat and it was grey and very fatty) and she proceeded with "We don't own a microwave so it couldn't have been reheated and everything is made fresh" and pretty much telling me that I am wrong...here I am apologising to the waitress about the complaint because I feel so bad.. but I get it, customers suck sometimes.. BUT if I tell you that this meat is grey and doesn't taste right, maybe try it for yourself and/or don't get offended that someone wasn't happy. I really wanted that burger and I wanted to enjoy every second of it.. I didn't want to spend $20 for nothing. I ended up getting my sister to go up with my card and paying because I knew they were already mad me for complaining.. Anyway, I still had to pay for the grey and off tasting chicken. (I never expected to get my meal taken off the bill, although I personally would do so to save myself from the not so happy online review that was about to come) In the end I never even got an apology, just some...

Seriously folks you are letting success go to your heads. I have been raving about how great you are to everyone. Fresh, creative, delicious, great staff etc because it was true and I loved coming but this weekend, sorry but your manager more than lost the plot. Firstly brought a friend for her birthday yesterday and found that you actually closed at 3 not 4. I was not happy but it is what it is, disappointing but no ones fault except management who needed to make sure Zomato, Yelp and Google as well as your own website need to make it clear Your Kitchen closes at 3. Came back today because I really do love Your food at 2:30 and you’ve already closed your kitchen ! Good customer service would have been to offer a free coffee but as I can afford my own coffee I sat down and ordered a small pastry as I had tried them in the past and they were sensational Turns out you only make the muffins and get the other stuff in from another bakery. Don’t ! Nowhere near as good as the stuff you make yourself and reflects badly on you. Because I didn’t like this Persian Love cake and you weren’t serving other food, I tried the chocolate raspberry little cake thing and it was so bad I couldn’t finish it. Explained all this to the lovely guy on the register and also conversationally to my waitress who was also really nice, who suggested I mention it to the cashier. Both of these junior staff understood that I should not be charged for at least one if not both these items but the older and what should have been smarter manageress Who overheard just said she would mention it to the bakery and went ahead and charged me the full $17 for a coffee and 2 bad pastries. I didn’t comment, just paid and will not be coming back anytime soon. In today’s climate, not understanding Customer Service in hospitality is terrible for not only the manager but...