Adventures around Smith Street: South of Johnston, Pop Up Scroll and Gelato Messina

**Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been sick with the flu and it just wouldn’t go away… this is one stubborn flu! But I’m getting better now so you can expect a few catch up posts this week. 🙂 Ani**

South of Johnston

We were very excited to visit South of Johnston because there were lots of things on the menu that we wanted to try. We ended up getting a pumpkin omelette and the burger of the week (pulled pork), but we look forward to going back to try the French toast, corn fritters and chorizo baked eggs!

Soy iced chai

Wendy ~ I was happy about the strong tea flavour in this iced chai, which meant it had been brewed with chai tea rather than artificial chai latte powder. The soy milk of course wasn’t as creamy as normal milk, but the scoop of ice cream helped to make up for this and to sweeten the drink.

Cheap pies followed by Messina “soup” cans at The Royal Croquet Club (late post)

Dinkum Pies

Dinkum Pies is a bakery near the Block Arcade which sells both pies and pastries. A few weeks ago we decided to make use of a Scoopon (which is currently still available!) to get some cheap Dinkum pies for lunch. Regular pies are normally $5.50, but with this voucher you can get a regular pie and coffee for $4. Instead, the two of us opted to share the “Family Pack” voucher: $13 for 2 regular pies, 2 party pies, 2 mini sausage rolls and 2 hot drinks.

Steak & onion pie + part pie, sausage roll and sauce

Ani ~ The steak and onion pie had a really tasty meat filling due to the onion. The pastry of the pie was decent, if a little thick in some places.

Fitzroy: Hammer & Tong and N2 Extreme Gelato

We think there’s nothing better on a warm Summer morning than having a leisurely brunch and a big scoop of gelato. Sure, brunch is also enjoyable in Winter and it’s never too cold for ice cream, but ‘Summer’ translates to ‘holidays’ for us students, which means we can just relax and enjoy ourselves. No exams! Time to eat all the food!

Hammer & Tong

Hammer & Tong has all the ingredients for a great brunch experience:

Chokolait (Emporium store)

Long time fans of Chokolait would have frequented the original store when it was known as “The Chokolait Hub” and was managed by both Ross and his wife. The business has now expanded to a second store in Emporium, but both stores are still run by the original owners, which means that Chokolait hasn’t lost it’s friendly vibe.

Chokolait has amazing hot chocolates – arguably some of the best hot chocolates in Melbourne – so it’s easy to forget that there are many other options on their menu. During our last visit to Chokolait we used a voucher for a tasting plate, so we had the opportunity to try a few of their desserts and iced drinks.

Chokolait Tasting Plate for Two

Our Groupon voucher included the tasting plate and drinks for two, plus a gift box of nine chocolate truffles, for $29. We ordered two extra drinks and shared the tasting plate between four, which worked well because we were all still full from lunch.

Chokolait mousse with double cream and a cherry

The mousse

Stovetop (part 2: poached eggs) and gelato at Helados Jauja

Stovetop 

After our visit to Stovetop last week we couldn’t wait to come back to try more things on their menu. This time we ordered three different poached egg dishes: the sweet potato & amaranth hash, the wild mushroom ragout and the citrus cured salmon. Overall, the food wasn’t quite as tasty as what we ordered last week… but it was still made with quality ingredients and was beautifully presented on the plate.

Cappuccino ($3.70)

Hot chocolate ($4)

We ordered a chai latte again like last week, as well as a cappuccino and a hot chocolate.

This past week in Desserts: customised Magnums and cakes from Calatrava

Magnum’s Pleasure Pop-up Store (Emporium)

Last week on Friday the 10th, the Magnum pop-up store in Emporium opened for the last time. We headed there a few days earlier to avoid the last minute queues, but we still had to wait in line for about 15 minutes. It was well worth the wait though, once we were handed our beautiful customised magnums heaped with our favourite toppings. This is what we chose:

Vanilla ice cream coated in dark chocolate, sprinkled with hazelnuts, almonds, coconut flakes and rose petals and drizzled with white chocolate