sunday mornings: coffee darling

fresh orange juice with grapefuit granita

our brunch

sweets on the counter

 

coffee darling

2 darling street

south yarra 

i wanted to go to the zimmermann sale in toorak on my birthday and brian was nice enough to come with me.  we parked on darling street and walked past coffee darling.  little did we know, it is the latest installment of the same cafe owners of Postal Hall, Federal Coffee Palace and Cafe Racer. we sat down in the very clean cafe on the most beautiful spring day.  it was too hot for me to order anything related to coffee so we asked the eccentric owner, Faye, what her slurpee look-a-like machine was.  she said it was pink grapefruit granita and suggested we order a fresh orange juice with grapefruit granita. from this moment on, it was one of the best brunch experiences i ever had.

Faye then suggested we get her chicken stew which was slow boiled and a secret family recipe.  so of course we listen to her as her suggestion for the orange juice with grapefruit granita was just awesome.  then we order full poached eggs with avocado on the side.  the food was so simple, but yet coffee darling had perfected the simple.  how can you go wrong with that?  the soup was so delicate yet tasty in all the right way. the slowly boiled chicken was not too dry.  with the avocado side, there was a sprinkle of pepper and sea salt on top which really enhanced the flavour. 

i highly suggest taking a visit to coffee darling.  there weren't people busting out of the cafe  - which is a nice change.  generally i find all the brunch places around town are so popular that it's a fight to get a seat and it's so stressful it just detracts from the easier experience. their hospitality is also something that makes coffee darling special from the rest.  Faye takes a special interest in all her customers - with us, she ripped up her cafe's newspaper so brian and i can take home a 3-page newspaper article about gen-y.