We stumbled upon this place on the way back from the farmers' market and from the outside it certainly looked like it would be an interesting place for breakfast. It's funky interior is more Fitzroy than staid Hawthorn, while the menu sounded rather appetising.
Unfortunately, looks were deceiving.
When we first arrived, we were one of a spattering of customers but within half an hour chaos ensured and any notion of service evaporated.
I'm not going to put the whole blame on the cafe, a lot of it is on the customers and their belief that they are somehow entitled to a table - you certainly don't come in as a party of 10 and cop an attitude if they can't fit you in. I don't really enjoy have three hawthorn dames standing and staring over me, willing us to get out. This is not conducive to enjoying breakfast though in the case of the food I received, I wasn't that eager to eat it.
Paalo had the omelette (actually it's the scrambled eggs) with goat cheese - the goat cheese seemed to have pooled into one spot - it was passable.
I had the poached eggs with "smashed avocado". Unfortunately, my avocado was smashed in a rather unappetising manner
the top was rotten and there were rather awful spots on both the outside and inside. I really don't know how that avocado ever made it out of the kitchen - that just is not acceptable. The eggs tasted heavily of vinegar and one was hard and the other barely soft.
I would have made mention of this to the wait staff but they never came back to our table so we left - our table grabbed by the evil-eyed Dames.
I'm not going to write this place off based on this visit but we both agree, we'll certainly avoid it on weekends. It will be interesting to see how it functions during the week.
The details:
Porgie and Mr Jones
291 Auburn Road, Hawthorn
Open: Daily 8am - 4.30pm
