Le Chien again

Today is D's birthday so he got to choose the breakfast venue. He loves our 'Seddon breakfasts', so I wasn't surprised by his choice. This was our third visit to Le Chien since I started blogging regularly. You can read about the first & second visits.

I got my regular 'Lots of Avocado & Tomato on Sourdough' (no butter), but this time I remembered to take a photo!Although I've previously said I get sick of this dish, I was so in the mood for it this morning (I think it was the beautiful sunny morning - sun always makes me feel like avocado). It makes me happy that they serve it with lemon - I LOVE lemon & have it with pretty much every meal. D went with the scrambled eggs with chilli, plus tomato & avocado as a side.

As previously reported, I love Le Chien - it's got the best coffee in the west (by far), plus a great atmosphere & great service. The vegan breakfast options are limited to the avocado, beans or the toast with sides varieties, but sometimes it's more important to have a consistently good local cafe.

Watch this space for a review of the coffee options in my new work locale - Altona!

A local breakfast

D & I headed to our favourite local for breakfast this morning - Le Chien. I have written about it before, it's basically our 'go to' cafe when we can't be bothered travelling across town & is by far the best that the West has to offer (in my opinion).

The coffee is awesome - they use Supreme, it's so smooth and creamy I have to force myself to drink it slowly to make the pleasure last.

I normally go for the Avocado & Tomato on toast, but this morning I tried the relatively new vegan addition to the menu - beans on toast. The wait-staff here are really great, so I was disappointed when I asked if the beans were vegan, only to be told that no, they weren't gluten free. What is it with people associating vegan with gluten-free? Is it just that both dietary choices are becoming more common at the same time? Very frustrating, because I hate having to ask if something has been cooked with dairy or eggs or animal stock or honey etc etc, rather than using one simple word - vegan.

Moving on to more important things, the beans were pretty good. There was a touch of sweetness to them - maybe some maple syrup? The serving size was perfect and they came out steaming hot. I think beans on toast are pretty hard to make interesting, so I'd put these somewhere in the top-half of my ranking, but they didn't blow me away.



D had the 'Promite Special' - poached eggs, avocado & tomato on toast with promite. He reports that this was good as always. We have only ever had one bad experience at Le Chien, which we were easily able to forgive given the consistently great service, coffee, food and atmosphere that they offer.





Le Chien
5 Gamon St, Seddon
Sat-Mon, 8am–4pm; Tue-Fri 8am–5pm

Seddon breakfast & carrot muffins

I've been to 2 cafes this weekend - 1 new & 1 old favourite. The new was Apte Cafe in Fairfield. I met the library 'girls' for lunch to farewell C - she is heading to Europe to live for a couple of years, lucky thing. I'm going to miss you :-(.

I wouldn't recommend Apte for vegans, there isn't really anything on the menu that is easily adaptable. I ended up getting the fruit toast with jam (no butter). The toast was huge, easily double the thickness of normal toast, & delicious. The strawberry jam was great too - possibly home-made. Coffee 5/5, service was friendly but very slow (apparently we had been warned to expect a wait though so it may not always be that bad). There is a nice courtyard out the back, a great spot for summer.

Today D had to work so we got up early & headed to one of our local favourites - Le Chien in Seddon. We only ever come here for breakfast as the lunch & dinner menus are not very vegan-friendly. For breakfast I always get the Avocado & Tomato on Sourdough (no butter). It's always delicious, but you get sick of it after a while which is why we tend to travel around a lot so that I can find something interesting. I noticed today that they have added Beans on Toast to the menu; I'll check the vegan credentials of this next time. The ambience is great at Le Chien, as is the service & the coffee (they use Supreme - organic, fair-trade & yummy!)

When D had left for work I set about making some savoury muffins for his morning tea this week. I wanted to use some of the carrots in the fridge, so I went through all of my books until I found the perfect recipe. I chose the Zucchini & Carrot Muffins from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook. I didn't actually have any zucchini, having used them in the pasta bake, so I added walnuts in addition to the pecans already in the recipe. I also added an extra 1/4 cup of soy milk to substitute for the moisture lost from the missing zucchini. I did a straight substitution for the eggs (Orgran No-Egg) & Nuttelex for butter.

These turned out perfectly, though D finds them a bit too nutty (that would be from the extra walnuts I added :-)), but I like the nuttiness. There's also just a hint of the cinnamon & nutmeg, which ensures they aren't too bland.