With the rise of social media such as Snapchat and Instagram, my life away from home is made even more difficult when I get snaps and see pictures of the beautifully plated food on offer from new cafés all over Melbourne.
I decided to search up a lot of these, and when I mean search up I mean not only do I go on Zomato, but I read reviews and most importantly, I look at the menu in detail. What I’ve realised is that a lot of these popular places have one or two things on the menu that are unique, but the rest – at least all the breakfast options – are you standard “eggs with avo toast”. Most of these places charge from around $16 – $24 for just eggs on toast.
Son of Tucci is starkly different. It’s right next to the Mount Waverley train station, and isn’t in a bustling street of overpriced cafés. In fact, it’s one of only two “modern” sites in the small shopping arena.
I’ve been twice now, and I can say for sure that Son of Tucci understands flavour. Also, despite being a sworn meat eater, three out of the four dishes I ordered were vegetarian, and I’ve never enjoyed a vegetarian meal more.
I ordered this for my mum, but actually ended up eating half of it myself.
Coming from a Chinese background, neither of us are used to eating labneh and dukkah, so I was a little apprehensive about whether the dish would be too nutty and sour for our taste, but it was actually quite the opposite. The dukkah was smooth and spicy, which actually offset the slightly sour labneh really well. None of the flavours were so intense that you had to mix the entire plate up to consume – each element could also have been enjoyed on its own.
I’m also not a fan of kale in any form. For me, raw kale leaves a sweaty aftertaste in the mouth, and the dense chewiness of the leaf makes any salad worth throwing away. I’ve never had kale chips though, and was actually immensley surprised at how light and thin the kale ended up being. While on the oily side, it was nicely salted and very very crisp. Went great with the mushy beetroot labneh.
The sweet potato and sage rosti were deliciously crisp, although the sage wasn’t too detectable, and the eggs were of course cooked to yolky greatness. I would have enjoyed more of the sweet-ish, spicy corn on the plate though – they were possibly my favourite element on the dish!
Would definitely order again. It was spicy, sweet, sour and salty – it leaves you walking away full but not feeling too heavy. I might even give kale another go…
I’ve never had sriracha, and I’ve never quite liked non-Chinese spices. For me, things like Tabasco and other hot sauces only aim to sear their way through your body like radioactive sludge, but Chinese spices tend to just heat you up from the inside, not numb you.
Given this, I was pretty excited to try this dish. Unfortunately the maple glaze was a little too sweet, and drowned out the full spiciness capabilities of the sriracha, but then again the maple definitely helped with the saltiness of the bacon (of which there was so much.
The sourdough bread was lovely, not hard at all but crunchy and spongy, but I would have liked the lemon and coriander to actually be incorporated into the dish, rather than elements to garnish the dish.
Worth trying, but I wouldn’t go for it again. The flavours were a bit polarising – the bacon was hella salty and the maple was sickeningly sweet.
I had wanted to order this on my first visit with mum, but she’s not a huge fan of sweets, and traditionally café menu waffles and pancakes are loaded with sugar: ice cream, fairy floss, coulis, you name it. It’s headache inducing. I don’t understand why people do it – it’s almost impossible to get through some of those dishes without feeling ill towards the halfway point!
This plate however, was surprising; the waffles weren’t too sweet, and were crispy and fluffy with blueberries actually visible, and the only truly sweet element was the toffee fluff on top (which my sister gladly took for herself). The fruit placed on the outer edges, which I believe were poached pears and mandarin segments were sour and understated; the pears weren’t soaked in sugar syrup, so they were gently sweet, and the mandarin segments were tangy and sour – delicious with a bite of waffle and a smear of the mandarin curd.
The curd, O the curd.
Whilst too sweet for my liking, what I loved was that they had curd between each piece of waffle, which meant more than enough sauce for every single bite of waffle. A good sauce to carb ratio is so important!
I’d love to have this again… but only maybe if I hadn’t had sugar for month. Despite adoring the sourness of the mandarin pieces, the curd was still a little too potent for my taste. A few spoonfulls less and it would have been the perfect morning breakfast. I think if they had more of the coconut and almond crumble it would make for a more textured, less potent waffle experience.
I actually feel that this dish is the understated hero of the menu, and I’m a little upset that the description of it isn’t more… elaborate.
Full of healthy wild grains, nuts such as pumpkin seeds, pistachios and almonds, this dish was not only texturally awesome, but as my health-nut mum said, “This dish is so good for you it you practically don’t need to eat anything else”.
And she’s so right. We ordered the salad without chicken, and I was actually very apprehensive, thinking it was just a bunch of leaves with nuts and heated up. But there were actually no leaves at all (bless), but the rice was put on top of a beautiful hummus.
I’m not a hummus fanatic; it’s nice, but usually quite sour (and I’m not a fan of sour foods). This one was so yellow, so nutty and so gentle to the palate that I actually couldn’t identify what it was at all. Even my sister, who normally needs to be force fed the grain soup my mother makes, loved it, and actually pushed away the waffles in order to clean off the plate of salad.
Would order this over and over again. No questions asked.
I haven’t mentioned the staff thus far because I was so focused on the food, but man are the staff friendly. Some of them are a little shy and tired, but none of them are fake or cold, which is usually the two options you get. Most customers here seem like regulars, and they usually end up chatting with the staff, who know them by name.
I love this place. If you live near Mount Waverley, go. If you can get to Mount Waverley, go.
吃饭了吗？Have You Eaten Yet? 