Orient East, St. Kilda Rd., Melbourne { Melbourne Review }

Happy new year 2014! I would like to start, like any another blog post nowadays, with an excuse on why I haven’t updated this blog. You see, 2013 marked the year where both of us were now back at work full time. Unfortunately, in our line of work, part-time work is almost non-existent. And so 2013 was a crazy year of adjustment. And of course the blog suffers. But I’ll try better and do what I can to update this little baby a bit more.

We started off our new year by waking up. This is what old age does to you. You have done absolutely nothing special on the day, were ready for bed at 11pm on new year’s eve and YOU WERE OKAY WITH THAT. Which was how we woke up on a Wednesday morning and thought they it was new year! Hooray! So a celebratory breakfast was in order. We had decided on Orient East because I had been craving their kaya toasts and I wanted to take Mini and my mum to the Shrine of Remembrance. Mum, because it was a lovely, touristy thing to do and Mini because the Shrine is one of the most beautiful space for toddlers to run around. Most importantly though, Orient East was opened on new year’s day.

Kaya Toast – Texan toast, pandan kaya, 62’c egg, sweet soy* – $12.00

Orient East is a unique restaurant/cafe which acts as the Seasons Botanic Gardens Hotel on St Kilda Rd. It does your usual hotel breakfast catering towards hotel guests but it also doubles as an interesting modernised Southeast Asian restaurant where most of the dishes are from the Malay Peninsula. I had previously tried breakfast at Orient East and really quite liked its unique breakfast menu and so was keen to go back. We were seated and I quickly ordered a few dishes mostly from ‘Shop House’ breakfast dishes which I found to be most interesting and have tried, and liked, previously.

My favourite, the one I looked forward to the most, was the kaya toasts. A sandwich of two thick-cut toasts buttered and spread with kaya (Malaysian-style thick coconut custard spread) and it was topped with what was called 62’c egg on the menu. Unfortunately in this instance, the egg was overcooked with the white jellied and the yolk set (I have previously had it runny and much preferred it then) but overall it was still a really nice and well thought out dish albeit not being perfectly executed.

Jian bing crepe – eggs, pork floss, Chinese doughnut, hoi sin sauce, sourdough toast* – $14.00

Another dish that I previously had and looked forward to was Orient East on the jian bing crepe. I have tried to traditional jian bing crepe and have not been that impressed by it but Orient East’s take on it was definitely an improvement. A rich combination of running egg, pork floss, hoisin sauce and scant sprinkling of Chinese doughnut  was perfect combination. My one concern about this particular visit was that there was too much hot chilli in it. Definitely too hot for my breakfast standard which probably meant it would have been more than way too hot for other people (and I’m known to eat leftover hot curry for breakfast.) But nevertheless being too stubborn to pick out the chillies (mum did,) I did enjoy the dish quite a lot. The crepe also came with a side of toast and Mini, upon seeing the toast, demanded that she wanted Vegemite on toast and nothing else. The cafe was kind enough to provide us with margarine and Vegemite and so she was happy munching on her Vegemite toast (crisis averted!) for the rest of meal. This excused me from having to share my kaya toast with her. Win win.

Rolled roti, egg, lap cheong sausage, chilli and coriander* – $9.00

I also ordered the rolled roti for Josh as he had had it on previous occasion. He ate most of it without complain (though I would like to complain that he is a terrible breakfast-out companion as he pretty much is not interested in cafe breakfast. I only get around this by taking him at brunching hours when he’d order lunch dishes and I, breakfast.)

Corn fritters, smoked salmon, avocado and sour cream* – $16.00

I also ordered the corn fritter and smoked salmon which I thought would go down well with Mum and Mini. I found this dish quite disappointingly bland but the group didn’t mind it and polished it off.

Overall, I had a really pleasant new year’s breakfast experience. I really enjoyed the ‘shop house’ breakfast dishes and found them to be an interesting, welcome break from the usual Melbourne cafe breakfast scene. Coffee was also decent. Unfortunately, the food and service were not faultless on the day but it was new year’s day and it seemed to be the only cafe opened for miles around and so was quite swamped. Having been there previously, I know it would definitely do better on better days and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back for its unique breakfast dishes.

* Please note I have used menu description here rather than my own

Orient East
Address: 348 St. Kilda Rd. Melbourne VIC
Phone: (03) 9685 2900
Hours: Lunch 12:00pm to 2:30pm, Dinner: 5:30pm to 10:00pm – Everyday